President Trump Overturns the Liberal International Order

Globalist EU leaders unite against Trump's bold peace overture to Russia and support of Ukrainian President Zelensky which may provoke Trump to pull the US out of NATO entirely.

President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting at a summit during Trump’s first term

February 12th marks the birthday of one of America’s greatest Presidents— Abraham Lincoln—who is credited for saving the Union at a time when it was being torn asunder by vexing political and moral questions. This year, it also marked a great and historic day for the cause of world peace. Former Democrat turned Republican Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was sworn in as Director of National Intelligence that day. In addition, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave remarks at the Munich Security Conference signaling a US return to a realist foreign policy for the first time in decades. Most importantly of all, President Trump held his first phone call with Putin discussing his peace framework for ending the war in Ukraine ushering a sea change in US-Russian relations and providing peace-loving Americans and Europeans with greater hope than ever before that we will be able to achieve a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine not within the next few years but within the next few months.

For the past two and a half years, I have had the honor of being listed alongside newly sworn in Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Ukraine’s blacklist. Now, Ukraine’s notorious USAID funded Center for Countering Disinformation has announced they have removed her from their blacklist and no longer claims she is a Russian agent out of fear that she will persuade President Trump to cut off all support for Ukraine.

The day began with a number of praiseworthy comments made by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ahead of a meeting of the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels on Wednesday signaling a return to foreign policy realism on the part of the Trump administration not seen in US leadership for the past few decades. In remarks before a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Group of NATO defense ministers and in advance of the Munich Security Conference, Hegseth said the following:

“We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine, but we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. “A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust guarantees to ensure that the war does not begin again. …That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Security guarantees must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission and should not be covered under Article 5. …To be clear: As part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine.”

“Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of NATO. As part of this Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in his Brussels speech to the Ukrainian Contact Group. It will require our European allies to step into the arena and take ownership of conventional security on the continent.

As Sumatra Matra noted in the American Conservative, “Europe taking “ownership of conventional security” of the continent while being within the U.S.-protected alliance and with Washington providing a nuclear umbrella is something that a few policy analysts have proposed for the last years; that is now being translated to actual U.S. government policy, for which there is now a strategic doctrine and template. Burden-sharing is out, burden-shifting is officially in.” I have been calling for doing exactly that with my 2003 proposal for a 75 percent reduction in the number of US troops in Europe to incentivize our European allies to provide for their own defense.

Hegseth on Wednesday sparked fears as to whether the U.S. would reduce its security commitment to defend its European NATO allies after he stated “that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe. The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland. We must, and we are, focusing on security of our own borders,” he said. "There is a recognition that the whole world and the US is invested in peace, in a negotiated peace," Hegseth said ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. Hegseth also ruled out US troops being part of any peacekeeping mission to guarantee stability in the event of a peace deal, a controversial idea that has been quietly discussed in Europe in recent months. The Secretary of Defense’s declaration that from henceforth Europe would no longer be the US focus but rather we would prioritize the defense of America from a myriad of threats including an illegal immigrant invasion totaling 25,000,000 illegal immigrants thus far as well as deterring Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific was also a welcome change from Biden’s morally and strategically bankrupt decision to fight a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine to the last Ukrainian.

Pete Hegseth speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 12th.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also stated that from now on Europe should be responsible for providing virtually all aid to Ukraine as the US will be winding down its support. During his remarks at the Munich Security Conference Secretary Hegseth clearly implied that security guarantees for Ukraine would be given by the EU not the US with his comments that the US would not send troops to Ukraine to enforce the peace. National Security Advisor Mike Walz underscored this point on Fox News Sunday when he stated, "Ukrainian security guarantees need to be European led." Hegseth also emphasized that there would be no Article V protections for any NATO troops sent to Ukraine meaning that if they got into trouble with the Russians attacking them the US would not come to their aid. During a recent interview foreign policy realist scholar Dr. John Mearsheimer noted that these peace discussions may make Ukrainian troops less willing to fight because they won't want to be the last man to fight an unwinnable war.

