Vivek Ramaswamy Releases Bold New Peace Plan to End the War in Ukraine and Split the Sino-Russian Military Alliance

He calls for Korean War style armistice to end the war and US concluding a mutual security agreement with Russia in exchange for them ending their military alliance with Communist China

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy discussing his new Russia-Ukraine peace plan on “This Week with George Stephanopoulis” on ABC News.

The war in Ukraine has entered its 17^th month with no end in sight with the US having sent Ukraine $196 billion in foreign aid to date, an amount 33 times larger than Ukraine’s 2021 defense budget. Biden has unilaterally disarmed the US military of tens of thousands of its most advanced weapon systems and over four million missiles, rockets and heavy artillery rounds to date. While the administration has said the war must continue in order to weaken Russia, the exact opposite has occurred with Russia emerging stronger than it has been in the past couple decades as I will explain later in this article.

It has become a litmus test in Democrat and neoconservative Republican establishment circles that elected U.S. leaders including presidential candidates must conflate US national security interests with Ukraine's under the false assumption that a Ukrainian military victory and recapture of the five Russian annexed oblasts including Crimea would be a victory not just for Ukraine but for the US. Quite the contrary, if Ukraine were to invade Crimea, the chances of Russian nuclear escalation would be ninety percent according to a number of national security analysts including former Assistant Secretary of Defense Graham Allison, a former national security advisor to President Joe Biden himself. Such a Russian nuclear escalation in Ukraine could conceivably escalate to a nuclear World War Three which could destroy the US and NATO. It is difficult to imagine Ukraine having national security interests any more diametrically opposed to US vital national security interests than one that could result in America’s nuclear annihilation. Even the Biden administration purposely shies away from talking about Ukraine winning the war or Russia losing knowing that if Putin perceives Russia as losing the war that is pretty much a trigger for him to employ tactical nukes against Ukraine to prevent such an outcome.

Supporters of the war in Ukraine misleadingly claim that the war in Ukraine is about defending global democracy when democracy no longer exists in Ukraine as evidenced by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to essentially declare himself a de-facto dictator last week by canceling the 2024 Ukrainian presidential elections until the war has ended while making it illegal for Ukrainian leaders to negotiate an end to the war with Russia. Zelensky has made no secret of his desire to engage in all kinds of unsavory stratagems possibly including destroying the Zaporizhia nuclear reactor and blaming it on Russia to embroil NATO in a Third World War with Russia that would quickly escalate to the nuclear level, knowing that is his only hope to regain Ukraine’s lost territories. Some Neoconservative Republicans have even joined with Democrats in claiming that Ukraine’s is fighting not just for the freedom and independence of Ukraine but in defense of the US itself yet are unable to support their facetious claim that a Russian victory in its ongoing Ukraine’s border dispute with Russia would have any adverse effect on the US at all, when challenged.

Ukraine war proponents falsely claim the war is an existential threat to Ukraine even though the war is being fought over the 12% of Ukraine’s prewar controlled territory which it annexed following its invasion last February and that Russia has offered a cease fire which would leave Ukraine in control of 86-88% of its prewar controlled territory back in September. The previous Russian offer issued in March 2022 would have left Ukraine in control of 93.6% of its prewar territory but the Biden administration foolishly pressured Zelensky to repudiate it the following month. The fact that Russia offered on February 25, 2022 to withdraw from all of Ukraine’s prewar territory but the Donbass proves that Putin never wanted to take control of all or even most of Ukraine as neoconservatives falsely claim.

Back in May, President Trump, who has boasted he has a plan to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, was repeatedly asked by the CNN Townhall moderator if he supported Ukraine winning the war against Russia but he refused to answer the question suggesting he doesn’t have a specific plan for how to end it. He should have responded that he didn’t’ support a victory by either Ukraine or Russia but rather that he would support an outcome that would be a win for the United States of America. Gov. Ron DeSantis has also come out in opposition to further aid to Ukraine calling for the Biden administration a negotiated peaceful end to the war but has yet to come out with any specific plan to end the war which given the increasing threat of Russian escalation stemming from U.S. involvement in the conflict, should be a requirement for any serious presidential contender.

