Security Guarantees and Peace in Ukraine | The American Spectator

As word leaks out about the latest round of Ukraine summitry, we find ourselves facing an unfamiliar feeling about the Ukraine war. That feeling is optimism, something that has been in short supply for a very long time. The takeaway from Monday’s meeting at the White House seems to be that President Trump and his European counterparts are ready to offer the real security guarantee that Ukraine needs as a starting point for peace negotiations. (RELATED: Trump, Putin, and Peace in Ukraine)

Specifically, the idea being floated is the offer of what’s being called “NATO-light,” substituting promises of security guarantees akin to NATO’s Article Five for actual NATO membership for Ukraine, which has long been the reddest of red lines for Vladimir Putin. Apparently, this idea came from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who is rapidly emerging, despite her country’s relative weakness, as one of the most consequential of European leaders. (RELATED: Meloni’s Italy: A Refreshing Crescendo to Brussels’ Dissonance)

NATO’s Article Five

Article Five, NATO’s “you attack me and you have to fight all of us” clause, has long been regarded as the gold standard of alliance protection. Certainly, Ukrainian leaders have chosen to view it this way. After all, throughout the Cold War, this was touted as the foundation of deterrence against a Soviet attempt to conquer Western Europe by force. Sadly, this was always merely a comfortable illusion, the kind of self-referential silliness so beloved of a certain class of diplomats and policy intellectuals, the ones who believe that words on paper are the only things that matter. (RELATED: The Kremlin Is Worried NATO Will Go After Putin’s Soft Underbelly)

However, Article Five never promised an actual armed response by all NATO members. It opens nicely, stating that an armed attack against any member shall be considered  “an attack against them all.” However, instead of mandating an armed response, it concludes by stating that the parties can take the actions they deem necessary, “including the use of armed force.” Nothing in this language, language incorporated into the treaty at the explicit behest of the United States, promised that, say, a Soviet attack on Norway would see U.S. Marines landing to fight in defense of Tromso or Narvik.

I’ve discussed this more than once in articles analyzing the weaknesses of NATO in its current form. These weaknesses, notably the divergence of national security interests between the traditional Western European powers and the Eastern European “frontline” states, have long called for reservations about Article Five guarantees. For present purposes, it suffices to note that the real NATO security guarantee was never a paper promise, but instead the placement of troops in harm’s way.

The U.S. guarantee, for example, consisted primarily of the presence of the Seventh Army in West Germany’s Fulda Gap. Any attempt by the Soviets to invade meant an immediate, large-scale clash between U.S. and Warsaw Pact forces, a war begun, a war that no American leader would have any choice but to pursue. The American people might have shrugged off a diplomat’s promise, but an attack on U.S. forces would have been met by a unifying righteous anger, akin to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Historical Security Guarantees

This, after all, is the history of security guarantees. The most notable historical example is the guarantee of Belgian neutrality prior to World War I. For centuries, the lands that became Belgium had been a conflict zone, a strategic pivot in European great power rivalries. Belgian independence in 1831 was followed in 1839 by a treaty guaranteeing the country’s neutrality. This all fell apart in 1914.

Desiring to deliver a quick knock-out blow to France, needing to bypass the heavily-defended border between Germany and France, the Germans struck through Belgium instead. This, in turn, brought the British into the war, and only superficially because of the U.K.’s obligations under the 1839 guarantee of Belgian neutrality. More fundamentally — much more fundamentally — the British government viewed the domination of the English Channel coastline by Germany as a completely unacceptable threat to Britain’s own security.

This, then, is what we should keep in mind as “security guarantees” receive further discussion in the coming days. As the Ukrainians already know, paper means nothing. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from the U.S., the U.K., and Russia, obviously amounted to nothing in 2014 and less than nothing in 2022. Neither the Budapest Memorandum nor the Minsk agreement in 2014 constituted a meaningful promise. Biden’s “minor incursion” invitation to Putin on the eve of the 2022 invasion demonstrated just how unserious these guarantees were. (RELATED: The Biden Trap)

Ironically, for all the grief directed at Donald Trump for failing to support Ukraine, his first administration provided significant anti-tank weaponry, overturning Obama’s “no lethal aid” policy. And for all the criticism aimed at the new Trump Administration’s February halt to arms aid, the Biden administration played its own share of games with aid packages and restrictions on weapons provided.

