Why a Negotiated Peace Settlement is the Best Option for U.S. to End the Russo-Ukrainian War

If U.S. leaders truly cared about preventing more Ukrainian civilians from being killed in the war, they would support a negotiated compromise peace deal with Russia to end the war as soon as possible

What follows are some excerpts from a recent international media interview I did on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

NATO Provoked Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

While I believe Russia's invasion of Ukraine was an illegal act of aggression deserving of international condemnation and that Russia bears the most responsibility for the war, U.S. leaders are deluding themselves if they believe that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was not provoked by NATO expansion from 1999 to the present most recently by Biden’s strategic partnership which he signed with Ukraine this past November. If NATO had never expanded eastward, there would be no issues of conflict between Russia and NATO.

Biden Could Have Prevented the War

Even if it had, if President Biden had simply admitted the ‘open secret’ that Ukraine would never be admitted to NATO because France and Germany would never agree to it and it didn’t meet the requirements for admission and then provided a written guarantee to Russian President Putin that NATO would never be expanded eastward into the former Soviet Union, then I do not believe that Russia would have invaded Ukraine. Biden was offered the opportunity by Russia to choose peace but he deliberately chose war in Ukraine instead, perhaps in the belief that Russia would not invade if he refused to close NATO’s much overrated “Open Door” policy.

U.S. leaders are loathe to accept the fact that the unnecessary war in Ukraine represents a failure of their own policies. In retrospect, inviting Russia to join NATO after the Cold War to form a pan-European collective security organization would have been a better course of action from a U.S. national security perspective that likely would have prevented the Russian Federation from allying with the People’s Republic of China altogether. That is the subject of a new article I am writing for the National Interest entitled “How U.S. Could Have Avoided Losing the Peace After its Cold War Victory”.

Russian War Aims Are Limited

When Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, I predicted that his objective was to invade and occupy most of the country to affect regime change but his actions in withdrawing Russian troops from northern and northeastern Ukraine and committing only a fraction of the Russian armed forces to the fight have proved Russia’s aims are much more limited than U.S. intelligence previously assessed. The Ukrainian government has claimed that  24,600 civilians have been killed since the Russian invasion began which is very lamentable. However, Putin has shown surprising restraint in refraining from using Russia’s powerful arsenal of unconventional weapons, which likely would have greatly increased the Ukrainian civilian death toll, to defeat the Ukrainians more quickly or mobilizing its army to occupy most of Ukraine. I strongly condemn any and all war crimes which have been committed during this war by both Russia and Ukraine. I have also been highly critical of U.S. leaders who have given Ukraine a blank check of U.S. weapon shipments contrary to US national interests. Russia’s claims that Ukraine is led by Nazis have no basis in reality given the fact that President Zelensky himself is a Jew. However, Ukraine’s Azov Regiment is believed to be a neo-Nazi, white nationalist militia and the Western Powers should not be arming it.

Ukrainian Victory in the War is Highly Unlikely

The Biden administration has no end game in providing arms to Ukraine and no definition of victory short of expelling Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. U.S. leaders have deluded themselves into believing that Ukraine can defeat Russia even though there is no real chance of that happening. Russia is likely to win the war no matter how long it takes because Putin has declared the war in Ukraine to be an existential crisis which he is willing to do whatever it takes to win it.

U.S. and Ukrainian National Security Interests are Diametrically Opposed to Each Other

In his last book “Beyond Peace”, President Richard Nixon wrote that it was important that we encourage a peaceful partnership between Russia and Ukraine and that we not take sides in any Russo-Ukrainian conflict. I agree.

Here in the U.S., our liberal mainsteam media reports only one side of the war—the Ukrainian side. No one is allowed to talk about the Russian viewpoint of the war or else they are hysterically shouted down by the left as ‘shills for Putin’ even though virtually no one actually supports Russia. Our leaders fail to understand that Zelensky’s main objective to embroil the U.S. and NATO in a direct shooting war with Russia and to start World War III, which is the polar opposite of the US national security interest. Instead, they are trying to put Ukraine’s national interests above the national security interest of their own country and are acting like Ukrainian puppets with Zelensky pulling their strings.

Americans Strongly Oppose War with Russia

While U.S. leaders paint Russia as an enemy, most American citizens support better relations with Moscow.  Despite constant bombardment to Ukrainian propaganda on TV, a recent poll shows that only 38% of Americans support Biden's policy of sending tens of billions of dollars in arms to Ukraine. While US leaders say arming Ukraine is their top priority, Ukraine is not even in the top ten issues of concern for Americans. The same poll found that a plurality of Americans say they are OK with Russia winning the war in Ukraine and oppose removing Putin from power while 53% of Americans also believe it's more important for Biden to be removed from power than for Putin to be ousted. In addition, 53% of Americans think US sanctions on Russia are doing more harm to the US economy than is doing to the Russian economy. I believe they are correct. What this shows that President Biden and about 85% of members of Congress are completely out of touch with the majority of their constituents on this important issue.

