History will likely look back on the three-year anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine war and note that it was the beginning of the end in real terms. After the sensationalized public breakdown between Presidents Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office, an off-the-rails meeting now witnessed and commented on endlessly the world over, it is difficult to imagine the conflict on the Eastern front of Ukraine is going to just continue on as before. True, some leaders across Western Europe are attempting to shore up their own support of Ukraine in the face of this apparent downturn of American assistance. But it seems doubtful that these efforts could ever measure up to the previous aid and expertise given to Kiev over the past three years. While most Western commentators have discussed how disheartening and disappointing the meeting was (where both Trump and Vice President Vance interrupted, cut off, and dismissed most of the comments Zelensky tried to get into the conversation), there are important things for political and intelligence analysts to consider that run counter to the satirical comedy sketches now being shown all across America.
Given the general position of the United States on Russian-Ukrainian relations going all the way back to the Maidan Revolution over a decade ago, it is understandable why many on the left see the parody sketches mocking Trump as factual. But pushing parody as fact does not automatically make it so. In this case, it would be a mistake to simply label the Oval Office event as “proof” that Trump is in the back pocket of Putin or that the current resident of the White House is a compromised asset of the Russian Federation. Indeed, the alternative perspectives are still relevant, as they allow the US maneuverability in ending the war.
As much as Trump does not want to limit the defense industry or the national security industrial complex in America, the Ukraine conflict does in fact work against his bigger stated principle of not letting the United States remain in “useless” foreign wars, let alone becoming more deeply entrenched in a meatgrinder stalemate with worsening escalations. It seems as if Trump feels the maximum amount of juice has already been squeezed from this war lemon and that it is time to pull back and end it. There is no doubt these past three years have been incredibly advantageous to the American defense weapons manufacturers as well as to all those who proscribe to the more hawkish perspective of keeping Russia weakened. Make no mistake: military support of Ukraine has been a big “double bonus” for the American military industrial complex. It got paid for supplying the weapon packages, which then created the need to replenish those same weapons systems so as to keep America safe in the future.
Perhaps even more powerful, and often ignored in American analyst circles, is the fact that this has been the best of all proxy wars in American history: not only did the United States get to openly supply, equip, and train the Ukrainian military to kill Russian soldiers and destroy Russian military equipment, inarguably leading to a weakening of Russian military strength and its ability to project Russian power globally, but it got to do these things with no political or military repercussions at all for American soldiers. Putin, for whatever reason, has chosen to not escalate the conflict beyond the borders of Ukraine nor has he increased the lethality for prosecuting the war (ie, he has not used tactical nuclear weapons). In addition, he has not publicly called out the United States for its supporting efforts as justification for taking the conflict to the front door of America, making American targets anywhere in the world legitimate objectives. When talking privately with the American military industrial complex, off the record, there are admissions that the Ukraine conflict has quite literally been a “no lose” situation for America: kill as many Russian soldiers as you like with no American casualties while triggering one of the single biggest economic boom periods in the history of American defense.
But this is where Trump’s bigger principle of getting out of wars rather than staying in them comes to loggerheads with current reality: he has stated that there is no point in continuing the Ukraine war because it has no larger strategic purpose. Since he accepts the facts on the ground of Russia not actually moving beyond Ukrainian borders (despite the shrill paranoia from Western Europe), Trump feels Ukraine should consider itself lucky with just losing that small ethnically-Russian eastern border and move on from the hopeless conflict and still be recognized as a sovereign independent nation. That Zelensky came to Washington thinking he could “rearrange” the Ukrainian minerals deal from one of repayment for services rendered (the Trump understanding of the initiative) to a continuation of war with American support perhaps shows how he believed too fully in all the rose petals thrown at his feet during his constant tours of Western Europe. Trump, above all else, likes to back “winners.” He has never seen Ukraine as the winner in this war. The inevitable result was always going to be Russia “winning” in the sense that Ukraine would never be able to beat back the Russian military on its own. Combine this with the Trump fever passion for never wanting to be a president that allows American involvement in “wars we don’t belong in” and the Oval Office fight becomes almost logical rather than surprising.
Solidifying all this further is a deeper philosophical position: both Trump and Putin understand the concept of power similarly and their worldviews of how it is factually used around the globe are aligned. Very little attention is given to this important symmetry. Perhaps it is because the left in America does not consider Trump capable of holding deep thoughts, but it is also undoubtedly because America refuses to concede any legitimacy to beliefs held by Putin. These conceits are a hindrance to American national security analysis, as this alignment between the two men is incredibly important in the Ukrainian case.