The following day, Hegseth rejected the criticism that he was giving up leverage to Russia by making concessions at the start of negotiations, saying that pointing out realities is not making concessions. “I think realism is an important part of the conversation that hasn’t existed enough inside conversations amongst friends,” he said. “But simply pointing out realism — like the borders won’t be rolled back to what everybody would like them to be in 2014 — is not a concession to Vladimir Putin. It’s a recognition of the hard power realities on the ground after a lot of investment and sacrifice … and then a realization that a negotiated peace is going to be some sort of demarcation that neither side wants.” Questions also were raised as to whether the U.S. will continue to supply Ukraine with both lethal and humanitarian aid, with Hegseth appearing to link future funding for Kyiv to their willingness to negotiate with Moscow.

The Secretary of Defense’s statements in support of a vision of a more realistic foreign policy that recognizes the limits of what the US can achieve while also seeking to prioritize US national security interests by refocusing the US on putting its national security interests first and restoring peace and stability to Europe after three years of an unnecessary war constitute a welcome and refreshing change. They provide a stark contrast to the dangerous and alarming neo-imperialist vision of the Biden administration which appeared to be designed to attempt to provoke all of our enemies to fight simultaneously as allies against us.

In a Defense Priorities statement, Director of Military Analysis Jennifer Kavanagh argued that while Hegseth’s statements took important steps away from Biden’s ineffective Ukraine policy, the best way to protect the United States would be to shut NATO’s ‘open door’ permanently and push Ukraine toward armed neutrality. “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s acknowledgement that NATO membership for Ukraine is not a ‘realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement’ is welcome and long overdue. The Biden administration did Kyiv a disservice by giving it false hope that this option remained on the table for so long. Not only would Putin never agree to stop fighting if the cost was Ukraine’s entrance into NATO, but the United States and its European allies have already demonstrated twice that they are unwilling to put their troops on the frontline to defend Ukraine because it is not in their vital interest. This renders any mutual defense commitment to Ukraine, made today or in the future, uncredible.” She is correct to assert that Russia will never stop fighting the war in Ukraine unless its minimum conditions are realized in a peace deal namely NATO membership and recognition of continued Russian control of the annexed territories.

The Call that Transformed the World

A few hours after Hagseth’s remarks, President Trump announced that the US was pulling the plug on Biden’s Ukraine adventure. He wrote on Truth Social: "I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects," and later added, "We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations. We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now. " Trump echoed Hegseth in declaring he was not closely concerned about which territories were handed over and that he was "okay" with Ukraine not having NATO membership.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Trump in their ninety minute phone call that "peace negotiations" on ending the Ukraine conflict were possible. The conversation marks the first confirmation by Moscow of contact between the two leaders since Trump came to office last month, and comes as the Republican pushes for an end to the nearly three years of fighting. "President Putin ... agreed with Trump that a long-term settlement could be reached through peace negotiations," Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in his readout of the call, which he said lasted almost one-and-a-half hours. "President Trump spoke in favor of stopping hostilities as soon as possible and solving the problem by peaceful means."

President Trump’s statements following his call with President Putin signal a restoration of full diplomatic relations between the US and Russia on the basis of mutual respect and equality while working together in furtherance of international peace and stability. As the New York Times reported, Trump’s statements mark the end of Russia’s diplomatic isolation from the West. In fact, at an Oval Office briefing on February 13^th, Trump said “Putin wants peace in Ukraine. I trust him on that subject.” He also said he would love to see Russia come back into the G-7 making it the G-8 again, saying it was a mistake to throw them out. As CNN noted, Putin has been awaiting this moment for the past few years as he has been waiting alone at the negotiating table since Ukraine ended peace talks with Russia in April 2022 as both Biden and Zelensky refused to negotiate a diplomatic end to the war with Russia. Their refusal to do so has forced Russia to continue fighting the war for the past three years. As Trump has repeatedly alluded to, it was Biden’s failure to recognize Russia’s legitimate security interests being threatened by NATO’s de facto expansion into Ukraine with a negotiated peace deal to avoid war that caused Putin to feel compelled to restore Russia’s security through direct military action in February 2022 to permanently expel NATO from Ukraine, having failed to achieve it following fifteen years of diplomatic efforts.

