Miro Popkhadze
In the past several months, the Trump administration has leaned hard on the Kremlin, seeking to force a breakthrough toward a durable peace in Ukraine. The White House has spent great political and diplomatic capital to bring the warring parties to the negotiation table. Washington has employed multiple instruments of national power, including sanctions, weapons shipments, and political pressure to secure a ceasefire, and lay the groundwork for a long-term peace deal. Predictably, these efforts have failed miserably. Every American attempt to move the needle towards a truce has been met with deliberate delay and stalling by the Russian side. The hard truth is that neither a ceasefire nor any peace settlement can be reached without addressing the factor too often overlooked: China.
Unlike the Biden administration, which isolated Moscow, rallied allies, and armed Ukraine, more or less successfully, the Trump administration placed greater emphasis on brokering a peace deal. In doing so, the White House pressured Kiev and pushed Brussels to align them with its new policy. While managing to keep its allies in line, Washington’s efforts have produced no tangible results with Moscow. A series of direct phone calls and meetings with the Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Alaska revealed that neither the United States nor the EU possesses leverage or political capacity to compel Moscow into a ceasefire, let alone a peace agreement.
The elephant in the room is China. And to a certain extent, Moscow is fighting a proxy war for Beijing. Considering its political, economic, and technological isolation from the West, Russia is no longer an independent global player as it had been before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It’s worth noting that today, Russia’s war machine, resource-based economy, technological capacity, and foreign policy are increasingly dependent on China. Hence, Western leaders who seek diplomatic solutions while ignoring the growing power asymmetry in the Sino-Russian relationship, misunderstand the reality of the conflict and risk prolonging the war indefinitely. Only a string of decisive actions that up gun Ukraine, sanction Russia, and engage China will alter Putin’s calculations as a drained, weakened, and cornered Kremlin will have little choice but to acquiesce.
Hierarchical Partnership
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