Is it possible to reconcile increased international support for Ukraine with Donald Trump’s plan to end the war? At their recent meeting in London, Christopher Luxon and his British counterpart Keir Starmer seemed to think so.
Starmer thanked New Zealand for its “support” for a “coalition of the willing” that would safeguard the implementation of a potential peace deal concluded by the Trump administration.
But unless something drastically changes in the near future, all the signs point to the US president envisaging a Ukraine peace settlement on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s terms.
According to that view, peace can only be achieved if Ukraine is prepared to accept that territories wholly or partially annexed by Russia now belong to Moscow.
In 2014, Russia seized Crimea on the Black Sea. Following the illegal 2022 invasion, Russia claimed four parts of eastern and southern Ukraine as its own – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and the Zaporizhzhia region.
At the same time, Trump’s peace deal includes a provision that rules out NATO membership for Ukraine. This meets a key Russian demand that seeks to deny Ukraine’s sovereign right to choose its own security arrangements.
According to Trump, Putin’s major concession is the promise that Russia will not annex the rest of Ukraine – something Moscow has been trying to do for the past three years.
To accept this, however, liberal democracies such as New Zealand and Britain would be tacitly signalling they share common values and interests with the Trump administration and its apparent enthusiasm for a geopolitical partnership with Putin’s dictatorship.
And in some ways, Trump’s Ukraine peace initiative is a bigger challenge for New Zealand than it is for Britain.
Lessons of the past
Like Britain, New Zealand fought in two world wars in the 20th century to advance, among other things, certain key international principles. These included state sovereignty and a prohibition on the use of force to change borders, principles subsequently enshrined in the United Nations Charter.
But unlike Britain, New Zealand is a relatively small state that does not have a veto in the UN Security Council to protect its interests. Consequently, it is even more dependent on an international rules-based order for its security and prosperity.
For New Zealand, Trump’s current Ukraine peace plan is a clear and present danger because it would set such a terrible precedent.
Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons (left over from when it was part of the Soviet Union) in return for assurances from Russia, the US and UK that recognised Ukrainian independence and the inviolability of its existing borders.
The Trump administration’s plan, however, insists Ukraine must accept the illegal and partial dismemberment of its territory to attain peace with Russia.
Rewarding Russian aggression in this way is tantamount to a failure to learn the historical lessons of the 20th century. In particular, it seems to forget the period during the 1930s when Britain tried in vain to appease an expansionist Nazi regime in Germany.
Trump’s peace plan basically endorses the idea that “might is right” and that it is fine for great powers or big countries to steal land from smaller countries.
But unless something drastically changes in the near future, all the signs point to the US president envisaging a Ukraine peace settlement on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s terms.
According to that view, peace can only be achieved if Ukraine is prepared to accept that territories wholly or partially annexed by Russia now belong to Moscow.
In 2014, Russia seized Crimea on the Black Sea. Following the illegal 2022 invasion, Russia claimed four parts of eastern and southern Ukraine as its own – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and the Zaporizhzhia region.
At the same time, Trump’s peace deal includes a provision that rules out NATO membership for Ukraine. This meets a key Russian demand that seeks to deny Ukraine’s sovereign right to choose its own security arrangements.
According to Trump, Putin’s major concession is the promise that Russia will not annex the rest of Ukraine – something Moscow has been trying to do for the past three years.
To accept this, however, liberal democracies such as New Zealand and Britain would be tacitly signalling they share common values and interests with the Trump administration and its apparent enthusiasm for a geopolitical partnership with Putin’s dictatorship.
And in some ways, Trump’s Ukraine peace initiative is a bigger challenge for New Zealand than it is for Britain.
Lessons of the past
Like Britain, New Zealand fought in two world wars in the 20th century to advance, among other things, certain key international principles. These included state sovereignty and a prohibition on the use of force to change borders, principles subsequently enshrined in the United Nations Charter.
But unlike Britain, New Zealand is a relatively small state that does not have a veto in the UN Security Council to protect its interests. Consequently, it is even more dependent on an international rules-based order for its security and prosperity.
For New Zealand, Trump’s current Ukraine peace plan is a clear and present danger because it would set such a terrible precedent.
Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons (left over from when it was part of the Soviet Union) in return for assurances from Russia, the US and UK that recognised Ukrainian independence and the inviolability of its existing borders.
The Trump administration’s plan, however, insists Ukraine must accept the illegal and partial dismemberment of its territory to attain peace with Russia.
Rewarding Russian aggression in this way is tantamount to a failure to learn the historical lessons of the 20th century. In particular, it seems to forget the period during the 1930s when Britain tried in vain to appease an expansionist Nazi regime in Germany.
Trump’s peace plan basically endorses the idea that “might is right” and that it is fine for great powers or big countries to steal land from smaller countries.
Adjusting NZ foreign policy
In Trump’s top-down world view, multilateral institutions and international law are regarded as superfluous at best and an enemy at worst.
In such a world, relatively small powers such as New Zealand, with “no cards to play” at the top table, must either submit to the dominance of great powers (including the US) or suffer the consequences.