Vice President JD Vance speaking at the Munich Security Conference on February 14th.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance gave a remarkably courageous and refreshing speech earlier this month at the Munich Security Conference in which he criticized the Germans for their assault on Western values of free speech and democracy by attempting to weaponize federal law enforcement against members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that has been surging in the polls. Vance then met with the AfD party leader to underscore US support for the fledgling conservative nationalist “Germany First” party. The Trump administration has an additional reason for supporting the AfD as not only does it champion free speech and democracy but it is the only major German political party that is supporting a return to conscription to rebuild Germany’s increasingly dilapidated armed forces in furtherance of Trump’s stated goal of spending 3-5 percent of their GDP on defense so they can defend themselves. Furthermore, an AfD-led German government might opt to develop a German nuclear arsenal which would greatly increase Europe’s ability to deter attack from its enemies. In the German national elections held on February 23^rd, the AfD came in second place with over twenty percent of the vote nearly twice as much as the last election, but it was still insufficient for it to become part of the ruling coalition government due to the refusal of the German Christian Democratic Union to include it.

Taken together these statements and actions on the part of President Trump and other senior administration officials have revolutionized US foreign policy in a very positive and America First direction with the newly declared Trump foreign policy in Europe marking the end of US neo-imperialism in Europe and a return to US foreign policy realism based exclusively upon US national interests rather than in furtherance of the interests of foreign powers.

Ending the Failed Liberal International Order

Nearly three decades ago, former White House Communications Director Patrick Buchanan ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996, he declared when I take the oath of office, the New World Order comes crashing down!” Similarly, as we commemorate the third anniversary of the senseless unnecessary NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, President Trump is bringing a welcome end to the US strategy of liberal hegemony which has generated countless unnecessary military conflicts since the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, causing liberal leaders in both the US and especially Europe to recoil in horror. In so doing, he has showed himself to be a clear-eyed foreign policy realist President in the mold of President Ronald Reagan, determined to put America First and pursue a policy of peace through strength in the US national security interest. A more marked departure from the failed foreign policy of his predecessors over the past thirty-two years could hardly be imagined as Trump pursues a policy of retrenchment focused on the defense of US vital national interests not peripheral US interests like Ukraine.

Trump’s decision to publicly announce Ukraine will never join NATO and virtually end US military aid to Ukraine is not the only way in which he has shaken up the pillars of the liberal international order, which was founded upon a craven appeasement of and surrender to Soviet Communism at Yalta condemning 140 million people to half a century of Communist enslavement. He has also pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accord, the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Commission. Trump also announced reciprocal tariffs would be in place for all major countries by April ending another long-time pillar of the liberal international order which has been the policy of unilateral free trade and exporting tens of thousands of high-tech dual-use military manufacturing industries to other countries. It is a brilliant policy that will serve to bring in trillions of dollars of tax revenue if fully implemented while incentivizing other nations to reduce their trade barriers to US exports to get the US to reduce our tariffs on theirs.

Former President Joe Biden—who single-handedly provoked Russia to invade Ukraine by refusing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer not to invade in exchange for a written guarantee Ukraine would never join NATO.

At a press conference held at the Oval Office on February 13^th, Trump said “the reason the war started is because Biden went out and said that Ukraine could join NATO.” He said when he saw Biden do that, he knew that war was coming, and he was proven right. Biden forced over a million brave Ukrainian soldiers to be killed or wounded in a war for US imperial expansion into Ukraine. He said “the EU has been very nasty to us and haven’t treated us properly” even though we protect them through NATO and criticized our NATO allies for not paying as much as we had to Ukraine and for making us shoulder the financial burden of providing for their security.

Most importantly of all, he is in the process of dismantling USAID which has been used to fund US regime change wars across the world for decades costing over a million lives while also spreading liberal war propaganda across the world with US funding of media organizations across the world. It was USAID that provided $5 billion to the Ukrainian opposition groups and ultra-nationalist right-wing militias to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected President eleven years ago causing Russia to invade Ukraine for the first time in a century. Given that the current war in Ukraine directly stemmed from the Maidan coup of February 2014, USAID is largely to blame for the over one million military casualties that Ukraine has suffered to date and the loss of one-fifth of its territory and thirty percent of its population. If it weren’t for USAID, Ukraine would still have 100% of its internationally recognized territory and population. Fomenting unnecessary regime change wars have been a key pillar of the liberal international order on the pretext of spreading democracy around the world when in fact many of the regime change operations have had the exact opposite effect on the countries where US overthrew their regimes making them much worse off than they were before. As Secretary Rubio has stated, the world has changed and it is now defined by a multilateral (actually bipolar) international order, not a Western hegemonic one so Trumps actions merely serve to recognize the world as it really is not as US neo-imperialists would like it to be.