European support for Ukraine, while couched in expansive, protecting “democracy and the rule of international law” terms, has been something much less than the apparent promise of an Article Five guarantee. Granted, much of this simply reflects the parlous condition of NATO’s own military establishments, none of them fit for purpose when it comes to a major land war, nor capable of providing large-scale military assistance to Ukraine, nor offering troops to protect NATO’s own frontline states. Even if Britain or France, or Germany finally step up to Trump’s demands for greater military expenditure, it will be a long time before this translates into sufficiently enhanced capabilities.

Ukraine’s NATO-light Guarantee

So what, then, are we to make of a peace conditional upon “security guarantees”? Signatures on an Article Five-like guarantee are at least worth having — after all, if a country refuses to even make a paper promise, there’s no chance that it will take real action. British, French, German, and Italian troops along a demilitarized zone in Ukraine would count for more, not in terms of stopping a renewed Russian attack — at least not with the countries’ current capabilities — but because such “tripwires” might make a difference. With German soldiers dying in combat, for example, the German government might finally quit facilitating Russian gas exports. (RELATED: Europe’s Energy Suicide: Brussels Trades Industry for Ideology)

In any event, none of these countries is currently capable of providing sustainable logistical support for even relatively small numbers of troops, nor are they capable of providing the kind of intelligence capabilities necessary to assure operational effectiveness. Only the U.S. can do this at present, and an understanding of this fundamental truth may be part of Trump’s “we’ll see” response to the question of direct U.S. involvement in any peacekeeping alignment. His carefully phrased suggestion that this would involve “coordination,” rather than “boots on the ground,” should be read in this light.

Conditions for Peace

Still, the lasting peace that Trump so clearly desires can only come about if Ukraine can confidently deter renewed Russian aggression. For this to happen, two conditions must be fulfilled. First, even if Ukraine gives up territory, the lines drawn must be tactically defensible and must preserve the fortified regions created over the last three years along the lines of contact.

Some concessions are obvious, including the Crimea and those parts of the Donbas that Russia already controls. There are no credible scenarios that see these returned to Ukraine in the foreseeable future, as sad as that may be. But the Russians should not be given a tactical advantage that they couldn’t win on the ground through three plus years of fighting. And it should be clear that a new invasion would promise significant casualties. This, by the way, is one of the lessons of the “frozen” peace on the Korean peninsula. (RELATED: Trump Has Putin Where He Wants Him)

The second condition, of course, is that Ukraine be provided with weapons sufficient to inflict such casualties in the event that Putin chooses to break the peace. But there is more. If Putin is to be effectively deterred, then Ukraine needs weapons capable of inflicting more pain than Russia is prepared to suffer. This means weapons capable of striking deep into Russia, supplied without the inane restrictions imposed over the years by the Biden administration. The next time Russia attacks, it shouldn’t be simply Kyiv or Kharkiv held in the balance, but also Moscow. Here again, the Korean example is instructive.

One might take this a step further. Instead of assuming that a handful of British or French or German soldiers constitute an effective deterrent, make sure that the NATO frontline states are provided with the capacity to punish Russian aggression, and make them formally part of any NATO-light guarantees to Ukraine. I’ve discussed this in some detail with respect to the Trump administration’s provision of HIMARS rocket systems to the Baltic states, but this could be reinforced, providing a deterrent to Russian adventurism along the Baltic shores, and also a potential enhancement to aggression against Ukraine. (RELATED: Are We on the Verge of World War III?)

All of this, of course, begs the further question, namely, what is Putin’s price for peace? In its present form, his price remains too high for achieving any kind of stable long-term solution. For all the emollient words uttered in the aftermath of the meeting in Alaska, it may be necessary to further test his pain threshold. After all, it was only after Trump threatened such pain that Putin chose to ask for this meeting. For all the talk of “Putin got what he wanted,” the entire affair played out against the backdrop of increased sanctions, pressure on Russia’s Indian clients, and even veiled military threats, such as the unusually publicized movement of two U.S. submarines, or even the B-2 flyover — after the Iran mission, B-2s carry a weighty symbolism.

We stand at a pivotal moment, a moment when Donald Trump’s long-sought desire to bring peace to Ukraine might — I stress might — find fulfillment. Instead of succumbing to our fears, perhaps it’s the moment to think big and act accordingly.

READ MORE from Jim McGee:

Sweeney, Mamdani, and the American Diner Behind the Bolshoi

Trump, Putin, and Peace in Ukraine

What Is America’s Role in Africa?

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal. The Zebras from Minsk find the Reprisal Team fighting against an alliance of Chinese and Russian-backed terrorists, brutal child traffickers, and a corrupt anti-American billionaire, racing against time to take down a conspiracy that ranges from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.