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Responsible Statecraft involves hard choices and unpalatable compromises. General Keith Kellogg, President-elect Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, will need to confront head on a number of stubborn foreign policy obstacles as he seeks to broker peace in Ukraine in 2025. Right now there is no strategy Failure in Ukraine has emerged out of western disunity as the U.S., the EU, and the UK and intra-alliance interests collided on key issues such as sanctions, war aims, financial and military support. The run-up to the US Presidential elections, and its aftermath, saw repeated appeals to “Trump-proof” U.S. policy towards Ukraine. Kellogg should encourage Ukrainian and European leaders to coalesce around a single, realistic vision for Ukraine’s future. Defeating Russia is not a legitimate foreign policy goal as Ukraine will never be in a position to deliver this. The focus might include rebuilding a strong, democratic and prosperous Ukraine that attains EU membership at a determinate time. We cannot strike a peace deal without talking to Putin  In their America First paper, Kellogg and Fred Fleitz expressed an understanding of what the Biden Administration did not — that any approach to Russia must involve both deterrence and diplomacy . As they pointed out, “Biden was not interested in working with Putin. He wanted to lecture and isolate him.” Not talking to Putin has also been an unshakeable UK foreign policy approach since 2014 and is now hardwired within the EU, with its hawkish new foreign policy chief, former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas , ruling out direct engagement. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has made negotiations with Russia illegal. By contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said repeatedly that he is willing to engage with President Trump and other world leaders to resolve the Ukraine crisis. Kellogg needs to encourage European leaders to reengage with diplomacy and get on board with a more transactional approach with Russia that seeks workable solutions for all sides. Ukraine is never going to join NATO NATO cannot continue to hold a principled line on future Ukrainian membership that it will not underwrite with force of arms . Putin talks about the proximity of NATO rather than its size. Yes, he was forced to swallow Finnish membership , which he regarded de facto as halfway in NATO before his invasion of Ukraine. However, he has staked his political career on Ukraine never joining NATO for over 16 years, and that will never change. NATO membership should finally, irrevocably and without caveats be taken off the table as part of a deal which provides security guarantees to Ukraine. Who provides those security guarantees will require skillful negotiation, as Russia will expect guarantors to include non-NATO countries . Kellogg’s role here is in drawing a U.S. line firmly in the sand and killing the idea, in the face of potentially heated European resistance. Ukraine will undoubtedly want to secure a quid pro quo . The Europeans should stop kicking the EU can down the road European leaders have disingenuously kicked the issue of Ukraine’s EU membership down the road while supporting the war’s continuation. French President Emmanuel Macron has said that it could take 20 years for Ukraine to join. I have long been an advocate for Ukrainian membership in the EU. However, and as I have previously pointed out, this will come at a huge and potentially damaging cost to the EU project and to neighboring Poland, if not handled well. Specifically, the EU cannot afford to expand based on its current settlement without intolerable political risks of instability, which we are seeing play out in France and Germany. Kellogg should press European leaders to chart a realistic membership concept for Ukraine . This might allow for an accelerated political-level membership, even if the more contentious challenges around regional funds for infrastructure investment (called cohesion funding) and agricultural subsidies are deferred for later consideration. Sanctions haven't worked but can help deliver peace Russia remains in a vastly stronger position economically than Ukraine because of its size and its effective fiscal and monetary policy since 2014. Sanctions have never nor will they ever tip the balance in favor of Ukraine which is becoming an economically failed state. But even today, considerable effort in the West is invested in exploring how to make sanctions more impactful. This is wasted effort. There is considerable scope to offer an easing of sanctions that nonetheless maintains economic pressure on Russia. I revealed earlier this year that 92% of all UK sanctions on individuals and 77% of sanctions on companies have had zero impact; the people or entities sanctioned have no freezable assets within our jurisdiction. If the same were to apply across all sanctioning jurisdictions including the U.S., 20,000 Russian “zero-effect” sanctions could be removed upon the agreement of a peace plan between Ukraine and Russia. This would serve as a hugely symbolic confidence building measure with Russia while offering no short-term economic relief. The harder-hitting sanctions would remain, contingent on Russia meeting its obligations under any peace deal. This should include clarity on how and under what circumstances frozen Russian reserves of around $300 billion will be released. Zelensky may be part of the problem, not the solution An end to the war will signal an end to Zelensky’s political career, at least for now. Opinion polls suggest he will lose a presidential election when war ends. Zelensky’s regular prognostications about putting his country in a stronger position to negotiate look increasingly self-serving. Ukraine will never be in a stronger position than today, militarily economically or demographically. This performative illusion and delusion merely puts off the inevitable and much-needed elections in Ukraine that would follow on from a ceasefire. Zelensky has undoubtedly played a colossal role as a rallying point for Western support for his nation at war. But he is a politician and not a demigod. And our well-intended political beatification of Zelensky has effectively given him a veto over peace. Kellogg needs to be hard-headed and recognize that, rather than being part of the solution, Zelensky may be part of the problem in ending the war. He should encourage Zelensky to play his biggest role so far, in putting Ukraine first and taking the country to elections. This article was originally published in Responsible Statecraft .

