Similarly, Jennifer Kavanagh of Defense Priorities, while praising the administration’s devotion to finding peace even amid “unfair criticism,” said the war was too complex to be resolved “with a few high-level summits.” Rather, “a sustained process for working through the issues at the core of the conflict is needed.” Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute said the Trump administration had complicated matters by failing “to unify its negotiating team.”
The experts pointed to Europe as an obstacle to the Trump administration’s peace efforts. Ashford said that most European capitals believe Ukraine can get a better deal later (so it should resist an ugly deal now). Kavanagh detected a more cynical motivation in Europe’s strategic thinking around Ukraine. “Europe is happy to see the war continue since it gives more time for them to rearm,” she said, referring to European efforts to build forces in anticipation of U.S. retrenchment and escalating Russian revanchism.
Ashford identified an even more fundamental dispute: “Russia still does not recognize Ukraine as a fully sovereign country, and Ukraine wants its territory back, along with the freedom to pursue its own foreign policy.” Kavanagh assessed that Moscow, because of its battlefield advantages, isn’t ready to stop fighting, while Kiev isn’t ready to do so since it sees the conflict as “existential” and doesn’t trust that a peace deal will hold.
Still, the experts did not discount the possibility of peace. Kavanagh said Washington lacks the leverage to force Kiev and Moscow to make a deal, but that the war likely will end “in the next year or so,” and possibly in the spring. Importantly, Kavanagh assessed that getting to peace in the next few months would require Washington to “exert some pressure” on Kiev “even if it makes the settlement seem imposed.”
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