Of course, not all Republicans are supportive of Trump’s courageous and visionary new America First foreign policy. Some of the most militant neocons like John Bolton are claiming that by conceding Ukraine will never join NATO and that Ukraine will be unable to take back its lost territory that the Trump administration is somehow giving up its negotiating leverage with Russia. However, that is nonsense because Russia has made clear that they will not accept a cease-fire until a mutually agreeable peace framework has been agreed upon and the statements made by both President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth advance us closer to that agreed upon framework needed to end the war and stop the killing. Even Ukraine war supporter Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), had to admit that Ukraine joining NATO was a non-starter: “We just can’t suddenly put people in NATO and take our Article 5 commitment seriously,” he continued. “I mean, we’re talking about putting American troops at risk. We need to solve this, de-escalate. They need to address reforms, then we can talk about NATO.” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), a top Trump World ally, went a step further. “I don’t think anybody really believes Ukraine should be in NATO now,” Schmitt said. “Unless you want World War III.”

International Reaction to the latest Trump’s statements about the war in Ukraine

The reaction from many NATO leaders to Trump’s, Vance’s and Hegseth’s comments on making peace with Russia and ending the war in Ukraine has been nothing short of hysterical with one NATO leader absurdly claiming that peace in Ukraine will lead to the outbreak of war in Europe. EU leaders are cowering in fear that Trump may succeed in restoring peace and stability to Europe ending the threat that the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine could escalate to the nuclear level. Denmark’s Prime Minister exclaimed that “Peace in Ukraine May be More Dangerous Than Ongoing War.” In so stating, they seemingly fail to recognize there is already a war being fought in Europe over the past three years as a result of their foolish imperial policies to expand NATO into Ukraine. Europe and Ukraine are, quite obviously, led by fools but thankfully the US no longer is and we finally have a rational leader in the White House in President Donald J. Trump to negotiate a permanent end to the conflict.

After both President Trump and Secretary Hegseth clearly stated Ukraine will never join NATO, British Prime Minister Kier Starmer reiterated the tired Biden administration talking point that Ukraine was on “an irreversible path to NATO membership” while Sweden’s Defense Minister claimed Ukraine’s NATO membership was not off the table ignoring the fact that any one of the alliance’s 32 member states have veto power over the accession of new member states and that not just the US, but Germany, Turkey, Slovakia and Hungary oppose Ukraine joining NATO today. Back in 2022, only nine NATO member states supported Ukraine joining NATO at that time. As Hegseth stated, “There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace a negotiated peace as President Trump has stated stopping the killing.”

Meanwhile, French, German and Polish leaders announced their opposition to Trump’s and Hagseth’s statement of the official US positions on Ukraine, particularly Trump’s plan to exclude Ukraine from bilateral US-Russia peace talks, apparently forgetting that they are essentially US client states whose foreign policy has been historically subordinated to our own and are expected to tow the US line or else risk losing US support for their collective security. French President Emannuel Macron held an emergency summit of Europe’s leaders to convene on Monday to decide how they should react to Trump’s peace initiatives with Moscow. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock has even threatened to cut diplomatic relations with the US over the recent spat between Trump and Zelensky. Does Germany really want to be our adversary again? If so, the US should threaten to withdraw all US troops from Germany if the AfD is not included in a coalition government since they won second place in the elections this past weekend.

President Donald J. Trump is continuing to fight to save Ukraine and Europe from themselves and their own incredibly foolish policies which were propelling them along a glide path to World War three with Russia. According to the Biden administration itself, the US policy of giving a blank check of military support to Ukraine to help it retake Russian-occupied Kharkiv oblast and the portion of Kherson oblast on the right bank of the Dnipro River brought us to the brink of nuclear war with Russia in late September 2022 when US intelligence assessed that there was a fifty percent chance Russia would escalate to the nuclear level.

