Trump’s Capitulation to Putin Is Undermining U.S. National Security

The Dispatch | Michael McFaul

Donald Trump has eased sanctions on Russian diesel, waived most new sanctions and tariffs under the Lindsey O. Graham Act, and restricted Ukrainian access to SpaceX’s satellite communications service. Michael McFaul contends these concessions to Vladimir Putin mark a radical shift in U.S. policy, weakening Kyiv’s battlefield communications and air defences while failing to change Putin’s commitment to the war.

McFaul contrasts today’s policy with Trump’s first term, when the 2017 National Security Strategy called Russia revisionist and Washington supplied Javelin missiles to Ukraine. He argues that concessions have not produced peace: Putin continues attacks on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure, while a proposed China-Russia-U.S. meeting recalls great-power bargaining. McFaul sees damage to alliances and deterrence, with Xi Jinping watching. The stakes extend beyond Ukraine. Allied confidence is the immediate cost. Public opinion, he notes, remains broadly sympathetic to Ukraine.

Comment

The article’s central claim is best tested through alliance implications. McFaul argues that Washington’s shift from supporting Ukraine to offering concessions to Moscow changes what European allies can assume about American reliability. The contrast with 2017 is instructive: despite Trump’s earlier praise for Putin, his administration produced the National Security Strategy that called Russia revisionist, signed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and approved Javelin missiles for Ukraine.

The mechanism now works through demonstrated behaviour rather than rhetoric. Ending direct assistance, ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine, welcoming Putin at the Alaska summit in August 2025, easing diesel sanctions and restricting SpaceX communications all provide observable evidence that American support carries conditions. Allies do not need to accept McFaul’s moral framing to draw a practical conclusion: commitments made in Washington may not survive a change in presidential preference.

The Ukraine war therefore becomes a test case for extended deterrence. If Kyiv’s access to SpaceX communications can be limited by political decision, allies may infer that other security dependencies could be similarly constrained. That inference, rather than any single concession, is what weakens the credibility of American guarantees in Europe.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If Ukrainian reliance on SpaceX communications can be constrained by a political decision in Washington, what does that imply for European confidence in American security guarantees more broadly?

The pattern suggests that allies will weigh dependence on single-provider systems as a political vulnerability, not only a technical one. The Ukraine case shows that access to a critical capability can change with presidential preference, even without a formal treaty change. My assessment is that the damage to confidence comes less from the restriction itself than from the absence of a clear, durable policy explaining it.

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