By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Can Trump Reach Real Settlements in Ukraine and Gaza?

Ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is at the top of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda, and many expect the new administration to change American policy in both. It may well try to. But unless Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu play along, Trump could easily find himself shifting back toward the Biden administration’s approach in both theaters—because U.S. interests and geopolitical realities don’t change with the election returns.

Popular discussion often approaches war through the prisms of morality or law or justice. Beneath all of these, however, lie interest and power. Every war begins with differing views on the belligerents’ relative power, as each side thinks itself strong enough to achieve important goals by fighting. As the battlefield tests their relative strength, the situation becomes clearer and views converge. When both sides agree on their relative power, having marked their ambitions to market, the war’s endgame begins.

In both Ukraine and Gaza, many things have become clearer over time: how much military and economic potential the belligerent coalitions have, how easily that potential can be transformed into usable power, how likely that power is to be deployed in the field, and what it can and can’t accomplish there. This new clarity could help produce settlements of both wars in the coming year, based on realistic assessments of which objectives each side cares most about and can afford. Whether the settlements last, however—whether they produce peace rather than merely a pause in fighting—will depend on the details.

The United States has three major interests in the European struggle: saving Ukraine, protecting Europe, and checking Russia. A plausible settlement now might be able to achieve solid if limited results in all three areas—as long as postwar Ukraine gets adequate security guarantees and financial support.

A Ukrainian soldier firing a mortar toward Russian troops in Kharkiv, Ukraine, January 2025

The United States also has three major interests in the Middle Eastern conflict: protecting Israel, checking Iran, and saving the possibility of Palestine. Achieving the first two goals now seems possible, but the third—necessary for any long-term regional peace and stability—will be tougher to pull off. It will require going beyond the recent cease-fire agreement to pathways for eventually ending the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

The Trump administration should pursue peacemaking in both theaters, and it has a legitimate chance at not one but two Nobel Peace Prizes as it does so. But it needs to be wary since all the other players in the endgames have their agendas and will fight the peace as grimly as they have the wars.

 

Split the Difference

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 came as a shock primarily because of its scale and brazenness. Putin’s revanchist desires were no secret, but his willingness to launch a full-on war of conquest represented a new and grave challenge not just to his neighbor but to regional security and the global liberal order at large. The United States and Europe responded by keeping Kyiv in the fight and enabling it to push back and regain some lost territory. Then the struggle settled into a grinding war of attrition, with both sides spending enormous amounts of blood and treasure for minor changes in territory. Ukraine and its backers bet that at some point Putin would tire of the effort and decide to cut his losses. Instead, he hung on and doubled down, mortgaging the future of his country on a gamble that the other side’s will would break first. These days, Putin’s bet is looking good, and the question is what happens now.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to end the war quickly. Most presume this will involve efforts to secure a negotiated arrangement allowing each side to keep much of the territory it currently holds. (That’s the reason for the intense combat this fall and winter.) Ukraine and most of its supporters abhor this idea on the grounds that it would reward Russian aggression and let Russia illegally grab a significant chunk of Ukraine. They are correct, and this is not the sort of outcome many had hoped to see. Still, such a deal might now represent the least bad alternative plausibly available—and, carefully structured, it could satisfy all parties’ interests well enough to be acceptable.

What drove Russia to invade was not the threat created by NATO expansion but rather Ukraine’s steady shift toward the West in recent decades. The war was supposed to stop this movement and bring Ukraine back securely into vassal status, whether formally reincorporated into Russia proper or nominally independent with a puppet government in Kyiv beholden to Moscow. A settlement near current battle lines could split the difference, allowing Russia to retain de facto control of the eastern fifth of the country while allowing the rest to move on and pursue its own independent destiny. The key is making sure that rump Ukraine has the security and aid to live securely after the fighting stops rather than just sputtering along until renewed Russian attacks finish it off a few years later. These concerns could be addressed with strong post-settlement security guarantees, and the Trump administration should insist on them. It would be a terrible irony if the same war that finally brought Finland into NATO resulted in the simultaneous Finlandization of another, larger Russian neighbor farther south.

This kind of settlement would leave Europe facing a militarized aggressor with a track record of successful conquest. But it would also buy time for a newly enlarged and energized NATO to rearm and prepare for the long haul. Moscow is hurting more than it lets on and will be in no position to attack other targets for a while. And by the time it regains its strength, NATO can easily be significantly stronger still, ensuring that deterrence continues to hold.

As for Russia, Putin would naturally proclaim such a settlement a great victory, but in truth, his “special military operation” would have cost his country dearly. More than half a million dead and wounded, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, relations with the West disrupted, and the country’s diplomatic and moral capital squandered, all for the privilege of becoming a garrison state and a Chinese satellite—history will consider this not a triumph but a disaster. Other potential aggressors will take heed, thus ultimately strengthening the liberal order rather than undermining it.

