It seems like the third time wasn’t the charm. President Trump spoke to President Vladimir Putin of Russia on the phone on Monday, but the call — the third between the leaders since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s second term — appeared to yield as little as have the recent months of complex, fruitless negotiations designed to end the three-year war in Ukraine.
The Trump administration is frustrated, both with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has proved determined to insist on a durable peace that does not leave his country vulnerable to a rested and rearmed Russia, and Mr. Putin, who has proved evasive even on the question of whether he wants the war to end. Having promised voters a quick deal, Mr. Trump has “grown weary,” a White House press secretary said, and members of his administration have repeatedly threatened to move on.
That threat is based on the premise that the war in Ukraine is fundamentally Europe’s war. In this view, how it ends will naturally affect Europe — that’s why Europe should be paying for it — and America’s involvement is either charitable or transactional, rather than driven by America’s own self-interest. As Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social in February, “this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”
But the war is not as far away as Mr. Trump thinks, and how it ends matters for Americans. Mr. Putin’s long-term objectives clearly go beyond Ukraine, as he seeks to relitigate the post-Cold War order in Europe — a feat he believes would enable him to restore Russian power and Moscow’s ability to shape global outcomes. Mr. Putin’s view is zero-sum: He believes he can only increase Russia’s global influence by reducing America’s. What’s more, a negotiated peace that emboldens Russia would leave Europe, one of America’s largest trading partners, vulnerable, and could deepen other challenges that the United States is already facing around the world.
The Trump administration therefore faces a choice: It can stand up to the Kremlin now, in Ukraine, or later. But the cost for the United States of waiting will only rise.
Just before sending Russian tanks across the border into Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow issued a set of demands that included a significant roll back of NATO borders. The Kremlin has clearly and repeatedly signaled that it aims to restore Russia as a global power and that doing so starts in Europe. After the tacit acceptance of each previous intervention — the war in Georgia in 2008, Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and its deployment of troops into Syria in 2015 — Mr. Putin grew more brazen. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine was the result. Abandoning the peace process in Ukraine now will not make it any easier or cheaper to resist Russia.
Moscow is already preparing the ground for a future conflict in Europe. Russia has significantly ramped up its use of sabotage, the weaponization of migrants and assassination plots. It’s suspected of cyberattacks and other targeted advances on critical infrastructure, including critical undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. The goal of these tactics is to degrade Europe’s ability to counter Russia and convince Europeans that it’s too hard and costly to stand up to the Kremlin. Moscow’s recent rhetoric, which has become more bellicose in its portrayal of Europe as its main enemy and a “war party,” reflects these intentions.
At the same time, the Trump administration has repeatedly indicated that it wants America to play less of a role in European security. In February, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, told U.S. allies that the United States would no longer prioritize Europe. The Pentagon is reviewing its military deployments around the world and reportedly contemplating reducing its presence in Eastern Europe, which could leave the countries along NATO’s eastern flank vulnerable. European countries are rapidly increasing their own military spending, but it will take time to ramp up their capabilities.
That would be time that Mr. Putin, with his economy already on a war footing and his defense industrial base in overdrive, could see as a closing window of opportunity.
America would not escape another, potentially larger conflict in Europe unscathed. The economies of Europe and America are deeply integrated. When goods, services and investment are included, Europe is America’s largest trading partner, the largest market for American products and a force multiplier for American power. Instability across the Atlantic will hurt the United States.
Some members of the Trump administration may not subscribe to the idea that its approach to Ukraine will make other adversaries like China bolder. But even setting aside that very real risk, a negotiated peace that leaves Ukraine vulnerable and Russia emboldened could increase the global challenges Washington faces. Russia has supported groups across the Sahel region of Africa, in Sudan and Yemen, including the Houthi militias who have attacked U.S. vessels in the Red Sea and disrupted global shipping. A deal in Ukraine that, for example, limits the capacity of Ukraine’s military would free up Russia to redirect its military’s energies to ramping up such destabilizing operations, almost certainly hurting American interests.
Likewise, an emboldened Russia would be a more potent partner for China, Iran and North Korea, breathing wind into the sails of an axis of upheaval that has coalesced in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The weapons Russia has provided to these countries in return for their support in Ukraine has made each a more potent fighting force, while their collaboration reduces the potency of tools like sanctions that Washington and its partners can use to confront them. Moscow has shown increased political support, for example, for China’s ambitions vis-à-vis Taiwan, and its military coordination with Beijing has contributed to China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
Mr. Putin knows Mr. Trump will leave office. The Russian media portrays Mr. Trump as a pragmatist, a leader who can cut a face-saving deal and provide relief to a Russian economy that is showing strain. But few in Moscow believe that a single president can undo decades of U.S. foreign policy animus toward Russia. The Kremlin understands that many, even a majority, of people in the American government and public have hostile views of Russia and would either thwart Mr. Trump’s plans or, at the end of his term, simply reverse them. Mr. Putin will expect Russia to once again find itself in opposition to the United States. That means Moscow will look to exploit this moment to make gains that would be difficult for a future U.S. president to reverse, like a subjugated Ukraine, or the ability to undermine the credibility of NATO’s commitment to collective defense.
The war in Ukraine may be being fought across an ocean, but if the Trump administration chooses not to invest in resisting Russia now, Americans will pay a greater cost down the line.
Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former senior intelligence officer focused on Russia.
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