Any Ukraine War peace deal needs to avoid new Cold War with Russia

It has never been clear what the end-game is for Ukraine and its allies as the war widened and deepened. It started as a clear-cut, indisputable cause – to prevent an invader seizing control of a sovereign neighbour.

The third anniversary of that invasion will fall next week. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded. Billions of pounds, dollars and roubles have been expended on armaments to feed the conflict.

But how could it end, as all wars must end? The initial Russian objective of a complete takeover under a Belarusian-style puppet was repelled and gave way to a protracted war which Russia had not expected and Ukraine could only sustain with massive external support.

When Ukrainian war aims extended to recovering disputed territories, an additional dimension was added. Whatever the justification for that demand, its achievement would require a degree of defeat that Russia was unlikely to accept. Maybe that was the point at which negotiation was required.

Ukrainian soldiers take part in a training exercise in eastern England last year (Picture: Henry Nicholls) | AFP via Getty Images

Not how ‘art of the deal’ works

It could be delayed by ongoing war but military victory for either side was unlikely, unless the West pulled the rug from under Ukraine. In the absence of diplomatic progress, President Donald Trump came to office as the pragmatist who would produce a solution on the first day.

Instead, three weeks in, he stands accused of offering President Putin pretty much everything he wants in the course of a phone call. That is not supposed to be how the “art of the deal” works but maybe we should not get too excited about Trump’s alleged surrender.

What he says one day is not necessarily what he means the next, as Putin doubtless appreciates. Trump may have opened the door to negotiations in a climate that is favourable to Russia but now the detailed work must begin, with neither Ukraine nor Europe excluded and with serious diplomats in the room.

Vance doesn’t ‘really care’

The more delicate question is whether Ukraine can then exercise a veto over terms to end the war and that is where the changed American landscape will come into play. Before becoming vice-president, JD Vance intimated that he doesn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another”.

There was a lot of back-pedalling in Munich this week to present a more balanced view of Trump’s intervention but it is unlikely that Vance has changed his order of priorities or that it differs much from the Trump administration’s as a whole. For Washington, ending the war will be a more important diplomatic triumph than the terms of settlement.

That single phone call between Trump and Putin has symbolic as well as practical significance for Britain and Europe. It could not be clearer that “special relationships” are at risk of becoming relics from an age that is now in the process of passing. For at least the next four years, American foreign policy will be driven by American interests alone.

One immediate effect has been for Trump to renew his demand that European countries, including the UK, increase their military spending in order to be responsible for their own defence and also to contribute more to conflicts if and when they arise, Ukraine being the current example.

Not ready for war

At present, the Labour government is committed to increasing the figure to 2.5 per cent of GDP. Trump is looking for five per cent. It is a scale of increase which cannot be contemplated without implications for every other form of public expenditure. There is no shortage of hawks demanding this objective, regardless of implications, and they need to be resisted.

In reality, we are being asked to return to a Cold War mindset without the guarantee of an American umbrella. It is a deeply depressing prospect which is, I suspect, unsaleable to the British electorate. We might sympathise with Ukraine but are not ready to prepare for war, which is no bad thing.

The rush to draw comparisons with Munich, casting Trump as Neville Chamberlain and Putin as Hitler, is dangerously opportunistic. While the coincidence of this weekend’s security conference taking place in Munich offers easy analogies, it does not make them any more rational.

‘The stench of appeasement’

Yet we had the former Tory defence secretary, Ben Wallace, verging on the hysterical yesterday by declaring: “What a shame, then, that this year’s gathering seems set to mirror the disastrous conference of 1938 where the continent stood blind in the face of Hitler’s duplicity. The stench of appeasement is once again returning to Munich.”

Trying to stir up sentiments of appeasement and betrayal does not seem sensible at a time when cool heads are required. The flaws in the analogy heavily outweigh the similarities. Using the singular circumstances of Ukraine as the launch-pad for an era of entrenched hostilities and vastly increased military spending would be disproportionate and misdirected.

The UK’s interest lies in being part of a co-ordinated European strategy towards resolution of the Ukraine conflict and defence more widely. If the Trump administration’s lack of interest in Europe as a priority leads to greater independence from American foreign policy, that may prove to be no bad thing.

Unaffordable militarisation

Neither Trump nor Putin will be around forever and the long-term interest of Europe and the world lies in normalising relationships rather than entrenching polarisations which will be impossible to escape from. We might also learn something from history which is more recent than Munich.

Perhaps we should consider the possibility that, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the hawks were far too eager to exploit Russia’s weakness without recognising the likelihood of push-back once a Putin figure was in full control.

In seeking peace in Ukraine, we should also be looking for a relationship with Russia that is not predicated on the inevitability of hostility and unaffordable militarisation. That really would be the art of a deal.