The end of the Ukraine war will require solutions to three major issues: land swaps, security guarantees, and nuclear deterrence.

The diplomatic summitry that took place in Washington, DC, over the weekend of August 15–18 provided an unusual spectacle of heads of state and their subordinates trailing into the Oval Office to weigh the question of a ceasefire or peace agreement in Ukraine. The kickoff was provided by the bilateral meeting between US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin on August 15. 

The following Monday witnessed the conclave of numerous European heads of state together with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, among other notables. From a historical perspective, this engagement of summit diplomacy as an approach to resolving international conflicts was somewhat odd. Typically, negotiations regarding the end of wars or other disputes commence with meetings of subject matter experts from the various countries involved in the conflict, along with mediators, to pave the way for a peaceful settlement inked by the heads of government or state. 

This time, the process worked in reverse, with the dominant heads of state, Trump and Putin, meeting one-on-one in Alaska for about three hours, followed by a multilateral mashup in Washington several days later. In other words, a top-down initiative was implemented instead of a bottom-up procedure. In the latter case, presidents and other heads of state would normally come together with a golden handshake to endorse plans carefully worked out and road tested by their respective staffs and bureaucratic experts.

The argument for this top-down approach to multilateral diplomacy on Ukraine was that only President Trump had the influence and initiative to get the political leaderships in Ukraine, Russia, NATO, and Europe off their respective divans and into serious negotiations for a ceasefire and later peace agreement. And fair enough—regardless of the process and its eventual outcome, Trump’s instinctive revulsion at the continued slaughter in Ukraine, and his desire to bring a halt to the worst war in Europe since World War II, can only be seconded by governments and publics alike. 

But the sad fact remains that starting wars is easier than stopping them. And the longer a war proceeds and the higher the costs of war on people and their values, the more resistant leaders and publics can become to agreeing to a peace. History is full of wars that, from the standpoint of humanitarian decency and even sound military practice, dragged on far longer and incurred greater misfortunes than political and military leaders originally expected.

Going forward, challenges to peacemaking efforts in Ukraine can be grouped into two categories: those having to do with possible “land swaps” between Ukraine and Russia, and those having to do with security guarantees provided by NATO, either as an alliance or by individual member states with the military resources to do so. 

As to the first, land swaps, there is considerable talk about Russia’s apparent demand for complete control over the Donbas region, including those parts of Donetsk currently occupied by Ukrainian forces. It was not entirely clear what Russia would “swap” in return for Ukrainian willingness to turn over all of Donetsk to Russia’s postwar control. The mechanics of troop movements would be complicated for both sides, and a new line of control in eastern Ukraine might require a multinational peacekeeping force to police it.

The preceding point leads us to the second category of issues that need to be addressed: security guarantees for post-war Ukraine. Here, the debate within and among NATO governments is about how extensive and binding those security guarantees will have to be. NATO’s Article V commits all members of the alliance to support any member state subject to military attack by an outside party. Given the disparity among NATO states’ military capabilities, the actual threat or use of military force against Russia would rest mainly on the shoulders of states with relatively larger military budgets and armed forces. Obviously, this would include the United States.

Therefore, a postwar security guarantee for Ukraine would likely involve the United States, the UK, and France, among others, in a commitment to deploy military forces and supporting infrastructure in Ukraine. Whether this would include American “boots on the ground” is a sensitive topic for understandable reasons. Still, the plain fact is that, without US military support inside and outside of Ukraine, any postwar constabulary deterrent lacks credibility. In round numbers, the United States already has some 84,000 troops deployed in Europe. 

It is therefore conceivable that a US Army brigade or so might be stationed in Ukraine or nearby alongside other NATO forces. The United States would certainly provide a significant share of the airpower necessary to deter further attacks against Ukrainian territory, as well as air defenses, ammunition, long-range missiles, and the accoutrements of command, control, communications, and intelligence support. In other words, the space and terrestrial-based vitals encompass warning, attack assessment, and coordination of responses among multinational forces in the event of war. 

Another aspect of the security guarantee issue is the significance of nuclear weapons and the role of nuclear deterrence in the relationship between Ukraine and Russia and between the latter and NATO. Russia’s less-than-strategic or operational-tactical nuclear weapons exceed in number those of the United States that are deployed in Europe and presumably available to NATO. On numerous occasions, Putin or his surrogates have referred to the possibility of Russian nuclear first use in situations of high threat to the Russian Federation and its regime. 

Under the New START arms control regime, Russia also shares essential parity with the United States in the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons and launchers. The UK and France also deploy their own national nuclear forces on ballistic missile submarines and, in the French case, on aircraft based on land or at sea.

A lasting peace settlement for Ukraine will also have to address the problem of possible future nuclear coercion by Russia against Ukraine, and also against NATO as a means of weakening its support for Ukraine. To this end, Russia should not be permitted to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of any other state that borders Ukraine (eg, Belarus). 

In addition, the demise of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty should be revisited, and a return to something like the former INF regime in the European theater of operations (but not necessarily elsewhere) should be discussed by Russia and NATO. INF prohibited the deployment of ground-based intermediate or shorter-range missiles by cooperating states and served as an important constraint on missile proliferation, thereby limiting military escalation. 

The United States, as well as NATO, should declare that Ukraine is a nuclear-free zone and that under no circumstances should Ukraine become a nuclear-weapon state. In return, Russia should forswear the use of nuclear blackmail against Ukraine and be reminded that NATO has a nuclear deterrent shield that includes Ukraine, not as a member state, but as a strategic partner. 

Numerous concerns must be addressed by heads of state and their military advisors before a viable peace settlement for the war between Russia and Ukraine becomes possible. President John F Kennedy once said, “We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate.” The admonition was applicable then and remains relevant now. 

The assumption that Ukraine, supported by NATO, and Russia can both continue feeding forces into a meat grinder without existential danger to Europe is cockeyed optimism. Getting to yes is going to require a great deal of grunt diplomacy and a willingness on all sides to engage in controversial trade-offs that may not play well on the evening news. It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and yell “appeasement” or “treason” at negotiators in good faith when the shouters are not located in harm’s way.