Trump’s blueprint for ending the war in Ukraine could work, if he follows it

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Donald Trump returns to the White House on Jan. 20, leading a team of distinctly mixed quality. Some advisers are cranks from the far fringes of the MAGA universe, like Kash Patel, who is expected to turn the Federal Bureau of Investigation into an enabler of Mr. Trump’s whims, and Tulsi Gabbard, presumptive nominee for director of national intelligence and widely seen as a self-brainwashing version of The Manchurian Candidate.

But many on Team Trump are normies – people who don’t want to set fire to Washington or go on witch-hunts against the “deep state,” but merely aim to chart a different course for policy. One of them is Keith Kellogg. Mr. Trump named him as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, and a likely point person on stopping the Russia-Ukraine war.

Mr. Kellogg has a blueprint for ending the war. If Mr. Trump follows it, presses Moscow more than Kyiv, and shows patience – he has boasted about ending the war “in 24 hours” – it may be possible to achieve a deal in the interests of Ukraine, Europe and the United States.

However, if Mr. Trump’s goal is quick disengagement from Ukraine, to be achieved by leaning on Kyiv more than Moscow? The war won’t end well. It might not end at all.

Mr. Kellogg, a retired lieutenant-general and former national security adviser to then-vice-president Mike Pence, has been a consistent critic of the Biden administration’s handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, unlike the crankier fringes of MAGA, he has not been in the least bit sympathetic to Moscow. Until well into 2024, his main criticism of President Joe Biden was that he sent too little military aid to Ukraine, too slowly.

Last April, Mr. Kellogg co-authored a plan for a negotiated end to the war. Its not-unreasonable starting point is that, after nearly three years of fighting and hundreds of thousands of casualties, a kind of stalemate has been reached and negotiations are necessary – for the sake of both Ukrainian and U.S. interests.

He argues that the United States must take the lead in creating a table for negotiations, and insisting Kyiv and Moscow come to the table.

Russia today occupies about 20 per cent of the territory internationally recognized as Ukraine. Mr. Kellogg proposes a ceasefire be reached on roughly those lines. He also believes the West should accede to Russia’s demand that Ukraine not join NATO. (Several NATO countries, including the U.S., are in any case not eager to extend the NATO umbrella to Ukraine.)

In return, however, the U.S. and its allies would “continue to arm Ukraine and strengthen its defences to ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again.” He’d also place a levy on Russian oil and gas sales, to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction. And the West would offer Ukraine NATO-lite security guarantees – “a long-term security architecture for Ukraine’s defence” – to prevent another Russian invasion.

I recently wrote about two historical models for ending the war: There’s the positive story of South Korea, and the negative one of South Vietnam.

The 1953 military armistice that ended the war in Korea did not produce a final peace agreement. But it delivered peace. The U.S. made clear that an attack on South Korea would trigger a U.S. military response, and a protected South Korea gradually developed into a prosperous, free, democratic society.

In contrast, the 1973 agreement that “ended” the war in Vietnam set the stage for the U.S. to wash its hands of the conflict and the country, and for the North to invade and conquer the South two years later.

The other historical example that’s relevant is Austria in 1955. Until that year, Austria was occupied by the victors of the Second World War, including a third of the country controlled by the Soviet Union. By the terms of the Austrian State Treaty, all foreign forces withdrew, and Austria became an officially neutral state.

To this day, Austria is not part of NATO. But an invasion of Austria by the Warsaw Pact would have led to a NATO response. The security guarantees were real, and Moscow knew it.

A dose of the Austrian solution could address Moscow’s demands, while meeting Kyiv’s needs and Western interests in achieving a South Korean-style outcome – one where Russia does not restart the war or try to grab more territory.

The Kellogg plan could be a viable blueprint for a successful end to the war, with Ukraine de facto (but not de jure) relinquishing occupied territory, as has been done in many past conflicts, and in return obtaining the peace and security needed to build a sovereign, independent country tied to Europe.

That successful outcome depends on what Mr. Trump does. He has to be willing to threaten to escalate, and send far more weapons to Ukraine, unless Russian President Vladimir Putin comes to the table and makes compromises. And in the event of a ceasefire, the NATO alliance has to be willing to keep providing Ukraine with huge amounts of continuing military and economic aid.

However, if Mr. Trump sees a peace deal as a quick road to isolationism, and disengaging the U.S. from Europe, the result could look more like the South Vietnamese outcome.