Vivek’s Courageous Peace Plan to End the War in Ukraine and Deter Chinese Aggression

Vivek Ramaswamy giving a speech unveiling his new Russo-Ukrainian War peace plan in New Hampshire last month

According to the latest Fox News poll and a new poll by Echelon Insights which has him surging to 10%, America First conservative Vivek Ramaswamy is now running third in the national Republican presidential primary polls just behind former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). On June 6^th, Vivek published his bold and courageous new grand strategy to end the war in Ukraine and split the Sino-Russian military alliance which, if implemented, could save America from an unnecessary nuclear war with Russia and China. Here is a link to his plan which includes links to the new book I co-authored, “Catastrophe Now—America’s Last Chance to Prevent an EMP Disaster.” and one of my past articles in the National Interest, entitled “Russia and China are already winning the Nuclear Arms Race.” In his op-ed in The Federalist, Vivek calls for a Korean war style armistice which ends the war along the current line of control and ends the immediate threat of Russian nuclear escalation and puts off negotiation of the big issues until a later date. Here is the text of his peace plan:

“President Trump claims he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours but refuses to say how. Ron DeSantis’ position is unclear, and other GOP candidates support continued U.S. involvement in Ukraine without specifying clear limits on engagement. If elected president, I will end the war by ceasing further U.S. support for Ukraine and negotiating a peace treaty with Russia that achieves a vital U.S. security objective: ceasing Russia’s growing military alliance with China. This strategy is the mirror image of President Nixon’s diplomatic maneuver that distanced China from Russia in 1972 — except this time, Putin is the new Mao.

In 2001, Russia and China entered their Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, and in February 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a more expansive “no-limits partnership.”  Collectively, these agreements effectively commit each country to defend the other militarily if either is attacked.

The Sino-Russia alliance presents the greatest military risk the U.S. has ever faced. Russia and China together outmatch the U.S. in every area of great power competition: geographic footprint, economic potential, industrial manufacturing might, conventional military power, and nuclear weapons, including super-Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons, which could destroy critical U.S. infrastructure resulting in hundreds of millions of American civilian casualties.

Beijing’s alliance with Russia provides China with sufficient strategic depth to chance direct conflict with the U.S. in the context of Taiwan, on the credible belief that the U.S. would not dare risk a simultaneous war with two allied nuclear superpowers. Russia is armed with the largest nuclear stockpile in the world and supersonic ballistic missiles well ahead of U.S. capabilities. But in the absence of Russia’s support, China would have to think twice before risking war with the U.S. over Taiwan.

President Biden’s ongoing support for Ukraine is pushing Russia into a closer military alliance with China, which increases the risk of nuclear war: Russia has nuclear capabilities in Poland-adjacent Kaliningrad and soon in Belarus too, and China is bound by treaty to back Russia. My top U.S. national security objective is to disrupt this Sino-Russian alliance in a manner that weakens China without war.

Specifically, the U.S. can offer a Korean War-style armistice agreement that codifies the current lines of control, which would cede most of the Donbas region to Russia. The agreement would suspend any further U.S. military assistance to Ukraine and a permanent moratorium on Ukraine joining NATO. Further, the U.S. and Western NATO countries would end the Western sanctions regime against Russia, restore normal diplomatic relations with Russia with mutual security commitments, withdraw all troops from Ukraine, and close all their bases in Eastern Europe — returning to the reality that existed before the July 2016 Warsaw Summit. These concessions to Russia are significant.

In return, Russia would completely exit its military alliance with China, ending the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation and the 2022 no-limits partnership. Russia would permanently suspend all military-technical cooperation and joint military exercises with China. Russia would agree to re-enter the pre-2023 New Start nuclear non-proliferation treaty with the U.S. that Russia abandoned earlier this year in the context of the Ukraine war. In addition, Russia would withdraw all nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities from Belarus, Kaliningrad, and all Russian-annexed regions of Ukraine, as well as all military forces from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua — effectively eliminating Russia’s nuclear threat to the U.S. and Europe.