Trump and Putin both believe in a very old-school classical realist position of power. Namely, what you are capable of enacting and holding is allowable. International law, human rights conventions, territorial integrity, and national sovereignty are all relevant concepts of modern 20th and 21st century global affairs, but for Trump and Putin they are not immutable axioms when measured against individual considerations of national security and the ability to formally project power. Ukraine of course has the right to exist and has the right to be recognized as independent. But its interests and their pursuit are not of equal value and importance as Russian interests. Why? Because for Putin and Trump, Russia is more powerful and can project that power more forcefully. What’s more, if one listens to the arguments made by Russian powerbrokers over the last decade and can suspend the automatic American bias to dismiss all things Russian as illegitimate, Russia has consistently maintained the diplomatic drumbeat that Ukraine is never going to be allowed out of the “Russian sphere of influence.” Its reasoning for that is multi-layered and multi-pronged and has been spoken about on the Russian side endlessly. That reasoning is just never allowed any space within the West. Because the West does not want Russia relevant. It wants Russia weak. But Trump and Putin both accept this power conceptualization of a demure Ukraine as realistic and, relatively speaking, de facto proper as the true norm for how powerful states behave in the field, including America.
You can see this by how Trump speaks about Mexico and Canada: the North American space is always going to be a US neighborhood, wielded over by American power, where American interests will always be the highest priority. This is sometimes voiced clumsily by Trump but it does not take away from the core power beliefs: smaller countries exist, but they exist to a lesser relevance when compared to a much more powerful neighbor in real terms. This double-standard positioning can be seen in many different places all over the world today: Congo, South Sudan, Nigeria, Gaza, Yemen, Myanmar, just to name half a dozen where there are smaller populations being destroyed by more powerful populations with little to nothing being done about it except verbal grandstanding by the United States. Trump and Putin recognize that America has always behaved this way and they both accept it. But Putin is the one who has continuously called the US out for its “moral posturing,” ie, making the claim that its projection of power is somehow good for the global community and therefore not really American power projection at all.
Putin has always rejected this “American interests are global interests” argument out of hand and stated that if it is ok for America to do it because it has the power to do so, then it is ok for Russia as well. It wasn’t in Russian interests to take action when the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, and Czechia entered NATO. But from the very beginning, Putin warned about severe consequences if Ukraine was recruited. The fact that America rejected this is not,to Putin, an argument of moral right vs. evil. Rather, it is just the realist game of diplomatic statecraft. America may have taken Putin’s warnings about Ukraine as mere bluff; but the last three years have shown how badly America miscalculated on that. Incredulously, Russia has been fairly tolerant of that miscalculation, given American action has resulted in so much Russian death. Put bluntly, some on the Russian side see the devastating losses as almost worthwhile: there is a sort of “Cold War comfort” in this as it de facto acknowledges Russia’s rightful place back on the world stage as a military and political player, something that was ripped from it in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Also, and perhaps most maddeningly for Western audiences, Trump is clearly convinced that the state of the Ukraine conflict would be far worse if not for Putin showing restraint. Many in the West will do a spit take reading that sentence. But for Trump there is clear evidence, even ignoring the aforementioned refusal to go beyond the borders of Ukraine, not taking aim at American targets abroad, or introducing tactical nuclear weapons (although these three reasons alone would have triggered diplomatic negotiations in many other conflicts around the globe, just not when it’s Russia). Trump also sees that this raging conflict has inexplicably not resulted in the total destruction of beautiful Kiev. If one wants to understand why that might have impact on Trump, then just Google image “Gaza” to see what normally happens in war when a major power decides to do a full-scale invasion of a lesser power.
Now Google image “downtown Kiev” and compare. Kiev remains historically gorgeous. Its theaters, cathedrals, parks, and monuments all stand unscathed. One might try to argue this is because Russian military capability is on par with The Three Stooges or Monty Python, but that would be wrong. Kiev stands simply because Putin does not want it destroyed, because he sees those items of historical, religious, and cultural relevance for Russians as much as Ukrainians. Trump sees this restraint and acknowledges it as relevant where the rest of the West does not.
Finally, one more example of Putin restraint is the mere fact that President Zelensky is still breathing. When one considers just how much Zelensky’s presidency has consisted of him flying all over the world to shore up support and military aid, it is somewhat convenient to think he has just been lucky in avoiding an accident. If you want to know how lucky his flying has been, then just go back and consider a certain Mr. Prigozhin. Thus, Zelensky’s very existence in and of itself is yet more proof to Trump that Putin has shown a restraint that in other contexts would lead America to push for negotiations and diplomacy. But in his mind because it is Russia and because he has not been President these last three years, America has not. Continuing the Cold War in a new form or propping up proxy wars just in order to kill Russians holds little appeal for Trump and it contradicts how he views the principle of power, how he wants to see power projected by America globally, and how he wants to be seen as President of the United States. As such, the Oval Office incident was not so much Putin pulling his strings as Trump saying to Zelensky, “you’re fired.” Only time will tell if this truly does become recognized by historians as the tipping point for the end of the Ukraine war. My odds say that it does.
