The howls of outrage from the foreign policy establishment over President Trump’s 28-point Ukraine peace plan tell you everything you need to know about why such a plan is necessary in the first place.
After nearly four years of war, hundreds of thousands of casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars in American taxpayer money spent, the Washington Blob is horrified that someone might actually try to end this conflict through diplomacy rather than continue feeding it with endless weapons shipments and empty promises.
The plan that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has been negotiating—yes, with Russia, because that’s generally how you end wars—represents a long-overdue return to realist foreign policy.
It acknowledges what anyone not imprisoned by ideological abstractions already knows: Ukraine cannot militarily reclaim all the territory Russia has seized, NATO expansion was always going to be a red line for Moscow and America’s vital interests do not require fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Realist case for the dealCritics are apoplectic that the plan would recognize Russian control over Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. But let’s be honest about the facts on the ground. Russia has controlled Crimea since 2014—nearly 12 years ago.
The Donbas has been a contested war zone for just as long. Ukraine controls only about 15% of these eastern regions today, and that percentage shrinks with each passing month. The idealists in Washington can stamp their feet and insist on the inviolability of post-Cold War borders all they want, but they cannot change battlefield realities.
The choice isn’t between this deal and a magically restored pre-2014 Ukraine. The choice is between freezing the conflict now with some security guarantees, or watching Ukraine lose even more territory while its cities are reduced to rubble and its population bleeds away.
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Beyond Wilsonian fantasiesWhat particularly enrages the neo-Wilsonians is that the plan would require Ukraine to forswear NATO membership. Good. NATO expansion into Ukraine was always a fantasy—a dangerous one that helped precipitate this war in the first place.
Germany and France blocked Ukrainian membership at the 2008 Bucharest summit precisely because they understood the strategic realities that the American foreign policy establishment refused to acknowledge.
Russia, for all its many flaws, has legitimate security interests. Just as America would never tolerate a hostile military alliance on its borders (remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?), Russia was never going to accept NATO bases in Ukraine.
You don’t have to admire Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime to recognize this basic geopolitical reality. Strategic empathy isn’t moral endorsement—it’s simply understanding how the world actually works rather than how we wish it would work.
Real American interestsThe vital question that our foreign policy establishment has studiously avoided is: What is the American national interest in Ukraine?
Not what makes us feel good about supporting democracy and self-determination—those are important values, but they are not interests. What concrete security or economic benefit does the United States derive from continuing this war?
The honest answer is: none. Ukraine is not a NATO ally. It has no formal security relationship with the United States. It is not a major trading partner. It does not host critical American assets.
The only American interest at stake is the same reflexive commitment to global hegemony that has led us into disasters from Iraq to Libya to Afghanistan.
Costly ideologyThe real scandal isn’t Trump’s peace plan—it’s that the foreign policy establishment prevented any serious diplomatic effort for years while insisting on a military solution that was never achievable.
They told Ukrainians that Western support would help them drive Russia back to pre-2014 borders. They discouraged negotiations. They celebrated Ukrainian victories while remaining silent about mounting casualties. And when Russia’s 2022 offensive stalled, they convinced themselves that total Ukrainian victory was just one more weapons package away.
The result? Ukraine’s military is exhausted, its infrastructure is devastated, and its population has been reduced by millions through death, displacement, and emigration. Meanwhile, Russia has successfully adjusted to sanctions, found new markets for its energy exports, and deepened its alignment with China.
If this is what “success” looks like, what would failure be?
Imperfect peace over endless warYes, Trump’s plan is imperfect. The security guarantees are vague. The enforcement mechanisms are unclear. Russia gets much of what it wanted. But perfect peace agreements exist only in the imaginations of think tank fellows and op-ed writers. Real peace deals are messy compromises that leave everyone somewhat dissatisfied.
The question isn’t whether this is an ideal outcome—it manifestly isn’t. The question is whether it’s better than the alternative: continued war that Ukraine cannot win, mounting casualties, economic devastation, and the risk of escalation to direct NATO-Russia conflict.
For anyone genuinely interested in Ukrainian welfare rather than abstract principles or geopolitical scorekeeping, the answer should be clear.
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The same people now denouncing Trump’s realism are the ones who promised that a quick military victory was possible, that sanctions would cripple Russia immediately, that Putin was on the verge of being overthrown, and that Ukraine just needed a bit more support to prevail. They’ve been wrong at every stage. Their ideology has failed the Ukrainians they claim to support.
President Trump, whatever his other failings, understands that leadership sometimes means making difficult deals rather than pursuing maximalist goals. It means acknowledging constraints rather than pretending they don’t exist. It means putting American interests first rather than subordinating them to a Wilsonian crusade for a rules-based international order.
The foreign policy establishment won’t forgive him for it. The Ukrainians may not thank him for it. But if this plan ends the killing and creates even an imperfect peace, it will have accomplished more than three years of the establishment’s preferred policy of indefinite war in pursuit of impossible aims.
That’s not a betrayal of American values. It’s a return to the kind of realism that once made American foreign policy effective rather than merely idealistic. And it’s long overdue.
This article was originally published on Leon Hadar’s Global Zeitgeist and is republished with kind permission. Become a subscriber here.
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