Trump’s return to power has spurred a climate of chaos and uncertainty, as he seems to be on a vengeful crusade against the world, tackling the greatest political dilemmas of the century with his trenchant, fast-food-style policy. While chaos may appear menacing for yesterday’s relations, it forces the necessary shift in equilibrium for a system in paralysis facing the consequences of the brutal return to geopolitics in a multipolar world.
The Wolf of Washington was particularly anticipated for his promised 24-hour miracle solution to Ukraine’s eleven-year-long conflict—a promise that seemed too good to be true. As Trump rapidly reinstates his agenda with exhaustive use of executive orders in the White House, foreign policy has been conducted à la chaine, with a series of parleys with world leaders. Indeed, the U.S. president has embarked on his pledge for a ‘peace deal’, swiftly seeking Putin’s readiness, reaffirming Europe’s security urgency with French President Emmanuel Macron, and soon after convoking Ukraine’s leader of resistance, Zelensky, to find an urgent solution to the conflict as we pass the three-year mark since Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022.
Three years later, February 28, 2025, Zelensky’s meeting with Trump at the Oval Office will remain one of the most appalling and hostile demonstrations of diplomacy between two state leaders in modern history. International Relations connoisseurs will not fail to recognize the stringent simplicity and unavoidable cruelty of power politics, reminding us that geopolitics is the art of choosing between the disagreeable and the disastrous. If only the leaders of the Munich Agreement had known in 1938 what we fail to comprehend today, the great lesson of how to avoid World War II might have helped us prevent the coming third. As war termination strategies for Ukraine finally seem to gain traction, we must not fail to understand the simplicity of geopolitics and power in international relations—nor the lessons of history. To ignore these is to condemn ourselves to repeat the mistakes of the past. Winston Churchill would herald his distress to our democracies, as he observed the same unpreparedness facing the rise of Hitler in 1933, stating, “Not one of the lessons of the past has been learned, not one of them has been applied, and the situation is comparably more dangerous.”
More politics of action and less politics of debate must gear us toward understanding how things function within a system. It would be naïve to believe that power players like Trump or Putin escape the complex rational calculus of power and conduct politics out of pure irrationality. Trump knows that an immediately effective and durable peace plan with Russia entails surrendering Donbas and/or Crimea and denying the sovereignty of Ukraine.
It is undeniable that the U.S. supports Ukraine’s independence as a democratic sovereign state in Europe. What is further undeniable is the cost of the action required today to uphold this ideal.
Each side has its reasons to believe in a unique sequencing for justifying this war: violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty or violation of Russian minorities and the principle of self-determination (among other things). The last attempts to delineate the conflict—whether in Minsk I and II or more recently between Zelensky and Putin in 2019—have been a testimony to the collective failure and the exhaustion of diplomatic options. The impossibility of establishing a common zone of potential agreement (ZOPA) has retrenched both parties into their positions and hardened their war goals. Given today’s payoff and expected utility of war, both sides could choose to ‘compromise nothing and keep everything’ rather than ‘compromise a lot and gain little or nothing’.
The message of the war in Ukraine has already reached the world’s most fragile regions and its most aggressive leaders: a revisionist, neo-imperialist power that, despite economic inferiority, can challenge the world’s largest security alliance (NATO) with impunity, provoke the leaders of the most powerful military arsenals to exploit windows of vulnerabilities, counter weak deterrence with asymmetrical force, and endure the costs of sanctions. While it was once true that the successful conduct of warfare in Ukraine could define the strategic contours of future conflicts—such as those in the South China Sea or the Strait of Hormuz—it is now true that the repositioning of forces and the settlement with rising belligerent neighbors will determine whether opportunistic contenders can exploit democracy’s ongoing unpreparedness.
One must recognize, in time, that peace at any cost can be more detrimental than war itself. This means that seeking peace solely for the sake of peace is rarely a durable conflict resolution strategy. Even more critically—and this is the core argument of this article—a peace settlement that fails to address the underlying distribution of power and the roles associated with it guarantees greater harm in the future. For those reluctant to engage with the fire of power, we remember the famous saying si vis pacem, para bellum.
