What Europe Can do in a Worst-Case Scenario
Helping Ukraine under a Trump Plan
Hi All,
A piece today on why what happens in the Ukraine war might very well come down to what European states are willing to do (or not). I regularly write about Europe and European states for this very reason—which I know makes some people a little confused. However, unless Trump proposes something very different when he becomes president, European states will be in the very uncomfortable position of having to support a US plan that many know is not in their interest (or Ukraine’s).
The Trump Plan(s) Have No Security Guarantees for Ukraine
Its amazing how stories which are obvious and have been for months tend to explode on the scenes and people seem shocked. That was the case yesterday about the different Trump peace plans. There was a Reuters piece that broke down three of the Trump plans to end the Russo-Ukraine War. These were those given by JD Vance, Keith Kellogg and Richard Grennell. Now I’m personally not sold on the Grennell plan being that important. He has not yet been given a job by Trump, and in the last administration he was ambassador to Germany—not exactly a job at the heart of the decision-making process.
As for the other two—as regular readers of this substack, you would have had breakdowns on the Vance and Kellogg plans months ago, as well as analyses of what Trump himself had said repeatedly. Vance and Kellogg will have important roles in the new administration and they can at least make their cases directly to Trump (even if in the end Trump will do what he wants). So I dont waste time re-writing what they said—here are links to some earlier pieces which have lots of quotes from their plans.
Here is one on Vance and his positions on Russia and Ukraine written in July.
Then there was this piece in September when Vance was more specific on what he wanted for Ukraine.
As for Kellogg, here was the piece in June written about the peace plan he wrote with Fred Fleitz.
Why I’m linking to these, is because its so odd that people seem to be discovering now what has been made crystal clear during all of 2024. The contours of Donald Trump’s peace plans have been obvious —and don’t just look at what Vance and Kellogg have been saying, they have been clear if you look at what Trump has been saying repeatedly—as was outlined in July.
Going back to this piece, a Trump “peace” plan is based on the following points that he is committing to, and those he is clearly not.
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