The U.S. would continue its security commitment to NATO while accepting Russia into the security infrastructure of Europe, reducing future catalysts that Russia could use as pretexts to invade its neighbors. This strategy trades the current bilateral international order — which strongly favors China — for a new trilateral international order in which none of the three nuclear superpowers are allied together, liberating the U.S. and its allies to focus on deterring Chinese aggression.

The U.S. should pre-specify that if Putin reneges and restarts Russia’s military cooperation with China, the U.S. will immediately support admitting Ukraine to NATO and reinstate all economic sanctions against Russia. This would leave Russia in an even weaker position than prior to the Ukraine war. Putin will also have less reason to renege because he would be less dependent on China if the West restores economic relations with Russia.

Russia hawks argue that Putin does not want peace. Facts suggest otherwise. In March 2022, the terms Russia offered were sufficiently reasonable for Ukraine to reach a tentative peace agreement with Moscow for Russian troops to withdraw from the vast majority of Ukraine’s territory, before former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pressured Ukraine to abandon it. Putin’s apparent willingness last year to negotiate a peace agreement that addresses Russia’s security concerns suggests he is open to a deal and provides the U.S. with negotiating leverage to bring him back to the table.

It’s true that Ukraine gave up its nuclear capabilities in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and the U.K. in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may accuse the U.S. of reneging on its prior commitments. In reality, the Budapest Memorandum merely reaffirmed the commitments of the U.S., the U.K., and Russia to “respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

The U.S. has more than fulfilled this promise. Since 1994, the U.S. has armed and trained Ukraine. In the current war against Russia, the U.S. has already provided nearly $200 billion in military aid to Ukraine — nearly 20 times more than Ukraine’s own annual military budget and approximately equal to Ukraine’s entire GDP — which helped Ukraine successfully fight the Russian invasion to a standstill.

With China’s growing military support of Russia in the war, Ukraine will not defeat Russia militarily in the absence of extraordinary U.S. intervention. Such intervention would badly deplete U.S. military resources needed for land conflict in Taiwan, which may itself be China’s objective in backing Russia. Under my peace plan, Ukraine will still emerge with its sovereignty intact and Russia permanently diminished as a foe. Ukraine’s best path to preserving its own security is to accept a U.S.-negotiated agreement backstopped by Russian commitments to the U.S.

Opponents of U.S. engagement in Ukraine should embrace the possibility that we can accomplish more than just saving money by ending the war. We can also achieve the most vital U.S. security objective of the 21st century: deterring Chinese aggression.”

With this masterful editorial, Vivek Ramaswamy has shown he is the only Republican presidential candidate who has demonstrated the ability to think strategically with his bold new plan not nearly to end Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine but to revolutionize US-Russian relations by ending our Cold war as well and thereby neutralizing the Sino-Russian military alliance which poses the greatest existential threat the US has ever faced. Except for Vivek and a few other America First conservative leaders, U.S. leaders never think about what outcomes are best for US national security, so it is very refreshing to see a leading presidential candidate come out with such a specific peace plan to revolutionize the geopolitical environment in favor of the US. Predictably, Vivek’s plan has drawn both praise from America First conservatives and criticism from the America Last crowd. Sen. Lindsey Graham attacked it as “appeasement” while former Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James Stavridis responded by stating he would love to see the plan implemented but was concerned how achievable it would be to get Russia to break off its close decades long military alliance to Communist China.

Meanwhile, Sen. Tim Scott was interviewed on Fox News last month stating that America's national vital interest is to degrade the Russian military to prevent attacks on the homeland and our NATO allies, making us "safer" demonstrating a total lack of understanding of fundamental foreign policy principles. Helping the Ukrainians bomb Russia and kill tens of thousands of Russian troops has provoked Russia to ally ever more closely with Communist China and potentially attack the US and its allies catastrophically. The illogic and naiveté of neoconservative pundits and politicians and their absolute failure to learn from the mistakes of history that led to world wars and the deaths of a couple hundred million people never ceases to amaze me.