The conditions of today’s Faustian bargain lie not in the framing or provisions of Trump’s peace deal, but in the consequences born out of three years of calamitous warfare and the eleven-year-long ineptitude of European leaders to address the Russian threat and apply the fundamentals of geopolitics.
Westerners, complacent in triumphalism after the USSR’s fall and the illusion of U.S.-led peace, have repeatedly ignored the Russian threat and its ambitions in Europe. The first mistake has been to repeat World War I (WWI) errors: Charles Doran’s power cycle theory highlights the importance of the relation between relative power and a country’s corresponding systemic role, and how a major disequilibrium between the two condemns a country to address this gap. The introduction of structural uncertainty, security dilemmas, paranoia, and ultimately the inversion of forces is the sequence that facilitates a country’s decision to no longer sacrifice power for security and resort to war. Germany’s realization of its decline in the power-role gap and the unaccommodating nature of the international system that led it to adopt aggressive policies, such as the invasion of Belgium and the broader escalation of WWI. The denial of Germany’s ‘place in the sun’, coupled with the excessive perceptual uncertainty, together with the mistaken belief that balance of power would be sufficient to offset massive systemic disequilibrium resulted in the inversion of force expectation by European decision-makers seeking to preserve their role and power. Parallelly, in the aftermath of the Cold War, NATO’s expansion failed to comprehend Russia’s growing disequilibrium in the power-role gap (rising frustration, uncertainties, and insecurities), overly reliant on the fact that balance of power alone was sufficient. Russia’s perceived denial in the system, coupled with the inelasticity of the systemic response and the West’s horizontal adjustments, heightened tensions in power-role gaps leading to Russia’s next inflection point (i.e., expected change in power level).
Fast forward to the Minsk accords in the 2010s, we are faced with the first major mistake regarding the management of the Ukraine crisis: the reproduction of World War II (WWII) errors and the consequences of ‘peace at any costs’. For conflict management experts, this represents a glaring oversight in accounting for the dynamics of power in diplomatic negotiations and a striking disregard for the long-term implications—the shadow of the future. Had Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain not suffered a premature death, he could have taught us that his precautionary tale of the appeasement strategy with Hitler was only one facet of a careful diplomatic calculus of power. Peace at any cost meant that the leaders behind the Munich Agreement disregarded Hitler’s aggression toward Czechoslovakia, ignored the rising tide of fascist ideologies, and essentially bought time while sending the wrong signal to a revisionist power seeking an illegitimate claim—all as it reached the most dangerous inflection point in its power-role trajectory.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande outrageously disregarded, in drafting the terms of Minsk II, the consequences of maintaining a mirage of peace and the initial failure to address underlying power dynamics—all while a growingly illegitimate and insatiable new Soviet empire sought to enhance its power-role claims. Minsk II repeated the same errors as the 1938 Munich Agreement by stalling a looming conflict for the sake of momentary peace and condemning future international relations into greater insecurity. Ukraine’s leader Petro Poroshenko, at the time, said that “Minsk agreement bought Ukraine time […] to build its army […] but the accords were never properly implemented […] the main achievement is to avoid war not to win war”. Minsk II replicated the failures of WWII by perpetuating a stalemate and pursuing a policy of Russian appeasement for the sake of temporary peace. However, it added a layer of cynicism: unlike the lessons that could have been learned from 1914, this strategy was not designed to correct past mistakes but to embrace a policy of postponement and convenience, deliberately avoiding the elementary task of addressing the fundamental nature of power at play. Angela Merkel expressed that the “Minsk agreements were meant to give Ukraine time and get stronger to fight Russia […] the Cold War never ended.” While the appeasement strategy toward an unstoppable revisionist Hitler signaled that he could pursue his illegitimate claims unchecked, ‘buying time’ with Russia under the illusion of peace reveals—with added cynicism—the West’s unresponsiveness to Russia’s ambitions, Europe’s disregard for the future of power relations, and a fundamental lack of commitment to long-term diplomatic resolution. This approach, rooted in the premeditated but inadequate balancing of Russia, has led to a cycle of diplomatic deception and betrayal, culminating in Putin’s decision to resort to a full-scale invasion. The Minsk agreements were a series of diplomatic fiascos that, rather than preventing war, worsened the strategic landscape and set Ukraine on a path to conflict against an undeterred and deceitful Soviet empire in the making.