Given what is now known about the relative strength and commitment of all relevant parties, a settlement that ends the fighting and lifts the sanctions while seriously checking renewed Russian attacks and allowing a truly independent Ukraine to restart life would serve core U.S., European, and even Ukrainian interests—even if such a settlement ceded Russia practical control over conquered territory and allowed it to escape accountability for its aggression and crimes.

 

Good Bets?

Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, was also a shock less for its intentions than for its scale and success. It, too, posed a grave challenge not only to its target but to regional and global order. Israel went after the attackers and the United States provided support. When Hamas chose to go to ground inside Gaza and hide among its people, Israel followed it down, leveling the territory and its population to get at the enemy. As the costs and controversy of the fighting in Gaza increased, and as Israel clashed with Hezbollah and Iran, as well, the Biden administration tried to rein in its partner, getting it to accept an end to the fighting. But the Netanyahu government pressed on, defying all its critics and continuing to pound its foes, betting that a brutal demonstration of effective hard power would more than compensate for a loss of soft power—and within its brutal region, might even constitute its own form of soft power, as well. These days, that bet is looking good, too.

In Gaza, Israel has devastated Hamas, rendering the group incapable of posing a major security threat for the foreseeable future. In Lebanon, it has decimated Hezbollah, wiping out its leadership, destroying its weapons, and greatly reducing the threat to Israel’s north. Israel has killed high-level Iranian officials operating abroad, knocked out air defenses inside Iran, and successfully defended against Iran’s return volley, demonstrating its ability and willingness to strike Tehran again at will whenever it chooses. And the sudden fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria added yet another blow to the Islamic Republic, which is in its weakest position in years. All this has reshaped the balance of power in the region, establishing Israeli dominance and significantly containing Iran’s influence—a situation that could be locked in and enhanced by a durable settlement to the current fighting.

Last week’s cease-fire in Gaza, involving an end to the fighting and the return of the remaining hostages, is a crucial first step in that process. But unless other steps follow, the embers of the conflict will flare up again soon. The challenge now is therefore to sustain the cease-fire and add an arrangement stabilizing postwar Gaza with the contribution of countries from North Africa, the Levant, and the Gulf. That, in turn, could pave the way for a deal normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would be a true game-changer for the region as a whole.

The Biden administration tried hard to get this sequence going in 2024. But it had trouble doing so because Hamas was intransigent and because the Israeli concessions required in the later rounds of the process would require Netanyahu to break with the most extreme parts of his current political coalition, something he was loath to do. Having held out for the arrival of a new, more friendly administration in Washington, however, the Israeli leader finally agreed to move forward, and the fruits of the Biden administration’s efforts are starting to fall into the Trump administration’s lap.

 

Embers of Future War

Both of the broad settlements described above would be Nobel-worthy, and the Trump administration would do well to pursue them. Plausible arrangements can now be worked out to shut down the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East and move toward new structures of regional security. The critical question is whether Russia and Israel want that.

A deal that allows Russia to get sanctions lifted and keep control of most of the Donbas and Crimea while letting the rest of Ukraine go should be acceptable to Moscow—unless what Moscow always really wanted out of the war was complete submission. During the negotiations over a settlement, it might demand not just outright control over the fifth of Ukrainian territory it has conquered but indirect control over the rest, as well. If it does that, the United States and Europe will have to choose between accepting those terms—essentially, defeat—or continuing to support Ukraine in holding out against Russian attacks. The most significant obstacle to a deal, in other words, may be the extent of Putin’s demands on postwar Kyiv. And if Russia is unyielding and the Trump administration unwilling to accept humiliation, the White House could find itself sticking with the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy for much longer than it expects. In fact, this is probably the likeliest outcome this year, and not the worst—for it would be better than a bad deal on Moscow’s terms.

In Gaza, meanwhile, a settlement that leads to durable postwar stability there, a new round of peace talks, and a U.S.-Israeli-Saudi coalition enabling the effective containment of Iran would be a diplomatic and strategic coup for all involved. But getting there, even with the recent cease-fire, will require Kissingerian negotiating heroics and difficult compromises from all the parties. Hard-liners in Netanyahu’s cabinet, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have already voiced strenuous opposition to giving Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza any path toward eventual self-determination and independence, and yet holding out hope for such a path is likely to be necessary for any broader regional peace deal. So the question will eventually become how large and durable a settlement wants to make, and how much he is personally willing to risk for it. And Netanyahu supposes he chooses not to go big, scorching real peacemaking. In that case, the Trump administration may yet again find itself adopting a more Biden-like policy toward Israel than many expect—because without postwar progress toward decolonization of the occupied territories, the entire Gaza operation will end up having been just one more massive, futile exercise in what the Israelis call “mowing the lawn.”

In Ukraine and Gaza, the wars’ endgames may be approaching. Plausible settlements are available that could acceptably serve the belligerents’ core interests—at least better than continued fighting would. What remains to be seen is whether the politicians in charge want to grasp the nettles in peace or choose instead to continue gambling for resurrection on the battlefield.

 

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