Biden's proxy war of choice in Ukraine has served to greatly magnify the Russian threat to the US and our NATO allies causing Russia to expand the size of its armed forces by fifty percent whereas the Russian threat before the war was minimal at least in terms of intent, rather than capability. Ukraine has no realistic chance of beating Russia or taking back all their territory. If Ukraine invaded Crimea, Russia would unleash tactical nuclear weapons against them without any hesitation and probably massively cyberattack the US homeland as well as our NATO allies essentially destroying the western world in the process enabling Russia and China to become the new global hegemons. Even if, by some miracle, to defeat Russia without them escalating to the nuclear level, Russia would be guaranteed to start a new war even worse than the last whereas if we negotiated a compromise peace agreement with them, they would be extremely likely to honor it and keep the peace increasing the safety and security of Ukraine, NATO and the US for many years to come. Since the war began the Biden administration has only spent ten minutes discussing the war in Ukraine with Russia at a high level. The U.S. could have ended the war in March 2022 quite easily with a reasonably favorable peace deal for Ukraine if we had wanted to do so. Instead, Biden has engaged in a diplomatic temper tantrum from the beginning of the war to the present refusing to talk to Putin at all and Ukraine has paid a very heavy price for his disregard of Ukrainian lives and national interests to end the war and begin the process of rebuilding their country and economy.

The neocons constantly harp about the need to learn the lesson of Munich but always forget the lesson of Versailles, which is that without a negotiated peace, a defeated power will hate the victors and wait for the opportunity to start a new war more terrible than the last to retake lost territory. They are the most ignorant of history among us. If we negotiated a comprehensive just and lasting peace with Russia, we could disband NATO entirely and Europe would be more secure not less. We are living through a modern-day Cuban Missile Crisis by Biden's own admission but Biden refuses to offer Putin a diplomatic off ramp.

Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is Failing

The inconvenient truth is that the Biden administration has failed to achieve virtually any of its objectives in opting to fight its proxy war against Moscow most importantly its objective of weakening Russia militarily. The $196 billion the US has sent to Ukraine has proven to be a very bad investment as Ukraine would have been far better off with the relatively magnanimous peace terms Russia was offering from March to September 2022 than with the peace terms Russia is offering now. The Biden administration has told Ukraine that it is running out of weapons and munitions to send to Ukraine pressuring Ukraine to engage in its current summer counteroffensive to retake as much lost territory as possible prior to seeking a cease-fire and negotiated peace settlement later this year. Unfortunately for Ukraine, its counteroffensive has resulted in heavy losses with up to seven times more casualties than Russia and three times as many tanks lost while Ukraine has failed to penetrate even one mile deep into Russian-held territory let alone reach Russia’s first defensive mainlines.

The latest battlefield map published by the Institute for the Study of War shows virtually no visible Ukrainian territorial gains nearly a month after its summer counteroffensive began.

While it is true that Russia has lost a couple thousand armored vehicles and as many as 60,000 Russian soldiers killed in action, Ukrainian military casualties have been about three times greater. Severe western economic sanctions against Russia have not only not hurt Russia economically but the IMF now assesses Russia’s economy is 20% larger than it did before the war began in terms of Purchase Power Parity. Russia’s ruble and trade surplus are at seven-year highs. Russia has continued to trade, unabated, with 84% of the world’s nations who do not necessarily see Russia as the aggressor in this war but are sympathetic to the Russian viewpoint which is NATO provoked the conflict by making Ukraine a de facto NATO member state.

Furthermore, while Biden has unilaterally disarmed the US military of a huge number of its modern weapons and munitions to send to Ukraine which will take 5-10 years to replenish, President Putin has expanded the size of the active-duty Russian armed forces by 50% to Soviet-era levels while expanding Russian T-90M tank production to 1,500 a year.  Thus, the overall effect of NATO’s proxy war against Russia has been to weaken the US economically and especially militarily more than it has weakened Russia and to greatly increase the threat posed by Russia against NATO rather than to decrease it. Furthermore, Biden’s war in Ukraine has pushed Russia closer into China’s arms whereas the Biden administration would be far wiser to pursue a policy of détente and constructive engagement with Russia aimed to reduce Russia’s dependence on Beijing.