If the EU were to establish friendly relations with Russia, the Russian threat to Europe would disappear and they could slash their military spending with no need for any US security guarantees. Instead, we are seeing the exact opposite with leaders across Europe take a stridently anti-American turn in opposition to President Trump’s brilliant strategy based on peace through strength. This past weekend, Germany elected a Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who vowed to pursue a policy of independence from the US and form a coalition government with Germany’s socialist party while the leaders of the UK, Canada, France and the EU have all expressed vociferous opposition to Trump’s initiative to end the war in Ukraine and restore peace to Europe. Merz has also stated that after he becomes Chancellor Germany will provide long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine—the first German leader since Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to openly entertain a full-scale war with Russia.

Forced to choose between supporting President Trump and supporting Ukrainian President Zelensky, nearly all EU leaders have chosen to repudiate Trump and support Zelensky. America’s European allies have responded to Trump’s courageous effort to forge a just and lasting peace ending the war in Ukraine like ingrates, forgetting that without the US all of continental Europe might have been overrun by the Red Army by the 1950s. The Trump administration should inform them in no uncertain terms that our alliance with them is not ironclad but is rather conditional upon whether it continues to serve Americas national interests or not. Trump clearly understands that the US has no dog in the fight in Biden’s unnecessary war against Russia in Ukraine and should therefore serve as a neutral arbiter in mediating an end to this senseless and destructive conflict.

European Leaders Repeat Liberal Myths of History in Falsely Accusing Trump of Appeasement

Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat and a longtime anti-Russian hardliner who has publicly called for the breakup of Russia into more than two dozen nations, denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin last month, saying any deal on Ukraine's future that is arranged without European involvement will be a non-starter. “It is clear that any deal behind our backs will not work. You need the Europeans, you need the Ukrainians,” Kallas told journalists on the sidelines of the NATO defense ministers’ meeting on Thursday. “Why are we giving them [Russia] everything they want even before the negotiations have started? It's appeasement. It has never worked,” she added. Following Trump’s call with Putin, the so-called Weimar+ grouping — the EU, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and the U.K. — published a joint statement in support of Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. “In any negotiation, Europe must have a central role,” Kallas wrote in a post regarding the statement.

In a clear example of cognitive dissidence, the UK’s increasingly out-of-touch socialist Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by reiterating that “Ukraine remains on an irreversible path to NATO membership,” repeating a tired, old Biden administration catchphrase while seeming to forget that Biden is no longer President of the United States. Meanwhile, Politico reported that two British Members of Parliament have accused President Trump of appeasing Russia falsely regurgitating the tired liberal myth that appeasement led to the outbreak of World War Two

Conservative MP Julian Lewis, former chair of the Commons defense committee who has served in the Royal Naval Reserve, asked ministers in the house Thursday to "impress on President Trump at every possible opportunity that the reason why appeasement led to World War II was that it left a vacuum in Europe." "The reason why the occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of that war did not lead to World War III was that the United States filled any possible vacuum and contained further aggression," he added. "History has shown time and again that appeasement fails," Conservative MP David Reed, who used to serve in the Royal Marines, told POLITICO in a statement.

Zelensky, not to be outdone, indicated there would not be a second Munich Agreement before the end of the Munich Security Conference and that Ukraine would never accept one. In fact, it was Chamberlain’s decision to abruptly abandon his policy of appeasement by issuing a rash and ill-considered British military guarantee of Poland that Britain could not honor that ensured the outbreak of World War Two. Further, it was FDR’s and Churchill’s grand appeasement pact of the Soviets at Yalta that prevented the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union, a fact which should be self-evident, but is not because Western historians refuse to admit that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was one of the greatest appeasers of evil totalitarian dictators in modern history and a far worse offender than Chamberlain was with his decision to allow 3.5 million Sudeten Germans to be reunited with Germany as part of the Munich Agreement in 1938.

Meanwhile, German media warned Trump ending the war in Ukraine and restoring peace and stability to the continent would somehow lead to “the destruction of Europe” while outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Shulz called for “a declaration of a national emergency” over Trump’s phone call with Putin. Shulz declared that Germany would never support “a dictated peace” Ukraine would be forced to sign in a clear reference to the punitive Treaty of Versailles which the Western Allies which was negotiated in Germany’s absence following the end of the First World War. This is an ironic reference considering it was the Allied disarmament restrictions on the size and armaments of the German military in the November 1918 armistice agreement and the Treaty of Versailles that caused Soviet Russia to repudiate the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in which it recognized Ukraine’s hard-won independence and enabled it to overrun and annex Ukraine in 1921 and to fall under Soviet domination and tyranny for seventy long years.

