Requiem For The Western Alliance? What’s Next For Ukraine?
Peace will be welcome, but how much solace will there be in knowing that it depends on Putin’s promises?
By Anil Madan
Much has been written about the shockingly bad and shabby treatment of Ukraine’s President Zelensky at the White House just a few days ago. Some have even suggested that the meeting was a setup to humiliate him. I did not see it as a setup, merely the inexperience of Vice President JD Vance trying to goad Zelensky into obsequious acceptance of Trump’s prognostications that Vladimir Putin could be trusted. Abandonment of decency is seldom so elaborately planned. But it can evolve from ignorance, a lack of discipline and from arrogance.
Nor do I believe for a moment we have seen the end of this “peace process” if that term fairly describes Donald Trump’s effort to work a ceasefire and perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize for himself. The latter goal will keep Trump from walking away and letting what he views as HIS initiative die, no matter how much he has threatened to do just that. We will see the prospect of an end to the ongoing hostilities revived and an effort to cajole Zelensky into accepting that he is getting at least an implicit security guarantee, with an explicit one out of reach. I have a hunch about that.
My hunch aside, the incident at the White House has already changed the texture and contours of a peace deal. Those changes, I predict, will happen because in the process of assuaging Trump’s ego, there will be a transfer to European nations and Britain of the responsibility for their own continental security and, in turn, Ukraine’s.
The Trump administration announced an immediate suspension of US military supplies to Ukraine. There were hints that reductions or a stoppage of military training and other forms of cooperation including sharing of military intelligence might also be suspended. This development has, as it well should, raised alarm and concern about whether Europe can take up the slack, and whether we are witnessing the end of NATO, and indeed, the end of the deep bonds that have held the western nations together against the communist ideologies of the Soviet Union and China that have devolved to today’s economic and geopolitical challenges.
Security guarantee
I wrote those introductory paragraphs early on Tuesday and had put aside this commentary to attend to other matters. At that time, I did not know that President Zelensky would send a letter to Trump reaffirming his willingness to sign a deal with the US. But my expectation and suspicion that something would happen to soothe the rupture turned out to be correct. It was not due to any special insight, but rather the understanding that Trump would want to take maximum credit for ending Putin’s attacks on Ukraine — not only for his personal glory but also because he recognizes the transactional value of extracting rare earth minerals in both Ukrainian-controlled territory and the areas under Russian control.
The presence of US businesses in those territories will provide a de facto security guarantee that Putin, who will benefit from such a deal, will not attack. At the same time, Trump has talked about troops from the UK and France being in Ukraine and that allows him to declare that he has caused those countries to share more of the burden that NATO bears. That, as we know from his first term, has been Trump’s long-time goal. The letter that Zelensky sent was carefully drafted, and it would not be surprising if Macron or Starmer had a hand in its creation.
Getting back to the meeting at the White House, it began on a cordial and optimistic note with President Trump welcoming President Zelensky and even stating that it was an honour to have him at the White House. The purpose of the meeting, he said, was to sign an agreement, as he put it, “to getting in and digging and working and getting some of the rare earth.” He allowed that he had been speaking with President Putin and that the confines of a deal had been started. The “big thing” Trump said, was to see an end to the killing of soldiers on both sides.
Of course, Trump couldn’t resist taking a dig at his predecessor, Joe Biden, and blaming him for letting Russia’s war of aggression — heaven forfend that Trump should call it that — get started in the first place. But he did compliment Ukrainian soldiers for being unbelievably brave and great fighters and “you have to be very proud of them.”
Trump went so far as to say the signing of the agreement after lunch was “somewhat of an exciting moment” but the “really exciting moment is when they stop the shooting, and we end up with a deal.”Read More… Become a Subscriber
Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 7 March 2025
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