Ukraine Has No Realistic Prospect to Win the War

US public support has been steadily decreasing since the war began to the point that Biden’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine no longer enjoys the support of the majority of the American people. The American people are beginning to understand that there never was even the remotest chance for Ukraine to defeat Russia no matter how many weapons we send them and that as Ukraine’s failed spring counteroffensive has proven, Ukraine has no chance to regain a significant amount of Russian annexed territory no matter how long the war continues. They are beginning to realize that that prolongation of the war unnecessarily by the Biden administration has only ensured the further destruction of Ukraine.

Between 150,000-200,000 of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died unnecessarily since Biden urged Zelensky to reject the tentative peace agreement reached by Russia and Ukraine at the end of March 2022 in Istanbul. Russia’s victory in the war is inevitable because Russia has 35 times more territory than Ukraine, with an economy 11 times larger and it has over five times more people, tanks, combat aircraft and artillery systems than Ukraine has. It also has 8,000 more nuclear weapons than Ukraine and it would only take the use of 1-3 tactical nuclear warheads above Ukraine’s major cities in demonstration airbursts that cause little to no civilian casualties to force Ukraine into a conditional surrender.  Russia also has annexed 18% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory while Ukraine has not succeeded in occupying even one square inch of Russia’s pre-war territory. Thus, for anyone to allege Ukraine is winning the war can be shown to be demonstrably false by looking at a military map.

The more the Biden administration escalates its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and the more territory Ukraine retakes from Russia, the greater the chance that Russia could escalate to the nuclear level which would be very bad not only for Ukraine but for the US and its allies. That is why it is so imperative for the US to act immediately to end all US foreign aid to Ukraine until it agrees to and implements a cease fire and armistice agreement with Moscow.

Biden Administration May Be Prepare to Negotiate an End to the War

The primary reason that Russia invaded Ukraine was because Ukraine had become a de facto NATO member state following the signing of the US-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Agreement on November 10, 2021. In 2008, William Burns, then US ambassador to Russia, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Russia offered mutual security agreements to the US and NATO in December 2021 in a last-ditch effort to avoid the need for conflict, but Biden chose to repudiate the entirety of Russia’s proposed peace treaty including the most important part which was the Russian demand that the US and NATO issue written guarantees to Russia that Ukraine would never join NATO. This is a concession that Biden could have given at no cost to US national security. Had this guarantee been issued along with renewed Western pressure on Ukraine to honor its Minsk II Agreement with Russia, the chances that Putin would have invaded Ukraine would have been extremely small.

There has never been any chance that Ukraine will join NATO because Hungary, Turkey and Germany continue to oppose Ukrainian NATO membership. In addition, Ukraine cannot join NATO because membership requires them having no territory in dispute and no foreign troops occupying their territory. For this reason alone, Ukraine could never join NATO until a permanent peace and new border demarcation agreement has been signed, not merely a cease-fire or armistice agreement. In other words, Ukraine would have to formally recognize Russian annexations of the areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia along the current lines of control to even be eligible to join NATO but given the fact that NATO membership requires the unanimous approval of its 31 members states Ukrainian NATO membership will forever remain an impossibility.   

A few months ago, news reports indicated that the Biden administration had informed Ukrainian leaders that it didn’t have enough weapons and munitions to continue to provide Ukraine past this summer so Ukraine would have to negotiate a compromise peace agreement with Russia shortly thereafter. The Russians should understand that the US security guarantee currently being discussed for Ukraine would only be implemented after the war is over. I believe the fact that the Biden administration is entertaining a security guarantee for Ukraine outside of NATO indicates they are planning for Ukraine to sign a compromise peace agreement with Russia later this year or next year at the latest and understand that such a peace agreement would have to include a US security guarantee for Ukraine’s permanent neutrality outside of NATO. Accordingly, such security guarantees are not intended to prolong the war but rather to end it.