Moreover, there is a real risk that Trump’s stance toward Putin’s regime will be viewed as weakness by China, Russia’s most important backer. This could embolden Beijing to increasingly assert itself in the Indo-Pacific, including the Pacific Islands region, where New Zealand has core strategic interests.
Trump’s plan for Ukraine brings into sharp focus what has already been evident from other recent trends: a domestic slide toward autocracy in Washington, the unilateral imposition of tariffs, and territorial threats against close allies Canada and Denmark.
As European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put it, “The West as we knew it no longer exists.”
The transactional nature of Trump’s leadership – including that peace in Ukraine can be bought with mineral rights and territorial trade-offs – suggests the US can no longer be relied on to provide a security guarantee for liberal democracies in Europe or elsewhere.
The current New Zealand government needs to find the self-confidence and resolve to admit Trump is backing Putin’s imperial project in Ukraine. And it needs to adjust its foreign policy accordingly.
This does not mean Wellington should weaken its traditional friendship with the US.
On the contrary, many Americans might expect and welcome the prospect of New Zealand clearly and publicly standing against their president’s dangerous alignment with an authoritarian regime at Ukraine’s expense.
Professor Robert G. Patman teaches International Relations at the University of Otago. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
9 comments:
I read the whole article but I couldn’t find this important sentence.
Russia has won the Ukraine conflict.
Because Trump is right. Russias concession is not taking everything in victory.
PS anyone wanting to continue this conflict has a practical dilemma, Ukraine has run out of warm bodies of fighting age.
Are you ready to volunteer? 🤔
The author should get his facts right. Crimea and the republics via popular vote by Russians living in those regions voted to cede to Russia.
More importantly, NZ politicians should keep their noses out of Ukraine and related areas (including the $$$$$ gifted to a criminal coke-head), and give total focus to the fiasco our country faces.
That is, Luxon and mob, put NZ back on the tracks, and let the minions of Europe sort out their own self created mess, in their proxy war against Russia.
I take it your son or brother is happily fighting over there on the side of Ukraine? Happy to die for the cause I presume?
Parts of Ukraine are in utter devastation. The mineral deal is brokered to ensure the rebuilding of the country. If the US has an interest in Ukraine, then it is logical to expect that they will protect those interests. The debt has been wiped for all previous military spending so surely that's pretty generous on the part of the US? If the US is more involved with Ukraine how would that advantage Putin?
Peace in our time probably will look different now as many countries are now deeply divided internally(including our own). We haven't got the resources to concern ourselves with affairs miles away. That's what we should be focused on. Get that right, and then we can maybe help others. We are no longer a wealthy country.
We are a small country. The US is where we should align ourselves, not talk about some airy, fairy Chinese or EU alliance. people are constantly underestimating the power of the US.
In an ideological world you could convince yourself to keep fighting war forever. Putin begged to join NATO many times since 2000 and was denied.
Does the Minsk agreement matter zilch to you as it does to the USA?
I know it's hard, but writers should try to put aside their emotive bias and do both sides of the story.
I think we have thrown enough money away to Ukraine. Charity begins at home. Let Zelinsky sort out his own mess. He chose war by insisting on joining NATO after the US signed an agreement not to move NATO any closer to Russia.
People will twist these facts but they are still true.
Agree that China will take the US's stance as weakening it and strengthening Russia. Trump has been a fan-boy of Putin for ages.
Prof Patman still thinks his link to Otago University holds sway on the world stage. His is merely a comment while NZ tries to grapple with the shambles left by Ardern and Robertson ( read Otago University). Patman doesn't give one sentence to Luxon jollying up and back slapping all and sundry overseas while denigrating a Treaty Principles Bill to the gutter with contempt and denying for all NZ to have referendum and show our disdain of Luxon as PM and Potaka as an MP.
Ukraine is NOT an Island , NZ is an Island in a huge ocean and very vulnerable Mr Patman without US support and friendship.
I think Prof Patman was writing as an academic for the 'The Conversation' , in his academic field. Possibly were he writing primarily for BV, he'd throw in criticism of past and present NZ politicians, as that is what this audience fixates on. Tho' he may still, as a foreign affairs specialist, not be obsessed by the TPB.
Janine is right with her comment about the importance
of the US presence in Ukraine after the minerals deal.
Throughout the history of the world, Detente has been determined by the strong nations of the world making deals amongst themselves that satisfy their own selfish interests. Unfortunately morality usually had little to do with it.
Given that Ukraine's NATO neighbours are all hat and no cattle when it comes to coming to its defence, Zelensky will be lucky to retain what Trump can salvage from the ashes of the current ceasefire lines.
Why should he expect Trump to continue funding Europe's war when Obama did nothing in response to Putin annexing Crimea without a shot being fired. If NATO isn't prepared to go to war in defence of a neighboring European country,
why should The US send troops as cannon fodder against an aggressor like Putin.
At least any deal that Trump has brokered is likely to keep the mad dog on a leash until he ether dies or is replaced
One can understand Ukraines loathing of Russian dictators when you consider their history in the early to mid 20th Century (mainly Stalin and his engineered famines which killed millions of people) Most people in this country cannot understand this (or prefer to ignore it)
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