Two hundred thousand soldiers in Ukraine. No, it is not the beginning of the Third World War or of a clash between NATO and the Russian Federation with its allies. Instead, it is the plan imagined by the new (old) president of the United States, Donald Trump, to put an end to the hostilities between Kiev and Moscow and reaffirm American power as the king maker of international relations.
The idea is not far-fetched and has its roots in previous discussions which, starting from Emmanuel Macron’s France, have already in the past placed emphasis on the inevitable European military participation to guarantee the end of the conflict. Or rather, its freezing.
The French president had already spoken in 2023 of a possible dispatch of European instructors to assist the efforts of the Ukrainian generals in repelling Russian assaults, and he reiterated the concept several times. Now, however, a quantum leap forward has been made: the “Trumpian” proposal goes much further than Paris’ intentions and, in perfect Trump style, the new administration asphalt every other voice in the matter in the belief that it can impose a pax Americana in Europe, with the United States acting as arbiters on a conflict that has lasted over a thousand days of war and which promises to cause a million deaths by adding the losses on both sides.
But what does Donald Trump really intend to do? In essence, as Keith Kellog, special advisor to the current US president (and former national security advisor during Trump’s first presidency) leaked, what Washington was already mooting in April has become a concrete project after the confirmation of the Republican victory : the plan involves the creation of a demilitarized zone along the current line of contact between the two Russian and Ukrainian armies. Contact line that goes from Chernhiv (in the north) to Kherson (in the south) and which essentially hasn’t moved for many months, except for some timid steps forward by Moscow. The 200,000 soldiers would operate here next year, with a peacekeeping mission to guarantee respect for the new borders.
Borders that inevitably contemplate a reduction of the sovereign territory of Ukraine, which should consequently agree to concede a good 20% of its territory to Russia, and in particular Donbass, Crimea, the regions of Rostov and Zaporizhzhia. In exchange, Kiev would obtain the immediate end of the conflict and the guarantee of its own security through the aforementioned European contingent and through the supervision of the American government, which would monitor any Russian encroachments by imposing “fines” or rather new taxes (for example, on exports of Russian energy) and supplying Ukraine with new weapons at every misstep by Moscow.
Under no circumstances, according to this plan, would the Ukrainian government get a green light to join NATO, so as not to provoke new and unreasonable Russian aggression along the demilitarized line and to convince the skeptical Putin to sit at the negotiating table. Such a plan could be discussed (and possibly implemented) already before the end of winter, with European peacekeeping troops expected to mobilize by early spring.
However, there are at least three aspects that do not allow us to be too optimistic. First of all, the very approach of Trump’s United States: his policy, or rather his approach to domestic and international issues, is always dictated by the urgency of closing a good deal in the style of Wall Street negotiations. But this method, known as quick and dirtyi.e. “quick and dirty”, can be good for simple obstacles to overcome such as the approval to start a construction site in Manhattan, for a settlement or write-off transaction or for a judicial resolution, and even for an energy agreement or impressive trade exchanges between two interacting powers.
But that doesn’t mean the approach is right quick and dirty functions when people’s very lives, the concept of an independent nation, and future political-economic relations between Asia and Europe are at stake. The Minsk agreements signed between 2014 and 2015 are there to prove it: regardless of which of the two parties did not respect them and why, what these fragile pacts produced was a fratricidal war less than seven years later.
Not only that. Trump is right in envisaging an EU-branded military commitment in the quadrant of European competence. His point is: why would America engage boots on the ground in Europe to stop the Russian Federation, when can Europe itself do it? The reasoning goes because, as seen, a purely European commitment in the crisis was feared by Emmanuel Macron himself, finding on his side first of all the government of the country most exposed to the war, i.e. the Poland of Prime Minister Donald Tusk (former president of the European Council).
The big problem is not – or not only – political, but rather practical: a European army does not yet exist, and therefore it cannot be done. Unless you want to follow the strategy quick and dirty of Trump, cobbling together a multinational force in Europe which, no one knows with what means or banners, should mobilize 5, 10 or 15 thousand soldiers for each member country of the European Union, depending on their capabilities, and send them to defend a tragically hot and unstable border. But with what rules of engagement?
If Moscow (and Pyonyang, given that North Korean troops are now fighting alongside the Russians) were to fail to respect the agreements, what would be done? With Brussels’ speed of response in such an event, a firefight would force the Euro-soldiers to retreat and abandon the lines to avoid engaging in a firefight that no Union general would likely authorize.
But the problem is above all another: under whose leadership would this European army act? Given that Europe’s political union is still an unfinished project, which nation would take on the responsibility of leading the de facto European peacekeeping army? Certainly not Germany, which at the end of winter will still not have a stable government and will not yet know what course of action to adopt towards the partner on which its economic health has long depended. France would certainly be a candidate which, beyond the ambitions of its president, nevertheless has major internal governance problems due to the interlocutory elections which have reduced Macron’s personal power.
There is no point in making fun of Italy, which has neither the means nor the war culture nor an internationally recognized leadership to lead a militarized transition that could last even decades, as was the case with the Berlin Wall. Not to mention that Berlin itself, as well as Paris and Rome – i.e. the three major ones in the EU – would also have to deal with London and its stubborn hostility towards the Kremlin. The British commitment to coordinating the Ukrainian defense has been crucial in these three years of war, and British instructors still make the difference in the field, allowing Kiev to obtain some useful results where the Russians are incapable of gaining the upper hand.
In Washington, other options are also being taken into consideration: passing through the coordination of the OSCE, or the Organization for European Security and Cooperation; or implement a UN Resolution and therefore deploy the peacekeeping forces better known as blue helmets. In the first case, we would start all over again, with Europe unprepared to handle an event bigger than itself; in the second it would perhaps go even worse, considering that the UN Security Council would never reach the majority necessary to vote on a resolution against Russia, due to the very structure of the United Nations made up of vetoes and counter-vetoes which for years have immobilized its action.
And then it would be enough to observe what the blue helmets were able to do on the border between Israel and Lebanon, that is, nothing – or rather worse than nothing, forced to hide in a base and suffer the aggression of the armed forces – to know how colossal their failure, one so great that it could even undermine not only the reputation but the very existence of the UN.
Therefore, the Trump plan is already an unviable option today if there is no direct commitment from the United States. In the meantime, other wars would require more significant American management: see the Middle East, where Israel is advancing and where a new rather interlocutory reality has just appeared, Islamist Syria, with all its contradictions and the risks that this entails, thanks to a The Islamic Republic of Iran is increasingly shaky and Turkey (the second largest NATO power in terms of numbers and war capacity) is increasingly strong-willed. Not to mention the Caucasus in flames, with Georgia and Moldova smelling of civil unrest.
Donald Trump’s hope of pacifying Eurasia in a few months to better concentrate on the trade war with China does not take into account the reality of a president, that of the United States, who has the fact of being the strongest superpower on his side that the world has ever had after the Roman Empire, but which also has a very limited time, just four years, and a road full of obstacles to develop a stable and lasting plan.
