Former President Donald Trump Posing for a picture with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 2018 Helsinki Summit

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s policy of peace through strength, there were no new wars during his administration and Europe was at peace. By contrast, President Joe Biden’s failed strategy of global hegemony, which has been strongly supported by both neoconservative Republicans and neoliberal Democrats, has incited the formation of a hostile axis consisting of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. It has also left the U.S. military dangerously overextended and unable to deter aggression, leading to the outbreak of major wars in both Europe and the Middle East for the first time in half a century.

For nearly two and a half years, the Biden administration has fought an ill-conceived, proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which it deliberately provoked by refusing to rule out Ukraine’s NATO membership. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been clamoring for a peace deal since Ukraine rejected the Istanbul agreement in April 2022. Nevertheless, Ukraine and the Biden administration have refused to negotiate, and the war continues with no end in sight. The administration’s Ukraine war strategy, devoid of any achievable objectives, has created alarming risks of escalation. As President Joe Biden admitted two years ago, the war in Ukraine has increased the risks of nuclear war to its highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

The war in Ukraine has pushed Russia into a closer alliance with China, emboldening it to consider blockading Taiwan to achieve its longtime objective of reunification. Russia could aid China in a potential war with the U.S. by engaging in joint cyber and counterspace attacks while massing its troops on NATO’s borders. Therefore, the overriding focus of U.S. national security strategy should be to deter such aggression by formulating a plan to divide this burgeoning Sino-Russian alliance.

The best way to achieve that would be to end the war in Ukraine and forge a new Russo-American entente, modeled on the Entente Cordiale of 1904 that ended centuries of great power competition between Britain and France. That agreement defined spheres of influence that clearly delineated the lines between both great powers to prevent future conflicts. To do so, the U.S. will first need to terminate the war as swiftly as possible to restore peace and stability to Europe, ending the potential threat of Russian nuclear escalation that could cost the lives of hundreds of millions.

President Donald Trump has promised that he would end America’s proxy war in Ukraine within twenty-four hours of taking office, declaring, “we have to stop the killing in Ukraine.” Trump was recently briefed by two of his top national security advisors on a plan for the U.S. to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to a permanent cease-fire agreement and begin negotiations for a peace agreement that would end the war on realistic terms.

Were he to be re-elected, the proposal outlined below could serve as a template to fulfill his laudable campaign promise to swiftly negotiate a peace deal ending the war that recognizes both Russia’s and Ukraine’s legitimate security interests as part of a summit meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin. What makes this peace plan unique is that it incorporates terms that we believe would be acceptable to all parties of the conflict, the key to establishing a just and lasting peace.

Ukraine War Peace Proposal

1.     Ukraine pledges to never join NATO but will become a Major Non–NATO Ally. The U.S. pledges that NATO will never expand eastward. Ukraine commits to prohibit the presence of foreign troops and bases on its territory. Ukraine can join the EU.

2.     Ukraine recognizes Russian control of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk along the current lines, as well as Crimea, and renounces any attempt to retake them by military force while leaving the door open to negotiating their final status. In return, Russia pledges to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

3.     A four-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone, policed by UN and/or OSCE peacekeepers, shall be created along the entire length of Ukraine’s border with the four Russian-controlled oblasts to prevent future conflict. There will be no war crimes prosecutions or reparations. Ukrainian reconstruction assistance shall be provided by the Western Powers.

4.     The number of active-duty Ukrainian military servicemen, including National Guard troops, shall be reduced to half of its pre-war size with a maximum of 500,000 reserve troops. The number of Border Guards shall be reduced to its pre-war level.

5.     Ukraine’s ‘strike systems’ including howitzers, heavy mortars, multiple rocket launch systems, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and combat drones as well as air defense missile systems shall be limited in range to seventy-five kilometers. The number of Ukraine’s tanks, armored vehicles, ‘strike systems,’ and air defense systems shall not exceed the number of those weapon systems currently possessed by the German Army. The number of Ukraine’s combat aircraft shall be reduced to one hundred. Ukraine commits to refrain from producing or possessing weapons of mass destruction and to close all foreign biological labs.

6.     Full diplomatic relations between Russia and Ukraine will be restored and all bilateral sanctions rescinded. All U.S. economic sanctions against Russia enacted from 2014 onward shall be rescinded and all seized public and private Russian financial and economic assets shall be restored.

7.     In exchange for Russia removing all its air and land-based nuclear weapons from Kaliningrad, Belarus and all territories previously controlled by Ukraine, the U.S. will redeploy all one hundred and fifty of its B-61 nuclear gravity bombs from Western Europe to aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific. The U.S. and Russia agree to begin negotiating a New START II Treaty with a limit of 3,500 operational strategic nuclear weapons.

8.     In return for a withdrawal of all Russian troops from Belarus, all 20,000 U.S. troops shall be withdrawn from Eastern Europe. The U.S. and Russia shall refrain from flying heavy bombers or deploying surface warships within two-hundred miles of the other’s territory, except for the Bering Strait. In exchange for Russia committing not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. commits to a policy of non-interference in all former Soviet republics which are not NATO members. The U.S. and Russia solemnly pledge to one another that neither side will go to war against each other in the event they are attacked by a third party.

The principal aim of this comprehensive peace agreement with Russia would be to transform the strategic landscape in America’s favor by replacing the existing bipolar international order, in which we face two peer nuclear competitors that are allied against us, with a tripolar international order in which no nuclear superpower is allied with any other, thus making the US far more secure. It would also further Trump’s objective of restructuring NATO by implementing a proposal written by Sumatra Maitra, who serves as the Director of Research and Outreach at the American Ideas Institute, for a ‘dormant NATO.’

This peace agreement could also serve as the centerpiece of a strategic realignment by the Trump administration that would enhance the security of the U.S. and its treaty allies in Europe and East Asia. Effecting this peace plan would not only end the war in Ukraine, it would also end America’s new Cold War with Russia by transforming Russia from an adversary into a strategic partner. That transformation would end Russia’s threat to NATO while serving to effectively neutralize its alliance with Beijing, thereby seriously weakening China. Additionally, without the assurance of Russian military support, China might need to reassess its plan to risk direct conflict with the U.S. over Taiwan.

This agreement would constitute “a grand bargain with Moscow” leaving “Russia satiated and relatively neutral in the European balance” as Maitra has suggested. It would serve to reorient Russia on the grand chessboard of great power competition between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China. This agreement would allow the U.S. to focus on deterring Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific without having to worry about Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Such a diplomatic triumph, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown has stated, would provide “more global security” by saving Ukraine, recognizing its hard-won battlefield gains and ensuring the independence of eighty-eight percent of its prewar-controlled territory.

Once implemented, this peace agreement could secure President Trump’s legacy as one of the greatest transformational peace presidents in American history. He might even be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, not just for ending the war in Ukraine and saving the U.S. and Europe from a full-scale war with Russia, but for creating the conditions for an enduring peace, for which future generations would be deeply grateful.

© David T. Pyne and Chad Nagle 2024

David T. Pyne, Esq. is a former US Army Headquarters staff officer who serves as Executive Vice President of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He previously served as Defense and Foreign Policy Advisor to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Chet Nagle is a graduate of the Naval Academy and Georgetown Law School. As a carrier pilot he flew in the Cuban Missile Crisis. As a civilian he was a Pentagon official, CIA agent, and author. He was awarded the Order of Oman for his service during that nation’s war with communist Yemen.