In any case, the comparison is misguided because while Germany had no one to represent it at the negotiation table at Versailles in 1919, Ukraine has the US to represent it in negotiations with Russia to ensure its interests are protected to the maximum possible extent. Furthermore, under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was offered no security guarantees to protect it from invasion by Belgium, France and Poland over the next four years while Ukraine has already received security guarantees from at least eighteen countries including the US as well as the EU to deter a future attack on its territory.

The War in Ukraine Has Being Fought in Furtherance of Western Hegemony

President Trump has demonstrated a command of the facts regarding the true origins of the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, his strategic empathy for Russia’s legitimate security concerns has enabled him to approve a 100-day peace plan which, with one exception, has a realistic chance of being accepted by Russia. On January 7^th during an interview on the “All In” podcast hosted by David Sacks, Trump rightly stated that Biden provoked Russia to invade Ukraine by refusing to agree to Russia’s demand for a written guarantee that Ukraine would join NATO, saying he understood why Russia would not want a hostile nuclear-armed alliance of 30 or more countries on its borders.

“For 20 years, I've heard that NATO is a real problem for Russia. I've heard it for a long time, and I think that is truly the reason why this war started - Trump said. He accused the current U.S. President, Joe Biden, of causing the conflict with his "provocative" statements during the escalating tensions before the Russian invasion. He added that "it was always understood, even before (Putin's rule), that Russia does not want NATO and its forces at its border."

The Kremlin said Putin wants to “eliminate the root causes” of the invasion, which the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War reminds us “Russian officials have explicitly defined…as NATO's alleged violation of commitments not to advance eastward in areas near Russia's border,” suggesting Putin “is not interested in compromising on this demand.”

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visiting Kyiv on April 8th, 2022 to tell Ukrainian President Zelensky not to sign the Istanbul Agreement which would have ended the war with a full Russian military withdrawal from prewar Ukrainian controlled territory the following day saving over 400,000 Ukrainian lives.

On March 31, 2022, Ukrainian negotiators celebrated getting the Russians to sign the Istanbul agreement which, with the exception of the limits on the number of weapons and ranges that could be retained by the Ukrainian military, was handwritten by Kyiv, meaning they succeeded in getting Russia to accept their terms. The agreement mandated a full Russian military withdrawal to their pre-war positions. April 9th was the date agreed to by Putin and Zelensky to meet and sign a permanent cease-fire and peace agreement but the day before Biden sent UK PM Boris Johnson to Kyiv to veto the agreement in which Russia had agreed to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine's prewar territory. The question is why?

The Biden administration had stated that the objective of US military aid to Ukraine was to force all Russian troops to withdraw to their prewar positions but that was false. As this Biden National Security official revealed, the real objective was to keep Ukraine geopolitically aligned with the US both economically and militarily and ensure it remained entirely dependent on the US for its security as an effective US military protectorate. That is the reason why Biden and the neocons have been so adamant in opposing Russia's main demand of neutrality for Ukraine which would effectively rollback NATO out of Ukraine. It is also why Boris Johnson stated that it was imperative for Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian because in his words, “If Ukraine falls, it will be a catastrophe for the West; it will be the end of Western hegemony.”

I think it is extremely telling that Johnson does not express any concern for the loss of Ukrainian independence or the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians he helped condemn to death by his actions except insofar as it would lead to the loss of Western global hegemony. That is a grossly amoral, if not morally bankrupt, position he shares with his fellow neo-imperialists in both major US political parties as their policies have led to the total decimation of Ukraine’s population from 41 million three years ago to as little as twenty-eight million today. Over a million brave Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded and have paid the price for Biden's decision to pressure Ukraine to fight a war, not for Ukrainian independence, but for US imperial expansion, in perpetuity.

As Russia expert, Glenn Diesen, recently pointed out in post on X, it is NATO which has caused the destruction of Ukraine under the false pretense of making it safer and more secure. Western leaders don't care that their unnecessary war in defense of Western global hegemony in Ukraine has cost Ukraine over a million casualties dead and wounded and has caused Ukraine's population and economy to decrease by thirty percent. They are very happy to see Ukraine continue fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. As Ted Snider pointed out in an article in the American Conservative, the architects of the war in Ukraine must accept responsibility for the destruction to Ukraine which their policies have wrought.

