The Peace that Guarantees War

There are moments when a nation must decide whether it wishes to see or to will its own blindness. This is one of them. The 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine—leaked in outline, circulating Washington now with a surreal air of normalcy—would be the most consequential document produced by an American politician in decades, except that it was clearly written by a Russian. It is not a peace plan. It is not even an armistice plan. It is a Russian rearmament plan, and its adoption would mark the most craven betrayal of an allied nation since the 1930s.

To anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Russian strategic culture, twentieth-century European history, or the mechanics of deterrence, it’s obvious that this instrument contains the seeds of a much greater conflagration—one that will not spare the United States. Yet there’s been almost no public outcry in America, further evidence that we have lost the capacity to grasp the scale of the danger gathering on the horizon.

Let me attempt to restore that sense of scale. The essential features of the plan are now clear. Russia keeps Crimea, with its water, land, and rail logistics secured. Ukraine cedes all of Donetsk and Luhansk—with their industry, manpower, and mining—and gives Moscow a fortified land bridge to Crimea. The remaining front lines would be frozen in place. Kyiv would hand over a vast swathe of territory it now controls, territory that Russia has been unable to conquer despite four years of war, four years in which wave after wave of Russian men have been mown down, shredded up, and left to rot in no-man’s-land. It puts immediate demobilization pressure on Ukraine. Above all, Russia gets the single most important resource it now lacks: time.

This plan is exactly what Russia was hoping for in 2022, when its offensive stalled. Ukraine will be permanently barred from joining NATO; NATO will be barred from further expansion. Ukraine will be required to gut its armed forces. It will not be allowed to possess weapons that could reach Russia. Russia will not be required to shed any of its allies nor reduce any aspect of its military force. No Western troops or long-term deployments will be allowed—ever—on Ukrainian soil, even though only last month, encouraged by Trump, Europeans agreed that in the event of a truce, they would send troops to secure it, and Trump grandly ...