Talk of peace, realities of war

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 18th of February.

This is WORLD Radio. Thank you for listening! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It…talking peace for Russia and Ukraine.

With a new White House administration come new priorities … and U.S. policy on Ukraine is no exception. Here is President Trump in Florida over the weekend.

TRUMP: We're trying to get a peace with Russia, Ukraine, and we're working very hard on it. It's a war that should have never started.

Last week, Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about making a peace deal with Ukraine. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance was in Germany and there met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about where things stand is Eric Patterson. He’s a foreign policy expert who spent time in the U.S. State Department. Patterson is author of the book Ending Wars Well and he’s an occasional contributor for WORLD Opinions.

He joins us this morning from London.

Eric, good morning.

ERIC PATTERSON: It's a pleasure to be with you. Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: So glad you’re here. Well, let’s start by talking about the differences between the new Trump administration and the administration under President Biden. What changes are President Trump bringing to dealing with Ukraine?

PATTERSON: Certainly there's a tremendous amount of energy in Washington directed by President Trump. There was a sense under the Biden administration that it was a sort of caretaker situation, that President Biden did not have a lot of leverage with our allies in NATO. For instance, the almost a dozen who still, after 10 years, don't spend up to their commitments under the NATO charter to spend 2 % of GDP on national defense. Right now, there's a galvanizing sense in Europe that something must be done and that Donald Trump is not someone that they can control, but that he'll grab the reins to make a deal.

REICHARD: Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that US support for Ukraine joining NATO was not as strong as it was in the past. He later walked back those comments. Why is this issue so important?

PATTERSON: You know, there's a division of opinion about NATO membership for Ukraine. It goes back to the early 2000s or the late 1990s. There are some who say that Ukraine joining NATO and being right on Russia's border is provocative to the Russians. Of course, there are other countries, former Soviet republics like the Baltics, that are members of NATO. Poland's member of NATO, Romania's a member of NATO, et cetera. And so it isn't necessarily the case, but there are those who believe that Putin and Russia just cannot abide that. There are others, however, including President Zelensky and many supporters of Ukraine, who believe that Ukraine must have a NATO guarantee that is the only thing that will keep Russia from invading again.

REICHARD: You know a lot of Americans are frustrated with US involvement in these overseas conflicts that can go on for years and years. Is this a conflict the United States can walk away from? What happens if we do?

PATTERSON: Well, I don't think that we can, nor do I think that we should. I think that this is a situation where Ukraine cannot be seen as just one country. It's right next to NATO, but it's not just that. Russian aggression has attacked Georgia. It's attacked Moldova. The Russian little green men attacked Ukraine in 2014 and they took Crimea. Then they attacked again in 2022. This is a regime in Moscow that is belligerent. It seeks chaos, and then it can impose a new cold order in the region. All of that is against our national security interests and those of our allies.

REICHARD: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others have said Ukraine is going to have to make some concessions to Russia to end the war. What about fears that concessions will only embolden Vladimir Putin to continue his quest for more territory in Europe?

PATTERSON: Well, think that diplomacy means that if Ukraine makes some concessions, that Ukraine likewise receives very vigorous security guarantees. And that means NATO or a NATO commitment to protecting it, even if it's not a fully fledged NATO member. Amazingly, we have seen some countries like the United Kingdom in the past 48 hours say they would send troops if necessary. And that's been a demand made by President Trump in recent days is will European countries send troops to defend Ukraine and that that may have to be part of the deal?

REICHARD: You wrote a book titled Ending Wars Well. So I want to ask you, from your perspective how can the U.S. help the war in Ukraine to end well?

PATTERSON: When you think about ending a war in a way that has an enduring security, you think about three elements. The first is order. The second is justice. And the third is conciliation. And we're not going to get anywhere near conciliation. We're probably not going to get any justice. So what does order look like? Order looks like first security within the country, law and order. And Ukraine largely has that if it didn't have Russians attacking. The second is no imminent threat on the border. And that's the crucial element here is what needs to happen to create a new security architecture that protects Ukraine and makes the region more safe. Finland does not feel safe. That's why it joined NATO after being neutral for so many years. Poland does not feel safe. Romania does not feel safe. So whatever the security arrangement is that ends the war and protects Ukraine and gives something probably to Russia. Nonetheless, this larger regional security architecture has to be reinforced lest Russia attack again.

REICHARD: Final question, Eric. Is there anything the American public doesn’t know but they should know about this conflict?

PATTERSON: I think there's two things. The first one is just how much meddling, cyberbullying, cyber warfare, and then outright attacks Russia has perpetrated in its neighborhood over the past 15 years in multiple countries. And when you have a bully that beats up on, you know, the six houses across the street, he is going to go after the seventh house.

And I think that the second thing to think about is that we actually have more leverage than many people think. We have leverage, for instance, in billions and billions of dollars of frozen Russian assets that they would like to get back. And that's one of those elements that could be a part of the deal or it could be something that is taken and used to rebuild parts of Ukraine.

REICHARD: Eric Patterson is a foreign policy expert who currently serves as the President and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C. Eric, thank you.

PATTERSON: You're welcome, Mary. Thank you.

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