Trump card missing for peace

US President Donald Trump pledged to end the two wars that broke out between Russia and Ukraine and Hamas and Israel during his predecessor Joe Biden’s term within 24 hours of assuming office. During the presidential President Trump excoriated Biden for allowing the two wars to break out and underlined that had he been president neither would have even occurred.

To his great dismay, these wars that are still raging three months after Trump assumed office have compelled him to discover why wars are easy to start but difficult to end. Negotiations in each have reached a stalemate. In the war following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, a fragile ceasefire that had emerged collapsed on March 18, 2024, after Hamas baulked at releasing all the Israeli hostages in its captivity unless Israel agreed to release more Palestinian prisoners and conclude a permanent ceasefire coupled with a complete military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Trump warned Hamas that the hostages must be released; if not there would be “hell to pay”.

In the case of Hamas and Israel, Trump has had no more success than yielding largely to Tel Aviv’s quest to completely vanquish or annihilate Hamas and the latter has no interest in meeting Trump’s demands when its existence is at stake.

As things stand, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear that if Moscow and Kyiv do not end hostilities and reach a settlement, Washington will be compelled to move on to other priorities. In the case of Hamas and Israel, Trump has had no more success than yielding largely to Tel Aviv’s quest to completely vanquish or annihilate Hamas and the latter has no interest in meeting Trump’s demands when its existence is at stake.

Thus, we are faced with a familiar problem that third parties face when they attempt to broker an end to hostilities and a peace settlement between belligerents who are still motivated to fight — and in Israel’s case, it believes it can comprehensively defeat Hamas and the latter believes it can hold out long enough to prevent it.

Likewise, the Russians were never going to respond positively to Trump’s peace effort when they can see opportunities to make territorial gains given the momentum they have on the battlefield, scuttling the Trump administration’ diplomacy to broker a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow when the latter knows it can accumulate more territory. Trump has virtually no leverage against the Russians as he does against the Ukrainians who are more critically dependent on key weapon supplies from Washington.

He did briefly suspend military supplies to Kyiv following a disastrous Oval Office meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in early March, which compelled the latter to agree to negotiations and a ceasefire. But success with Russia, as Trump discovered, has proved elusive because Vladimir Putin has no incentive or faces no acute pressure to conclude a ceasefire. In any case, the Kremlin as well as Zelenskyy have viewed a ceasefire as premature and, if concluded, it would only aid the parties to regroup and resume hostilities.

Trump has virtually no leverage against the Russians as he does against the Ukrainians who are more critically dependent on key weapon supplies from Washington.

More fundamentally, there are other substantive reasons why Trump has found it so difficult to end these two wars. First, the balance of interests between the two belligerents in each of the conflicts are asymmetrically at odds with the third party, which in this instance is the US. For Kyiv, it stands to lose substantial territory and sovereignty. And having invested considerable blood and endured destruction to the economy to defend what survives of the country, giving in to Trump’s demands would amount to abject surrender.

The same applies for the Russians. For them their own identity and sovereignty is intricately tied to Ukraine due to its proximity, and cultural and historical significance. Consequently, having expended substantial blood and treasure, they are unrelenting, despite Trump’s ceasefire plea, to retain the Ukrainian territory in the Donbas region and Crimea that they occupied in 2014 and the additional battlefield advances they are making since their invasion in February 2022. Indeed, for Russia in concrete terms, at a minimum this would mean seizing the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, which historically has served as an invasion route to capture Russian territory and Odessa that would deprive Kyiv access to its only operational seaport and to the Black Sea.

For Trump’s US, the stakes and equities are nowhere nearly as great with the President narrowly seeking to recover the money that the US taxpayer has had to incur in financing vital military supplies to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. As compensation, he has demanded access to Ukraine’s mineral resources, which Zelenskyy tentatively agreed to provided Ukraine gets some reciprocal American military guarantee to the nation against Russia’s assault.

Second, a halt to hostilities can come about if Ukrainian resistance breaks because of Russian gains allowing Moscow to impose terms of a peace settlement that is highly favourable to them. The latter is only possible if Ukrainian morale collapses despite the capabilities at hand or if Ukraine is denied the military supplies that they have been receiving from Washington such as space-borne intelligence for targeting Russian forces and installations, missile and air defence systems, and long-range missiles.

The Hamas-Israel war defies easy resolution for Trump simply because both sides are obdurate and motivated to achieving their core aims.

Despite his loss of interest in brokering a ceasefire and an end to the war, Trump has not yet indicated that he will halt military supplies to Kyiv. Instead, Washington’s active mediation could end with supplies continuing until European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are able to make up for Washington’s withdrawal of military aid, which will only serve to prolong the war to Trump’s chagrin. Consequently, a prolonged war does not guarantee a Russian victory and may not produce a settlement on Russian terms but could produce a stalemate that exhausts Moscow.

Similarly, the Hamas-Israel war defies easy resolution for Trump simply because both sides are obdurate and motivated to achieving their core aims. For Hamas, it is survival. For Israel, it is Hamas’ elimination as a military threat and governing entity, which Benjamin Netanyahu believes he can overcome despite some resistance from remnants of the terrorist group. Trump is learning the hard way that while you may campaign in poetry, you have to govern in prose and when it comes to ending wars getting your prose right is even more difficult.

This commentary originally appeared in Financial Express.

• International Affairs
• USA and Canada
• conflict resolution
• diplomacy
• military aid
• military supplies
• military supplies
• military withdrawal
• mineral resources
• NATO
• peace settlement
• sovereignty
• territorial gains
• Trump
• US foreign policy
• Zelenskyy

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