If you were worried that 2024 hadn’t been bizarre and unpredictable enough, Donald Trump recently suggested that the U.S. might buy Greenland in a ‘large real estate deal’. This follows an earlier statement that he wanted the U.S. to reclaim control of the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state . None of these ideas seem likely to gain ground. The incoming U.S. president appears to enjoy baiting Canada’s embattled prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Both the Panamanian and Danish governments responded angrily to Trump’s nods in their territorial direction. But Trump’s statements were intended for effect. They may also offer a way forward in Ukraine, through a deal for Russia to buy occupied territory. While Trump may be talking with specifically American interests in mind, he has inadvertently opened up a much wider debate about borders. Since 1945, almost all border changes that have taken place have emerged out of the collapse of empire as new states were formed and recognised by the UN. In that regard, the UN charter has proved remarkably resilient in maintaining a global status quo, with all its imperfections. The first Gulf War in 1991 emerged out of a need to respond to Iraq’s invasion of oil-rich Kuwait . At that time, Kuwait represented by some margin the largest post-War attempt by another country to seize land from a neighbour by force. The U.S. is not about to go to war to gain territory and couldn’t afford it anyway. Canada’s economy is valued at $2.2trn annually and an entirely hypothetical purchase of that country would nudge the U.S. closer to the point where its national debt was unsustainable . Greenland boasts an enormous wealth of natural resources including oil, gas and rare minerals, key to the production of everything from electric cars to cell-phones. But, again, at what cost? Clearly, Chinese influence is one factor in Trump’s posturing around Greenland and Panama in particular. And his statements are not historically unprecedented. The U.S. has bought territory from other states before, most notably the purchase of Alaska from Russia. But, modern day borders are largely a construct of the post-World War II settlement. Whether they make sense in ethnic or economic terms is secondary to the fact that they have provided for a certain level of stability in global affairs since the signing of the UN Charter in June 1945 . Throwing the nations of the world open to the highest bidder threatens to unpick the delicate and imperfect threads of that world order with potentially disastrous consequences. However, with team Trump looking for ideas to end the war in Ukraine, it does raise the question about whether Russia might give up its frozen assets in a grand deal to buy that lands that it has incorporated. The issue of the frozen $300bn in Russian assets refuses to go away. U.S. and European figures continue to explore ever more creative ways to seize these assets. However, the illegal theft of assets exposes the west’s financial system to significant risk as investors in the developing world move their assets to safer jurisdictions, including within BRICS. Recognition grows that the $50bn G7 loan package agreed in June is a large debt trap for Ukraine itself, as I have said consistently. And, as I have also said, Russia will expect its frozen assets to be unfrozen when the war ends; expropriating these assets actively disincentivises Russia from ending the war, as it continues to win on the battlefield. With pressure from the west unlikely to soften and with Russia’s legal position not likely to change, the frozen assets question arguably represents the biggest obstacle to a peace deal. New ideas are needed. I propose that Russia gives up its $300bn in frozen assets to Ukraine in return for Ukrainian recognition of its claims on lands that Russia has incorporated. As part of this, Ukraine would renounce its NATO aspiration but receive security guarantees from an international coalition of countries, including in the developing world. Zelensky has made noises recently about making territorial concessions as part of a future peace plan, although he may be seeking a trojan horse to secure NATO membership which remains off the table. He has certainly accepted that Ukraine cannot retake Crimea by force. For Russia, $300bn represents a vast cost, but in fact constitutes less than 50% of its current international reserves. Ending the war would allow Russia to walk away with its claims on land incorporated during the war legally decided. It would allow the slow process of normalisation of relations with Ukraine to begin. For Ukraine, $300bn in frozen assets would go a huge way to funding reparation of immense damage to its cities and critical infrastructure since war started valued at around $500bn . It would also support rebuilding Ukraine’s economy and progressing long frozen efforts at reforms around corruption, human rights and democratic freedoms . An end to the war would allow Ukraine to reduce its colossal defence spending return to a more normal fiscal framework and end its dependence on foreign aid to pay nurses and civil servants . For western powers, a deal on territory between Russia and Ukraine would also remove a contingent liability to continue to fund a war that Ukraine is slowly losing on the battlefield. There is no plan in place to continue to fund the Ukrainian state after the end of 2025, when the $50bn G7 loan package will likely run out. The U.S. and Europe will therefore be on the hook to pay for a war that ran on into 2026. All sides could walk away from this deal claiming victory of sorts. For Russia that would be certainty that western powers didn’t return at a later time to help a rearmed Ukraine fight over land it had lost. Ukraine would walk away with its sovereignty and freedom and be able to join the EU, if it still wished. Taking all the risks into account, this could be the real estate deal of the century.

