by
Austin BayAugust 21, 2025
In November 2022, I wrote an essay titled "Peace With Vladimir Putin Is A Delusion."
Three years of attrition warfare later, that title states August 2025 truth. Since February 2022, Russia has likely suffered over 1 million military casualties? But megalomaniac Putin, committed to recreating the Russian Empire, will still break any Ukraine peace or ceasefire deal he signs -- and he'll break it at the strategic-narcissistic moment he reckons shattering the deal won't result in his own violent death.
Only evident and exercised coercive power checks a strategic narcissist. If Russian oligarchs feel the pain, economic sanctions might eventually topple Putin, in the form of a 9-millimeter bullet to the skull or a drone smashing his private rail car.
Economic sanctions, however, only work if the sanctioning state has the economic superiority, the political influence and the military power to penalize violators and enforce the sanctions until ... Russia's powerful feel the pain.
The U.S. has all three capabilities. Dominating economic power -- $27.7 trillion GDP. Influence? Look who showed up at Trump's White House Aug. 18. Europe's economically dominant nations plus Finland and the EU's and NATO's senior officials. What I call "NATO+ Europe" (Austria and Switzerland are in the mix) has a GDP around $26.5 trillion. Even if India balks, Japan and South Korea won't.
Trump has economic and political lines of operation to paralyze Putin's economy. (Lo and behold he's reunited NATO. Just ask Secretary General Mark Rutte.)
Which brings us to military power. Putin counted on a three-week war. The war has exposed Russian military incompetence at the tactical and operational levels and boggling defects in Russian weapons.
When Putin arrived in Anchorage Aug. 15, Trump met him on the runway. Then a B-2 bomber with stealth fighter escorts flew over in formation. A salute? Yes, but also a clue. American B-2s took out Iran's nukes.
The deeper message: Trump will use lethal force.
Trump doesn't want to. He wants to stop the human slaughter, wherever he can.
He especially wants to end the killing in what he calls the world's most dangerous war. Why is Russo-Ukraine the most dangerous? Russia still has the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
During the Cold War, the USSR (Russian Empire in communist garb) had megatons of nukes and never used them.
Why? The NATO Treaty's Article 5 stated the political consequences waging war in Europe. The glib call it The Three Musketeers Clause -- one for all and all for one. The musketeers are fiction. Article 5 made a serious commitment in a very real nuclear-armed world.
NATO members agreed "that an armed attack against one or more of them ... shall be considered an attack against them all." Each member would then take "action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain" NATO security. The enemy had to attack a member's territory or member "forces, vessels or aircraft" operating "in or over" NATO territory.
Actions backed the words. U.S., Britain and France stationed soldiers in West Germany, on the Soviet Union's axis of attack. In the mid-1970s, I served in a U.S. Army armored unit deployed in the primary invasion route from East Germany to the Rhine River. We called ourselves human trip wires.
On the ground and in the way, soldiers deployed by nuclear-armed democracies assured other NATO members that Britain, France and the U.S. would fulfill their Article 5 commitments.
The Kremlin never risked it, not in Europe.
But in February 2014, Putin risked it, with his attack on Crimea. He violated the Budapest Accord of 1994, which traded Ukrainian nukes for territorial integrity. A month later, Vlad annexed the peninsula.
Trump says no U.S. soldiers in Ukraine. France and Britain indicate they are willing to put military units in Ukraine -- boots on the ground. Poland is building Europe's most powerful mechanized force. Good. Time for Free Europe to defend Free Europe.
The U.S. will provide airpower and reinforcements. The U.S. still has five brigades in Europe.
The U.S., Ukraine and the key European nations indicate that if a peace deal emerges, Ukraine will receive what is called "Article 5-like" security guarantees.
What is that? Is it Article 5-Lite? The better question is what constitutes a violation of Ukraine's Article 5-like guarantee?
To really give peace a chance -- and convince Putin Russian violations will be swiftly and harshly penalized -- that question requires detailed answers backed by evident military preparations.