Follow us on social

Putin may be at the door. Why is Biden ignoring the bell?

Putin may be at the door. Why is Biden ignoring the bell?

The West seems committed to doubling down on the war, despite more signs Russia is willing to talk

Analysis | Europe

There is a dearth of hopeful possibilities coming out of the Ukraine war these days, so it’s important to make the most of them when they do emerge.

Case in point: last week, Reuters published a report based on four sources “who work with or have worked with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin at a senior level in the political and business world” and are “familiar with discussions in Putin's entourage,” who told the outlet Putin was ready to negotiate an end to the war on the current battlefield lines.

Significantly, when asked about the report at a press conference, Putin said to “let them resume,” meaning peace talks.

If true, this is yet another signal coming out of Moscow in recent months that Putin is open to striking a deal to finally end the war, albeit on the condition that Ukraine accept territorial losses. As distasteful as that prospect is, the United States and its partners, including the Ukrainian leadership, should urgently take this opportunity.

For one, we are already living through the folly of ignoring the very real prospects for a negotiated end to this war in 2022. The result has been disastrous for Ukraine.

Though the numbers are a state secret, Ukraine has by now almost certainly suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Its economy and infrastructure have been crippled, it is mired in massive amounts of foreign debt, faces more than half a trillion dollars in reconstruction costs, seen its democratic institutions degraded — all while facing a social crisis from its rapidly aged and disabled population.

Worse, Ukraine has started losing territory it gained back in its fall 2022 counteroffensive, as Russia has leveraged its far bigger population and resources to slowly make gains. Western intelligence agencies now reportedly expect the country to suffer “significantly greater territorial losses” by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, the measures taken by the Ukrainian leadership and its NATO partners to maintain the war effort are becoming increasingly morally indefensible. As Kyiv puts its deeply unpopular expansion of conscription into action — and as ordinary Ukrainians flee the country, desert the military, or desperately avoid being snatched by military recruiters and sent to die on the front line — a succession of NATO states, including Poland and even some German officials, have talked about deporting Ukrainian refugees, so they can be forced to fight.

Meanwhile, only 35 percent of those not fighting feel ready to serve, and morale is rock bottom among the country’s increasingly older, unhealthy recruits.

All the while, the war’s risk of catastrophic escalation is creeping back to the high point it reached two years ago, when President Biden warned the world was the closest to “Armageddon” it had been in sixty years. With the United States and Europe looking at the serious prospect of what the Economist recently called a “humbling episode” that would be a “modern Suez moment,” officials have begun publicly floating previously unthinkable steps to prevent a Ukrainian defeat, ones that have the potential to trigger direct NATO-Russia hostilities.

Several NATO member states, including France, have now publicly threatened to send troops into Ukraine. Just yesterday, the Ukrainian military’s top commander officially permitted French instructors to enter Ukrainian training centers, bringing the possibility of Russian strikes killing NATO service members one step closer to reality.

At the same time, other alliance officials, including Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, are now warming up to the idea of letting Kyiv use its Western arms to strike targets within Russia, something the Kremlin has warned is “playing with fire.” We got a chilling idea of what that might mean last Friday, when Ukrainian forces used drones to destroy an early warning radar site in Russia.

The radar, warned Carnegie Nuclear Policy Co-director James Acton, was a key part of Russia’s nuclear detection and deterrence system that would have “only limited military benefit to Ukraine and exacerbates nuclear risks.”

As Acton pointed out, attacks on this system are explicitly listed as potentially justifying the use of nuclear weapons in Russia’s military doctrine, just as they had been by the Trump administration.

The potential for these and further escalations will only grow in the months to come. As the U.S. election season heats up, the political pressure to avoid the appearance of defeat, humiliation, or loss of prestige — and so, the incentives to escalate in the hope of forestalling one or all three — will only become more intense.

Taking advantage of Putin’s apparent openness to a ceasefire and striking a deal now, however unpleasant, will be better for everyone: for the state of Ukraine, for its people, and for the safety of the entire world. To borrow words that were already once tragically ignored, the Biden administration should now “seize the moment.”


Russian President Vladimir Putin (Anyur Mammadov/Shutterstock) and US President Joe Biden (Jonah Elkowitz/Shutterstock)

Analysis | Europe
US Marines
Top image credit: U.S. Marines with Force Reconnaissance Platoon, Maritime Raid Force, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepare to clear a room during a limited scale raid exercise at Sam Hill Airfield, Queensland, Australia, June 21, 2025. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Alora Finigan)

Cartels are bad but they're not 'terrorists.' This is mission creep.

Military Industrial Complex

There is a dangerous pattern on display by the Trump administration. The president and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth seem to hold the threat and use of military force as their go-to method of solving America’s problems and asserting state power.

The president’s reported authorization for the Pentagon to use U.S. military warfighting capacity to combat drug cartels — a domain that should remain within the realm of law enforcement — represents a significant escalation. This presents a concerning evolution and has serious implications for civil liberties — especially given the administration’s parallel moves with the deployment of troops to the southern border, the use of federal forces to quell protests in California, and the recent deployment of armed National Guard to the streets of our nation’s capital.

keep readingShow less
Howard Lutnick
Top photo credit: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC, 8/26/25 (CNBC screengrab)

Is nationalizing the defense industry such a bad idea?

Military Industrial Complex

The U.S. arms industry is highly consolidated, specialized, and dependent on government contracts. Indeed, the largest U.S. military contractors are already effectively extensions of the state — and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is right to point that out.

His suggestion in a recent media appearance to partially nationalize the likes of Lockheed Martin is hardly novel. The economist John Kenneth Galbraith argued for the nationalization of the largest military contractors in 1969. More recently, various academics and policy analysts have advocated for partial or full nationalization of military firms in publications including The Nation, The American Conservative, The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), and The Seattle Journal for Social Justice.

keep readingShow less
Modi Trump
Top image credit: White House, February 2025

Trump's India problem could become a Global South crisis

Asia-Pacific

As President Trump’s second term kicked off, all signs pointed to a continued upswing in U.S.-India relations. At a White House press conference in February, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of his vision to “Make India Great Again” and how the United States under Trump would play a central role. “When it’s MAGA plus MIGA, it becomes a mega partnership for prosperity,” Modi said.

During Trump’s first term, the two populist leaders hosted rallies for each other in their respective countries and cultivated close personal ties. Aside from the Trump-Modi bromance, U.S.-Indian relations have been on a positive trajectory for over two decades, driven in part by mutual suspicion of China. But six months into his second term, Trump has taken several actions that have led to a dramatic downturn in U.S.-India relations, with India-China relations suddenly on the rise.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.