There Is a Way Out in Ukraine

Opinion|A Path to Peace in Ukraine, Minus the Betrayal

If supporters of Ukraine — and I count myself among them — want to win the battle for hearts and minds in the United States, under no circumstances can they allow themselves to be seen as the “war party,” while Donald Trump and his MAGA movement claim the mantle of peace.

Yet that’s the relentless messaging from the Trumpist right. In spite of the fact that Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine, and the war would end tomorrow if Putin simply withdrew, it is those of us who support Ukraine who are called warmongers.

In the MAGA narrative, we spout — as JD Vance argued — “moralistic garbage.” Trumpists, by contrast, see themselves as the “realists” willing to tell the public a series of hard truths — most notably that Ukraine’s defenses are failing even with American support, that Ukraine can’t possibly win the war and that it has to cut a deal before it’s ground into the dust.

The response to this argument isn’t just to rebut the individual points but to provide an alternative, genuinely realistic vision for peace on far better terms than the Trump administration is attempting to force on Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Far from being warmongers, it’s those who support Ukraine who are seeking a sustainable peace.

The blueprint for ending the Ukraine war is found on the other side of the world, in South Korea. The Korean War ended with an armistice more or less along existing lines of the conflict, but with American troops on the ground to guarantee South Korean security.

A Ukrainian cease-fire can look quite similar. End the conflict largely on existing grounds and then deploy Western troops to deter Russia. But in this scenario, it wouldn’t be American boots on the ground, but rather French and British. Both countries have already offered to deploy their own forces to maintain peace.