She plans to mount a coup d’etat by insisting that she remains the rightful ruler of Georgia. I spent thirty minutes watching current Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili’s interview with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell on their popular ‘The Rest is Politics’ podcast. It was both illuminating and deeply disturbing. My main conclusion was that the biggest threat to democracy in Georgia is Zourabichvili herself, and that Georgian authorities should tread carefully to avoid bungling the end of her Presidency on Sunday 29 January. Salome Zourabichvili is very obviously driven by a deep-seated hatred of Russia dating back to her grandparents’ decision to go into exile in 1921, in the teeth of the Red Army occupation of Georgia. It was clear that she has made it her life’s ambition to right the wrong of Georgia’s occupation, by which I inferred she meant to eradicate any hint of hated Russian influence. Salome has a childish and romanticised historical view of Georgia rooted in her affluent childhood in central Paris and attending the Georgian church. Like a child, she was mendacious and slippery in her response to the question of her Georgian citizenship, describing herself as always having been Georgian through speech and song at home. In fact, she only gained Georgian citizenship on March 20 2004, awarded by then President Saakashvili, while she was still France’s serving Ambassador to Georgia. The reason for Zourabichvili’s sudden citizenship was to allow her to become Georgia’s Foreign Minister, a role she carried out for a year and a half, for most of that time still employed by the French Diplomatic Service. If that sounds familiar to you, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s first Finance Minister in 2014, Natalia Jaresko, was a former State Department official, as is former President Viktor Yushchenko’s wife, Kateryna. Noone screams ‘democracy’ more, after all, than western officials put in charge of countries that they want to rescue from the tyranny of independence. By becoming Georgian Foreign Minister while still a serving French diplomat and French citizen, she described a sense of exacting ‘revenge’ on behalf of her parents. So, it was apparent that she has spent her whole life in a private fury about the Russian menace and developed an almost fanatical determination to right what she considers to have been an historical wrong. A political opportunist, she has aligned with and dropped most political parties in Georgia on her way to the top, including Georgia Dream itself. Like a French Greta Thunberg without the global fanbase, Zourabichvili has turned her fury more recently towards righting the so-called injustice imposed on Georgia by the 26 October election which she describes as having been stolen. She is entirely dismissive of the weak support lent to her cause by the OSCE monitoring mission, which found that the Georgian elections were generally well organised, even if there were discrepancies in a number of areas. Or to the fact that most European Heads of State have soft-pedalled on outright condemnation of the Georgia Dream party since that time. Her position rests almost exclusively on the notion that the wrong party won, and that that must by definition be anti-democratic. That – in her words – the elections themselves were ‘really a referendum’ about Georgia’s right to choose Europe over Russia. And that the fact Georgia Dream won must axiomatically indicate that the result was fiddled. An elderly woman, reaching back to her high-society upbringing in Paris with her Nazi sympathising relatives, she describes a young generation of Georgians who have lived and ‘studied abroad’ and are desperate to choose Europe. And yet, statistics from UNESCO show that only around 10000 Georgians study overseas in tertiary education each year, or around one quarter of a percent of the population. Her idea of the modern Georgian citizen is that of an urban rich kid, who may well yearn for a European future for their country after skiing trips to Chamonix. That chauvinistic and narrow view of an appropriate Georgianness doesn’t represent the median of a Georgian society in which GDP per capita is just $8200. While the elections on 26 October were not perfect, a very clear pattern emerged in which rural Georgians, who make up 40% of the population, voted overwhelmingly in favour of Georgia Dream. As has been the case since the election night itself on 26 October, Salome Zourabichvili has provided not a single scrap of evidence of Russian interference. Indeed, at the end of the interview, she conceded that Bidzina Ivanishvili himself is not even a direct agent of Russia. Bizarrely, she even described Sergei Lavrov as extremely professional. Her protest is entirely ideological; that any right-minded Georgian must necessarily have wanted to vote against Georgia Dream, and, by implication Russia, although she has never articulated persuasively how the two are linked. And that by choosing Georgia Dream, voters have either been got at or are plain stupid and not worthy of the right to vote. But her position is also astonishingly self-interested. Narcissistic and drunk on her own propaganda, she just wants to cling to power. Come what may, Salome Zourabichvili is determined to remain President of Georgia, even though her constitutional term expires on Sunday 29 December. At first, during the interview, as if she has a grand plan that she only intends to reveal at the weekend, she refused to be drawn on her future. But by the end of the she announced that ‘I will certainly be President this time next week for the Georgian people’. So having heaped scorn of the democratic failings of the electoral process in her adopted country, Salome Zourabichivili plans to mount a coup d’etat, at least in publicity terms, by insisting that she remains the rightful ruler of Georgia. What she undoubtedly wants is to create a huge scene in which she suffers a deathless martyrdom involving her being dragged out of town and exiled, bullied and bruised. Georgian authorities, which appear so far to have managed the heavily orchestrated protests in Tblisi with restraint, should continue to do so in ushering her out of power in a firm, yet polite way, so that Georgia’s incoming President, Mikheil Kavelashvili, can assume office.