Nearly ten years after the Minsk agreements, unresolved power struggles and growing frustration led to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, marking the ultimate failure of conflict management in Europe: deterrence. If Putin’s claims were already illegitimate from the outset, then his steps toward re-Sovietization have now revived the most extreme irredentist policies and sought to assert Russia’s new sphere of influence to the world.
From February 25, 2022, onward, U.S. and NATO policy should have been centered on winning the war—not at the cost of sovereignty. Charles Doran’s power cycle theory lessons would have maintained the necessity of deterrence, and deterrence alone, as the only viable policy for Western allies to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty. In addition to imposing heavy sanctions on Russia, consolidating Western alliances, and weakening Russia’s nationhood, the U.S. strategy should have prioritized maximum deterrence in the region while exploring hybrid strategies to resolve the conflict not only militarily but politically. U.S. or NATO strategies should have been founded—even in a peace settlement tentative—on an assured pre-emptive defense in Europe even if this meant regional or global insecurity for Putin. What was certain is that they would not have reproduced Neville Chamberlain’s mistake or the failures of Minsk’s II by accepting to subscribe to any form of peace.
The strategic deployment of Ukraine’s and foreign forces has condemned Ukraine to the slow death of attritional warfare. Putin’s deterrence strategy has shrouded global security in new fear, reshaping the international landscape. However, his conduct of the war has been incrementally weak, theatrical, and heavily misinformed about the balance of power, exposing the flaws of Russia’s authoritarian regime and authoritarianism itself. The considerable resources these regimes deploy to entrench their legitimacy and carve their credibility into nationalism are highly vulnerable to erosion. Ukraine’s heroic defense against Russia’s army could, in itself, have been sufficient to reverse the momentum of the Russian war machine.
Mearsheimer notes that most leaders’ certainty in what seems probable—rapid, decisive warfare to accomplish a fait accomplit—rapidly turns into long, costly slogs of attrition. In Ukraine, Putin has trapped himself in a legitimacy crisis, where his regime’s survival, dependent on a swift ‘Great Patriotic’ victory, has placed him in a complex win/lose dilemma. Committed to his propaganda, he is now driven to secure a victory at all costs, fearing removal. His failure to achieve a quick victory has led to a prolonged war, draining resources and imposing heavy sacrifices on Russia’s population. This has forced Putin to act irrationally, launching counterproductive military assaults to assuage the Russian public and maintain his legitimacy. Moving forward, he may be forced to escalate the conflict decisively or prevail through attrition to ensure the regime’s survival.Establishing a peace deal requires recognizing the long-term implications of this unresolved legitimacy deadlock and the immutable nature of power in interstate relations—something that has been overlooked by much of our tête-pensante, especially as Ukraine enters its third year of ongoing attrition warfare.
Turning to Ukraine, the long history of diplomatic failure, the underlying political distrust, and the misinterpretation that have developed throughout this enduring rivalry, along with the exhausting attrition and the burden of inconcessible positions, have hardened both sides’ political goals and potentially shifted the conflict into a win/lose dilemma, in which the last resort is ‘victory’ through war. At this point, such a victory through war could potentially represent Europe’s last war.