The fact that the Biden administration was unwilling to provide Ukraine with any security guarantees back in March 2022 was a significant obstacle to Ukraine implementing a peace deal in which it agreed to remain permanently neutral outside of NATO. However, with such a US security guarantee to provide US military assistance in the event of a Russian military attack on Ukraine after a peace deal has been implemented, Ukrainian reluctance to implement an agreement for it to remain permanently neutral outside of NATO would likely disappear. The type of security guarantee being contemplated by the Biden administration would obligate the US to provide military assistance (i.e. arms shipments) to Ukraine in the event of a renewed Russian attack, it would not mandate the US send troops to defend Ukraine against Russia let alone engage in a direct war with the Russian Federation.  

Addressing Criticisms of Vivek’s New Grand Strategy to End America’s Cold War with Russia and Win Our Cold War with Communist China

Some have denounced his strategy as one of appeasement and as I noted in my last article a top Russia expert who is an esteemed colleague of mine actually said he would rather see the U.S. destroyed in a nuclear exchange with Russia rather than “appease” Russia with territory they already control and Ukraine has no chance of ever taking back militarily.  Former Vice President Mike Pence infamously declared “there is no room for apologists for Putin in the Republican Party.” Personally, I think it’s this kind of absolutist, conventional, binary 2D thinking that caused the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in the first place. It will take a “next level” 4D strategy like Vivek’s peace proposal to get us out of the mess that the neocons and neoliberals have gotten us into which has brought us to the brink of an unnecessary nuclear war with Russia and China. These are the same people that say and believe that are the people that have been proven wrong about literally everything and who started the Trump-Russia collusion hoax are now trying to start World War Three with Russia and defeat all attempts by America First conservatives to prevent it. They claim that its far more important to defend Ukraine’s borders from invasion than it does to defend America’s borders from invasion and save nearly 100,000 lives a year from drug overdoses, violent crimes, rapes, and murders from 6.5 million illegal immigrants. They are all the same people who claim unilaterally disarming and weakening the US military by giving Ukraine tens of thousands of advanced weapon systems and millions of missiles, rockets and heavy ammunition rounds, making us unable to fight and win a major war is a great investment for us.

While it is true that Putin is a brutal and murderous dictator who is responsible for starting an illegal war of aggression in Ukraine, Putin is far from being a genocidal mass murderer on par with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. It is a myth that Putin is a modern-day Hitler bent on reconquering Eastern Europe. The only instances of Russian aggression against its neighbors have occurred in direct response to NATO reiterating its intention to expand eastward to include Ukraine and Georgia as full members. There is no evidence that Putin wants to conquer most or all of Ukraine, let alone Poland, Finland or the Baltic states which have a common border with Russia. In fact, the preponderance of the evidence points to the exact opposite given Putin unilaterally withdrew from three out of eight Russian occupied Ukrainian oblasts, including Kyiv, mere weeks after he occupied them and has been looking for a face-saving diplomatic exit from the war ever since. Putin offered us a mutual security agreement to avert Russia’s perceived need to invade Ukraine to ensure its security, but Biden rejected it in its entirety. That would strongly suggest his main objective is not war with the US and NATO but rather a peace agreement that recognizes Russia’s legitimate security interests.

During World War Two, the US allied with the greatest mass murderer in human history at the time and ceded control of half of Europe to the Evil Soviet Empire allowing Stalin to annex parts or all of nine countries. Despite this, no one seems bothered at all by any moral qualms regarding our unparrelled appeasement of evil and wartime alliance with the Soviets, blindly accepting the claims of historians that it was a necessary evil to win the war. Furthermore, Nixon has received almost universal praise for going to Beijing and meeting with Mao to start a partnership with Communist China to break up their alliance with the Soviet Union even though Mao is believed to have been an even greater mass murderer than Stalin. Today, Chinese President Xi Jinping is committing genocide against the Uyghur Muslims in the laogai death camps yet virtually no one is calling for sanctions or cutting trade with China over that.

