Trump is the Only Adult in the Room

Land for Peace is the Path Forward in Ukraine

People call Neville Chamberlain a wuss and an appeaser. If that is true, then there are no words to describe Europe’s indifference to Ukraine. In the six months before World War Two began, Britain spent 18% of its GDP on defense. During the three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe spent 0.3% of its GDP assisting Ukraine. It deployed no combat troops.

While Europeans have clung to their purses, they have spouted platitudes about the inviolability of borders. In January 2025, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized:
"The principle of the inviolability of borders applies to every country, regardless of whether it lies to the east of us or the west, and every state must keep to it.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in March 2025: "You cannot invade (and) bully your neighbour or cannot change borders with force." On April 24, 2025, Zelensky quoted a 2018 U.S. State Department statement that “No country can change the borders of another by force.”

This principle has become a collective hallucination. The hallucination can be maintained through casuistry. If borders are the mere work of diplomats, a matter of understanding, a diplomatic aspiration, then, yes, borders can never be changed by force. This is, of course, the worst kind of semantic bullshit. If this is all borders are, then states can have armies and commissars within the borders of other countries. Borders matter only to the extent they are defended.

In 2014, Russia forcibly annexed Crimea and began supporting Russian-speaking separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. For the next 8 years, Ukraine was unable to control vast swaths of its nominal territory. Europe responded with aid to Ukraine that averaged 0.0035% of its GDP. Oh, the sacred inviolability of European borders! Europe likes to pat itself on the back for increasing aid to Ukraine by two orders of magnitude, but the baseline was less than many county school budgets, and current aid is still miserly.

Zelensky is also tripping. When asked about Crimea, he recently said, “There is nothing to talk about. It is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people." Days before, he said, “Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea.” Crimea is majority Russian. One can quibble with the process by which Putin took it, but it’s crystal clear that a majority of Crimeans would have voted to join Russia if given the opportunity. The West never tried to organize a plebiscite. It drew a rhetorical line in the sand, scolded Putin when he crossed it, and spent 0.0035% of its GDP trying to defend its sacred principles.

Trump’s plan is ugly. It would let Putin keep territory conquered violently, much of it ethnically Ukrainian before the war. Yet it is the only plan with no fatal illusions. Europe doesn’t have a plan. It will prate about the inviolability of borders and perhaps give Ukraine enough aid that it only bleeds territory slowly, but it’s hard to think of Europe mustering a glorious counter-offensive. Meanwhile, Zelensky has grown wary of his people. He has said there will be no elections in Ukraine until the war is over, while asserting war aims that strain credulity. He cares about nationalism more than elections and is happy to rule the nation indefinitely.

The West has given Putin no reason to stop his slow-motion spree of conquest. It has not mustered sufficient force to drive back Russian troops. Putin might want to test whether Ukrainian morale begins to crack as the United States pulls back. So far, he hasn’t been given much reason to agree to a ceasefire. Europe and Ukraine refuse to recognize any of his territorial gains. A rift between the United States and Europe is developing. I suspect Europe will escalate its commitments to Ukraine and stave off a military collapse, but Putin may want to test if Europeans lack this resolve. Western Europe hasn’t stood on its own feet for 80 years.