“Former President Joe Biden has a lot of explaining to do, as does Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who will need to explain to his exhausted nation why choosing the path of war over the path of diplomacy after the Istanbul talks in March and April of 2022 was worth the cost. At that time, what still seemed to be the Ukrainian goals—continued sovereignty and the withdrawal of Russian troops to pre-war boundaries—might have been met. Ukraine no longer has the capacity to field the men nor the weapons to hold off the Russian advance. More land will be lost the longer the war goes on, and more men and weapons are not on their way. “The problem with Ukraine is not that they’re running out of money,” Marco Rubio said at his confirmation hearing for his nomination as secretary of state, “but that they’re running out of Ukrainians.” According to Biden National Security Council official Eric Green, U.S. support for Ukraine was never intended to push Russia out of its territory, recover its lost land, and reassert its territorial integrity. “We were deliberately not talking about the territorial parameters,” Green said in an interview with Time. “The more important objective,” he explained, “was for Ukraine to survive as a sovereign, democratic country free to pursue integration with the West.”

Thankfully, President Donald J. Trump is fighting to save Ukraine from losing more lives and territory by negotiating a peace agreement along the lines of the Istanbul Agreement but also along the current lines of control so as not to give up even one single inch of additional Ukrainian territory to Russia. Those who care about the people of Ukraine hand place a premium on preventing the loss of any additional Ukrainian lives or territory and thus have the clear moral high ground over the war’s Western proponents and are supporting Trump's efforts to end the war as swiftly as possible.

We now have a President and Secretary of Defense who are putting America First and trying to save Ukraine the only possible way we can--by negotiating the best possible deal with Russia for Ukraine. Trump has made statements indicating he believes Biden and Zelensky deliberately chose war with Russia when they could have easily avoided it by opting for Ukrainian neutrality outside of NATO and thus bear much of the blame for the outbreak of the war and the ensuring death and destruction to Ukraine. It's time to admit that Biden, the Democrats and neocon Republicans are to blame for an unnecessary war that has claimed the lives of over a million brave Ukrainian soldiers to date. History will not judge them kindly. Zelensky himself recently conceded that the US never wanted Ukraine in NATO saying “The U.S. never saw us in NATO, they just spoke about it. They really didn’t want us in NATO,” Zelensky said at the Munich Security Conference. Thus, the President of Ukraine essentially admitted that the entire pretext for the war with Russia was a farce that could have easily been averted by Biden giving Putin a written guarantee that Ukraine would never become a member of the Atlantic Alliance.

The truth is that the US has never had a national interest in fighting Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, nor do we have any legitimate national security interest in where the new border is drawn between the two warring parties. The war in Ukraine is being fought over the fate of an area of Ukraine a little larger than Lithuania totaling approximately twelve percent of its internationally recognized territory. If liberal/neocon icon Winston Churchill was willing to surrender half of Europe to the Soviets for nearly half a century and if Ronald Reagan was unwilling to fight to liberate East Germany in the heart of Central Europe from the Red Army jackboot then why should the US concern itself with a border war being fought in Ukraine a thousand miles to the east. President Trump is right to not want to risk the outbreak of a Third World War over whose flag flies over relatively small, predominantly Russian speaking region of southeast Ukraine on the farthest fringes of Europe in an area which has never been considered to constitute a vital US national security interest.

US and Russian diplomats meet in Riyadh to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine as well as the terms of a new US-Russia grand strategic partnership for peace that I have long been advocating.

US-Russia Peace Negotiations Very Hopeful

Trump’s call with Putin a couple weeks ago was the first contact Russia’s leader has had with a US president since 2021 thanks to Joe Biden’s three yearlong diplomatic temper tantrum in refusing to talk to him. In a further break with Biden’s policy, President Trump stated that he is planning his first summit with Putin would be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to discuss a peace framework to end the war in Ukraine and that this will be followed with Trump-Putin summits in both Washington, DC and Moscow later this year.