Trump’s understanding of a peace deal in Ukraine—whether he fully realizes it or not—could provide the solution we have been missing and, admittedly, denying in efforts to settle Ukraine’s conflict and resolve the contentions of power. This article will conclude by examining the politics of action, the one that recognizes the difficult choice of the lesser evil imbedded in every human systems: losing the Russian-populated regions of Ukraine is disagreeable, resorting to the outcome of the win/lose dilemma and triggering a major war with Russia is disastrous. Understanding the stalemate of Ukraine’s geostrategic situation, accounting for the accumulation of strategic friction, eleven years of geopolitical rivalry, and three years of disastrous warfare, is not surrendering to Russia; rather, it is rightfully engaging with the way power plays out today in order to ensure future peace, the reconstruction of Ukraine, and the rebuilding of Europe’s security.
Trump’s intimidating and rogue posture in the global arena could create the conditions for a credible integrative bargaining with Russia, while legitimately repositioning Europe’s defense without entangling Europe in a security dilemma. Negotiation observers have highlighted Russia’s blatant lack of commitment to European negotiations. In fact, most of the time, “Russia was only pretending to negotiate”. Given Russia’s lack of credibility with European leaders, it has tended to view the signing of agreements as an intermediary stage in their calculation of the expected utility of waging war, rather than as a definitive end result of a negotiation. A new European deal that does not account for Russia’s power calculations will simply set the stage for further confrontation.
The foundations of robust strategic negotiation entail communication, credibility, and capability, with credibility and capability needing to be effectively communicated. These fundamentals of negotiation form the basis of nuclear deterrence. While U.S. capability has never been in question, its credibility and communication reached their lowest point under the predecessors of Trump—coinciding with the invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s ‘madness’ seems to align with the principles of deterrence and strategic communication, particularly in relation to Russia, the most significant nuclear rival. According to Nixon and Kissinger’s madman theory, Trump embodies the madman archetype, projecting an image of unpredictability, irrationality, and a willingness to take extreme measures (including invoking the N-word), leveraging brinksmanship into a credible and controlled strategic ambiguity, akin to Thomas Schelling’s concept of the ‘safe river’. Putin’s madman strategy has not been met with the necessary opposing forces to ensure stable strategic deterrence. Whether Trump is madder than Putin, he commands the credibility against a hostile Russian enemy. Although Trump’s communication has not always been considerate of allies’ interests, it signals U.S. awareness of Russian ambitions. More precisely, it recognizes the power-role relation outlined in the power cycle theory for Russia: the accommodation of its varying role and power within the international system, as well as the buffer to its illegitimate claims. Negotiating for peace means not only addressing the demands of the weaker state; more importantly, it involves negotiating with Russia—the world’s second-most powerful military governed by a gambling neo-emperor—to forfeit the return of war in Ukraine. In this regard, the not-so-striking conclusion can be drawn that demands for territorial retribution are incompatible with an ‘integrative bargaining’ approach that could achieve long-lasting peace for Ukrainians, a dignified place for Russia in the system, reparation from Russia for the war’s destruction, and reconstruction of Europe’s defense line in the East. These elements cannot be reconciled unless we account for Russia’s investments and power calculations both domestically and internationally. An ideal deal that would see the restitution of occupied regions to Ukraine, full reparations for Ukraine, and the ‘rearmament of Europe’ against Russia would inevitably lead to greater conflict in the future. Partisans of peace need to understand that, far from ideal conflict ripeness, the strategic aspect of Trump’s communication leverages the stalemate in distributive bargaining, creating value with Russia’s resistance point and potentially trading concession for a tenable and credible peace settlement. The prospect theory could help us understand how to manipulate Putin’s pathological endowment effect (i.e., emphasis on loss over gain) and accommodate gain over loss—essentially overemphasizing what he stands to lose, which carries considerably more weight than what he has not gained, especially given that what was once probable is now truly uncertain as the expected utility of waging war diminishes. The expected utility—the probability of success multiplied by the value of outcomes to the decision maker—can remain low only if we adhere to the strict precept of power and ensure adequate deterrence, where communication, credibility, and capability are key.
Following the simple and cruel distribution of power in this negotiation could be the bravest attempt to resolve Ukraine’s martyrdom once and for all. In war, everything is simple; the simplest thing is difficult.
