How the Ukraine War Ends Matters for America

Opinion|Ukraine Is Europe’s War. Isn’t It?

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.