I think the strategic concept behind Vivek’s proposal to negotiate a mutual security and comprehensive peace agreement with Russia resolving all our outstanding conflicts with them and that it takes away all their incentive to attack us, most importantly with nuclear, super-EMP or cyber weapons. By effectively ending our Cold War with Russia, we can focus on winning our Cold War with China without having to fight a ‘hot’ war with them. This is the kind of bold, visionary strategy that Ronald Reagan used to win the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Ideally the U.S. would build a comprehensive national missile defense system and double, the size of our strategic nuclear deterrent but since it could take several years to accomplish, we have to employ bold, innovative diplomatic initiatives to provide the American people with a far greater degree of safety and security than if we continued to pursue our policy of waging a major proxy war with Russia that could escalate to the nuclear level at any time. The fact is it will be very difficult for the US to win its Cold War with China without us implementing a strategy that successfully neutralizes its alliance with Russia. If this Russia peace strategy succeeded in averting an unnecessary nuclear World War Three and saved our country from destruction and spared the lives of a couple hundred million Americans, wouldn’t it be worth it? Given no other strategy has a better chance of succeeding, I believe it would be wrong not to try it.

Some question whether Putin could be counted on to honor an armistice agreement with Ukraine. The fact is that Putin can be counted on to honor all agreements and treaties which are in Russia’s national interests to keep. Given the fact that honoring this agreement including its armistice agreement with Ukraine serve Russia’s national interests and that if he violated it by attacking Ukraine again, we would put Ukraine NATO membership back on the table and resume massive economic sanctions against Russia and military aid to Ukraine, there is no reason to believe that he would violate it in any material way.

Some argue that a cease-fire leaving Putin in control of any Ukrainian territory would embolden him to commit further international aggressions. Biden has rightly declared the US will not intervene militarily and no other country in the world has sent combat troops to fight Russia in Ukraine. As I stated previously, Russia is 35 times larger, has an economy 11 times bigger and has over five times as many people, tanks, combat aircraft and artillery systems than Ukraine enabling it to win a long-term war of attrition. Accordingly, the outcome of the war is not really in doubt. Vivek’s peace plan would serve to ensure Ukraine remains independent and secure while ending the increasing threat of Russian nuclear escalation and preventing us from sleepwalking into an unnecessary world war.

The main reason Russia invaded Ukraine was to prevent it from become a member of the NATO alliance. The U.S. has never had any security commitment with Ukraine and if we hadn’t sent massive military aid to Ukraine, the war would have ended back in April 2022 with a Russian withdrawal from six out of eight Russian occupied Ukrainian oblasts and over 150,000 Ukrainian lives who have perished since would have been saved. Vivek’s proposed armistice agreement would enable Ukraine to keep all its hard-won battlefield gains in liberating 40% of Russian occupied territory and would ensure Ukrainian independence, security, and control over 88% of its prewar controlled territory.

Vivek\s proposal reflects a policy of peace through strength—the same policy of reciprocal arms control and mutual security agreements that Ronald Reagan successfully employed to manage the collapse of the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. The idea that any Reaganite peaceful accommodation of a potential adversary constitutes appeasement is a straw man argument which has been used for the past seven decades to intimidate US policymakers and citizens into withholding support for policies that put US national security interests first, prevent or end unnecessary wars, and make America much more safe and secure from existential threats. It would only constitute appeasement if we made major concessions to Moscow but received no reciprocal concessions in return or if we received no benefit or enhancement to America’s national security. I believe it is imperative that we put U.S. national security interests first for a change. The primary commitment of the next president of the United States should be to the defense of the United States of America and its over 300 million citizens, not a country half a world away with which we have no security commitment.

