Full details are yet to emerge of the “peace plan” that the UK, EU and Ukrainian leaders worked out in London on Sunday, and are to present to the Trump administration. But from what they have said so far, while one part is necessary and even essential, another is obstructive and potentially disastrous.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said after the summit that the following four points were agreed: To keep providing military aid to Ukraine; that Ukraine must participate in all peace talks; that European states will aim to deter any future Russian invasion of Ukraine; and that they will form a "coalition of the willing" to defend Ukraine and guarantee peace there in future.
This, Starmer said, would mean a European “peacekeeping” force including British troops. However, he has previously said that it would be essential for the U.S. to provide a security “backstop” for such a force. In other words, after all the talk of Europe “stepping up” and the need for European security “independence” from the United States, this would in fact make Europe even more dependent on Washington, because it would put European troops in an extremely dangerous situation from which (not for the first time) they would expect the U.S. to save them in case of trouble.
While negotiations continue, so should existing levels of Western military aid, for otherwise the Russian government may be emboldened to reject any reasonable compromise. The Russian government has however repeatedly rejected any peacekeeping force including troops from NATO countries, which for Moscow is simply the equivalent of NATO membership. Trying to insert this into a proposed peace settlement is therefore either pointless or a deliberate attempt to derail the negotiations.
There is also a risk that the Ukrainian leadership (which, as Friday’s clash with Trump demonstrated, is prey to some very serious illusions about its position) may be emboldened to reject a compromise peace, and thereby end up with a very much worse one.
The idea that a powerful Western military force is also necessary to “guarantee” a peace settlement against future Russian aggression is moreover based on the fundamental misconception that there can be in international affairs any such thing as an absolute and permanent “guarantee.”
My colleagues George Beebe, Mark Episkopos and I discuss the actual terms of a settlement in a new brief, “Peace Through Strength: Sources of US Leverage in Negotiations.”
Those terms that Russia could accept and that would provide reasonable hope of enduring peace are the following: Firstly, that Ukraine should continue to receive from the West and help to produce the defensive weapons with which they have so far fought the Russian army almost to a standstill and inflicted very heavy casualties: drones, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, landmines, 155 mm howitzers and the ammunition for them. Long-range missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory should be excluded as part of the peace settlement, but with the proviso that the West would of course provide them if Russia resumed the war.
Secondly, there should be a United Nations peacekeeping force with soldiers drawn from genuinely neutral states from the “Global South.” Russia calls these countries “the Global Majority” and has made reaching out to them a central part of its international strategy. Several are also fellow members of the BRICS group. Indian, Brazilian and South African peacekeepers would not be able to defeat a new Russian invasion (or a Ukrainian resumption of the war) — but Moscow would be deeply unwilling to risk killing them.
Finally, and obviously, a stable peace settlement must be one that meets enough of Russia’s, and Ukraine’s, essential conditions. If they cannot be made minimally compatible, there will be no settlement. It is however utterly pointless for European leaders to go on imagining that a peace can somehow be imposed on the Russian government, and not negotiated with it. They should pay heed when Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that peace can only come to Ukraine if Putin is involved in the negotiations, and that Trump "is the only person on Earth who has any chance whatsoever of bringing him to a table to see what it is he would be willing to end the war on."
The behavior of the European governments is shaped by a belief in limitless Russian territorial ambition, hostility to the West, and reckless aggression that if genuinely held, would seem to make any pursuit of peace utterly pointless. The only sensible Western strategy would be to cripple or destroy Russia as a state — the only problem being, as Trump has stated, that this would probably lead to World War III and the end of civilization.
Of course, this belief has been strengthened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine; but here there is a deep contradiction in Western attitudes. For the same "experts” who claim this universal Russian ambition (the title of one book, “Russia’s War on Everybody” is one of the more deranged in a pretty lunatic field) also talk incessantly of Russia’s special obsession with Ukraine, which most assuredly does not apply to Poland or Romania.
Thus after the London summit, President Macron of France stated that “If Putin is not stopped, he will certainly move on to Moldova and perhaps beyond to Romania." How does Macron know this for “certain”? Has Putin said this? Has he not in fact said repeatedly that this is “complete nonsense,” and does this not correspond to the obvious balance of Russian risks and losses against possible gains?
And in any case, can Macron’s advisors no longer read a map? How is the Russian army supposed to get to Moldova, let alone Romania, without crossing the Dnieper River and then the whole of southern Ukraine?
This kind of public hysteria makes thinking rationally about sensible long-term European strategies extremely difficult. Thus if you took seriously Starmer’s speech to parliament last week (in which he announced that Britain would raise its military spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by cutting international aid), you would have to think that not just Warsaw but Paris have already fallen and the Russia's army is in London.
“Russia is a menace in our waters, in our airspace and on our streets.”
What this presumably means is that just as British warships and aircraft regularly patrol close to Russia’s borders, Russians have the incredible audacity to do the same near Britain. As to “our streets” he meant a couple of Russian assassinations or attempted assassinations of KGB defectors in Britain — an approach to alleged “traitors” followed in recent years by India and Saudi Arabia.
These actions were all totally wrong and illegal, and in the British case demanded a strong response, but they did not indicate an Indian intention to invade Canada or a Russian intention or ability to launch a military assault on the United Kingdom.
This officially-sponsored paranoia risks locking Britain into a long-term relationship of irrational hatred of Russia that will endure long after the end of the Ukraine War — which would be a massive distraction of attention from the real dangers facing Britain, which are internal: the steadily increasing Balkanization of British society and degradation of our public culture amidst economic stagnation and institutional decay.
In a new version of Casablanca, a British Rick could say to Putin, “There are parts of London I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.” I think that every British citizen understands very well that the danger “on our streets” is really, really not the Russian army.
Any peace settlement must be rooted in the first step in reality and if not, it will be a flimsy attempt to assert the stakeholders into the discussion and not a very helpful one.