As noted in my last article, US-Russia Peace negotiations began in Riyadh early last week led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Both the US and Russian reaction to the Rubio-Lavrov peace talks on February 18^th were very positive. Trump told the Russians he would not allow Ukraine to join NATO. Both parties agreed to end the period of confrontation that took place during the Biden administration effectively negotiating an end to our New Cold War with Russia. Both sides are going to appoint a negotiating team to hash out the details of a cease-fire agreement and a comprehensive peace agreement addressing the causes of the conflict to prevent the outbreak of a future war.

One of my Russian media contacts informed me that Trump asked if Rubio could meet with Putin this week to speed up the peace process showing Trump is wanting to end Biden's war in Ukraine as swiftly as possible. Rubio stated that any peace agreement ending the war must be acceptable to Russia and announced Trump is planning a lot of big economic deals with Russia and engage in historic geopolitical cooperation with Russia on a host of international issues after the peace agreement has been signed. It sounds as if they are following my recommended peace plan but just doing it at a slower pace.

© David T. Pyne 2025

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and Headquarters staff officer, who was in charge of armaments cooperation with the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas from 2000-2003, with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is the former President and current Deputy Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He also serves as a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. He recently served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. He has also co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster” and his new book “Restoring Strategic Deterrence” will be published in March or April 2024. He serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and previously served as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.

Recent Interviews

January 30th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss my latest articles focusing on Trump’s leaked 100-day Ukraine war peace plan and the prospects for Trump realizing his noble goal of achieving a permanent peace deal ending the war in Ukraine. Here is the link to the interview.

February 3rd—Interview with Nima Alkhorshid on his Dialogue Works podcast to discuss my latest plan to end the war in Ukraine in days not months as well as my analysis of Trump’s 100 day peace plan and its prospects for success in ending the war in Ukraine. Here is a link to the interview.

February 3rd—Interview with COL Rob Maness to discuss my latest articles focusing on Trump’s leaked 100-day Ukraine war peace plan and the prospects for Trump realizing his goal of achieving a permanent peace deal ending the war in Ukraine. Here is the link to the interview.

February 4th—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz on his Neutrality Studies podcast to discuss my latest plan to end the war in Ukraine in days not months as well as my analysis of Trump’s 100 day peace plan and its prospects for success in ending the war in Ukraine. Here is a link to the interview.

February 6th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss Trump’s official Ukraine war peace plan due for release this weekend and the chances that Russia might accept it. Here is the link to the discussion.

February 14th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss comments by President Trump about his phone call with Ukraine discussing ending the war in Ukraine and the comments by Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Munich Security Conference. Here is a link to the interview.

February 17th—Interview with KUTV CBS Channel 2 News to discuss why I support President Trump and his agenda to put America First both at home and abroad.

February 18th—Panel Discussion on RT’s Crosstalk program to discuss Trump’s bold new peace negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine without Ukraine or the EU having a seat at the table and to discuss the UK’s proposal to send tens of thousands of NATO peacekeeping troops to Ukraine that could lead to a direct war between Russia and NATO. Here is a link to the interview.

February 18th—Interview on Main Street Radio with Jon Twitchell discussing my latest articles focusing on Trump’s leaked 100-day Ukraine war peace plan and the prospects for Trump realizing his noble goal of achieving a permanent peace deal ending the war in Ukraine. Here is the link to the interview.

February 24th—Interview with COL Rob Maness to discuss the increasing feud between President Trump and Zelensky, whether he will agree to sign Trump’s proposed agreement to split the profits for Ukrainian rare earth sales and the Trump administration’s adoption of many of my recommendations not just for the terms of a peace deal with Russia but also a more comprehensive peace ushering in a grand partnership for peace between our two great nations. Here is the link to the interview.

February 24th—Interview with Brannon Howse on Brannon Howse Live to discuss the increasing feud between President Trump and Zelensky, whether he will agree to sign Trump’s proposed agreement to split the profits for Ukrainian rare earth sales and the Trump administration’s adoption of many of my recommendations for a comprehensive peace including a new US-Russia entente ushering in a grand partnership for peace between our two great nations.

Upcoming Interviews

February 25th—Interview with Raphael Machado to talk about when the EU will resume natural gas purchases from Russia, the implications of the German national elections and whether the EU will succeed in their bid to derail peace talks between Trump and Putin and defeat his plan to restore peace and stability to Ukraine and to Europe.