When it comes to US-Russia relations, it is not a zero-sum game as neocon and neoliberals claim. I believe we can negotiate a mutual security agreement with Russia along the lines of what Vivek Ramaswamy has proposed that would be a win-win not just for the U.S. and Russia but also for our NATO allies. Suggestions that his comprehensive proposed peace plan for ending America’s Cold War with Russia and winning our Cold War with China would constitute a policy of appeasement fall apart when you take a moment to realize the U.S. would not give up one of our military alliances but we would be asking Russia to give up its alliance with Communist China in exchange for a strategic partnership agreement with the U.S. If, in fact, it is true that our alliances make us stronger than wouldn’t getting Russia to give up its alliance with China make China weaker?

If Vivek’s peace proposal were implemented and the Russian threat to NATO ended, the U.S. could redeploy all of its 150 tactical nuclear gravity bombs in western Europe to the Western Pacific where we have not had any nuclear weapons in East Asia to deter Chinese aggression for the past two to three decades. Increasing the number of our nuclear warheads in the Western Pacific from zero to 150 would make China think twice about risking war with the U.S.

As readers of “The Real War” newsletter may recall, I have long been advocating a cooperative strategic partnership with Russia along the lines of what Vivek has proposed that would eliminate the Russian nuclear and conventional military threat to the US and NATO with a comprehensive peace and mutual security agreement ending our Cold War with Russia since Russia has no demonstrable intent to invade or attack any of its neighbors once the war in Ukraine has been settled in a mutually acceptable way.

Vivek’s peace proposal, if implemented, could enable the US to work collaboratively with Russian leaders to resolve international disputes. The US could sign a free trade agreement with them and open the door to more U.S. investments in Russia in the realization that was one of the main reasons they decided to ally with China to get them to engage in more capital investment in the Russian Federation and buy large numbers of Russian weapon systems for cash. Putin has long sought greater economic integration with Europe between the EU and Eurasian Economic Union, and we would be supportive of that as well. He has sought a Russian sphere of influence in central Asia which China has begun encroaching on. We could engage in exchanges of military technology, most especially in the area of missile defense and other areas where Russia has more advanced technology than we do. China has failed to share advanced military technology with Russia and is encroaching on their sphere of influence in Central Asia while at the same time offering less capital investment in Russia. These are all areas where we could one up China to incentivize Russia to loosen their close ties with the PRC and potentially encourage them to come over to America’s side if not militarily than at least economically to join a Western-led trade bloc against Beijing imperial Belt and Road Initiative.

In conclusion, Vivek’s national security strategy is epically better than anything our top US national security experts have advocated. You don't have to be brilliant to articulate such a strategy, but it just so happens he actually is brilliant and actually has better gut instincts as to what is best for the US than Trump or DeSantis does. Some may forget that Trump was a political neophyte when he got elected and ended up being the best US President since Reagan. Vivek would be even better than Trump on defense and foreign policy issues because unlike Trump he can’t be dissuaded from pursuing an America First defense and foreign policy agenda. I am excited to see Vivek totally obliterate any attempts by his unthinking neoconservative challengers like former Vice President Mike Pence, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to challenge his proposed peace plan to end the war in Ukraine during the upcoming presidential debates beginning next month!

Recent Media Interviews:

June 28th—Interview with Brannon Howse on his Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network to discuss the Wagner Group mutiny and whether it was a Russian false flag operation to give Putin plausible deniability for a rogue nuclear strike from Belarus against NATO. Here is a link to the interview.

June 29th—Interview with Dr. Pascal Lottaz from Neutrality Studies to discuss Vivek Ramaswamy’s excellent new peace plan to end the war in Ukraine and split the Sino-Russian military alliance. Here is a link to the interview.

July 4th—Interview on RT’s Crosstalk program with Peter Levelle to discuss whether Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine is becoming a forever war and the prospects for negotiating a peaceful end to the conflict. I will post the link to the interview when it is available.

© David T. Pyne 2023

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 currently serves as Deputy Director of National Operations for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and as a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. He recently co-authored the best-selling new book, “Catastrophe Now--America’s Last Chance to Avoid an EMP Disaster." He also serves as the Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com and as a contributor to “The National Interest”. Here is a link to his interview archive. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com.