U.S. Leaders Oppose a Direct Military Conflict with Russia

However, only one member of Congress supported a bill that would given the President authority to send U.S. troops to Ukraine if Russia were to use WMD in Ukraine which tells me that not even the U.S. Congress supports a direct shooting war with Russia. Accordingly, it is clear that in U.S. leadership circles that support for a direct military conflict between the US and Russia is virtually non-existent. Everyone here in America understands that would mean World War III and that such a war would likely escalate to the nuclear levels costing tens if not hundreds of millions of innocent lives.

If Finland & Sweden Join NATO, It Will Not Make Them More Secure

Quite the contrary, it will likely result in Russia deploying nuclear weapons closer to their borders just as they have threatened to do. The West is learning all the wrong lessons from the war in Ukraine. Russia didn’t invade Ukraine because it was not a NATO member. It invaded Ukraine to prevent it from becoming a NATO member. What Putin is seeking are neutral buffer states to separate Russia from NATO to ensure its security. In the event a war breaks out between Russia and NATO, I don’t think Russia will hold back from using its most powerful weapons, as it has done in Ukraine, and all NATO members are at risk of being targeted. That said, I don’t believe Russia will take military action against Finland or Sweden if they were to join NATO. In any case, reports indicate that Turkey is likely to vote against their becoming NATO members and due to the fact that NATO requires a unanimous vote for new members to join, it is unlikely that their membership applications will be approved.

Providing Military Aid to Ukraine Will Greatly Increase Ukrainian Death Toll

If U.S. leaders truly cared about Ukrainian civilians being killed in the war they would support a negotiated compromise peace deal to end the war as soon as possible rather than declare their policy is to prolong the war as long as possible to weaken Russia and in the process get many times more Ukrainians killed unnecessarily than the 24,600 civilians that the Ukrainian government has stated have been killed thus far. At this point, I believe the best way for the U.S. to support Ukraine is to support a negotiated peace and an immediate end to the war.

What Would a Compromise Peace Agreement Look Like?

The U.S. must not be the policeman of the world but rather it must return to being the peacemaker of the world as it was before it entered the First World War. I am calling on President Biden to immediately suspend all lethal military aid to Ukraine in exchange for a Russian cease fire to help incentivize both parties to negotiate such a compromise peace agreement which once final could be followed by U.S. lifting of all new sanctions on Russia and normalization of U.S. diplomatic and trade relations with Moscow.

Such an agreement could be based on the following provisions:

·         A Ukrainian declaration of permanent neutrality guaranteed by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council

·         Recognition of Crimea’s reunification with the Russia Federation

·         Russian military withdrawal from all of Ukraine except for that part of the Donbass which Russia currently occupies

·         Donbass would hold a referendum to vote on the question of whether to become independent or not.

·         All NATO arms shipments to Ukraine would be permanently suspended and the U.S. would pledge to never allow Ukraine to join NATO unless Russia agreed to join it first.

An agreement along these lines would serve to ensure Ukrainian independence and avert the increasing threat of World War III with Russia. We could then conclude a mutual security agreement based at least in part on the one proposed by Russia in December in which both the U.S., Western NATO countries and Russia agree to keep their military forces out of Eastern Europe including Belarus and Ukraine, returning NATO to its pre-2016 status quo.

The Nuclear Superpowers Must Peacefully Co-Exist

Russia and NATO are adversaries only because the policies pursued by President Biden and other NATO leaders like Prime Minister Boris Johnson have earned Russia’s enmity. However, there is no reason for our nations to be enemies and every reason for us to work together and cooperate in the interests of world peace given that even during the Cold War, the U.S. and the USSR were able to peacefully co-exist for nearly half a century.

A recent poll showed that 83% of them fear Russia might resort to nuclear weapons.  The leaders of Russia and the US have a special responsibility as leaders of the world's two strongest nuclear superpowers to promote peace not war. I believe that both Presidents Biden and Putin need to show greater commitment to the cause of peace.  I believe that President Biden wants to avoid a direct conflict with Russia and that President Putin wants to avoid a direct conflict with the U.S. as well. U.S. leaders just need to recognize Russia’s vital national security interest in keeping Ukraine as a neutral non-NATO member.

As a lifelong American patriot and nationalist, I have always supported what’s best for America no matter what our leaders claim they believe is in our national interests. At this point, I believe that the most important US national security imperative is peace with Russia and China and working to resolve all outstanding conflicts and issues in a peaceful manner. One of the ways we could achieve this would be a tripolar sphere of influence agreement in which each nuclear superpower agreed not to interfere militarily in each other’s sphere of influence.   

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former U.S. Army combat arms and H.Q. staff officer with an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He currently serves as Deputy Director of National Operations for the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security and is a contributor to Dr. Peter Pry’s new book Blackout Warfare. He also serves as the host of the Defend America Radio Show on KTALK AM 1640 and as Editor of “The Real War” newsletter at dpyne.substack.com. He may be reached at emptaskforce.ut@gmail.com