Sat beside his Ukrainian counterpart in the White House this week, US President Donald Trump explained why he had dropped the idea of trying to pressure Russia into a ceasefire: They are nice to have, but not necessary, he said — just look at the six wars he had already ended, none of which involved a preliminary truce.
There are a lot of claims packed in there, so let us break them down.
It is true that not all peace agreements are preceded by truces — but a lot are. One study has counted 2,202 ceasefires that quieted conflicts around the globe between 1989 and 2020.
Illustration: Yusha
Trump was also right about truces being used not just to help bring an end to the fighting, but to actually advance war-fighting strategies.
However, what ceasefires most certainly are not is just “nice to have.” Nor are the six conflicts that Trump claims to have ended any kind of dataset to make that point.
Trump claims to have ended wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Thailand, India and Pakistan, Ethiopia and Egypt, Iran and Israel, and Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo).
Ethiopia and Egypt could be ignored. Those two countries were not at war and the dispute over a dam on the Nile that Trump is referring to remains unresolved.
Meanwhile, India said that the US was not a party to ending in May the latest of many clashes it has had with Pakistan since their 1947 partition. If it was, then the deal that emerged was a ceasefire, agreed in a hotline phone call between the two nations’ military chiefs, not a peace settlement.
Trump himself called it a “FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE” when claiming responsibility.
The White House could legitimately take credit for using the threat of a trade war to cajole Thailand and Cambodia to the negotiating table, after a long-running border dispute erupted into armed conflict last month. However, again, this was a ceasefire. And it led to Malaysia brokering a 13-point settlement the following month. So, it is a counter to Trump’s argument.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan deal is interesting, but again a poor Exhibit A. The deal became possible, and US involvement was invited, because both countries are currently on the outs with Moscow.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal said that Baku and Yerevan especially wanted to free themselves of a clause in their still-operative 2020 ceasefire deal. This had been brokered by Moscow and gave Russia’s Federal Security Service (the former KGB) control over a corridor that passes through Armenian territory, linking Azerbaijan to its exclave, Nakhichevan.
The joint statement that the two nations signed in Washington earlier this month replaced that ceasefire with a final settlement. It also substituted the US for Russia as the corridor’s guarantor. However, in terms of Trump’s claims on ending wars, the fighting had stopped in 2023. By the time he got involved, there was no fire to cease.
As for Iran-Israel, Trump’s June 22 decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities clearly helped to dissuade Tehran from continuing its missile exchanges with Israel.
However, as Yahya Rahim Safavi, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general and adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said to Iranian media on Aug. 17, there is not necessarily a peace.
“We are not in a ceasefire, we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation or agreement has been written between us and the US or Israel,” he said. “I think another war may happen.”
The deal Trump brokered between Rwanda and the DR Congo in June is probably closest to Trump’s model. However, the result still does not support his “nice to have” view on ceasefires. The fighting — much of it conducted by militias and proxies — continues unabated, even after the settlement. The Rwanda-backed M23 group executed 140 Congolese last month, part of a monthly total of 300 killed.
Despite the Trump-brokered settlement, that made last month M23’s most murderous month since 2021, according to Human Rights Watch.
Ceasefires could be important for multiple reasons, with their potential to stop killings and facilitate aid flows topping the list. That is especially true for conflicts such as Gaza, the DR Congo and Ukraine, where the toll on civilians is unacceptably high. A close second is that agreement to a truce could indicate whether one or both sides are even interested in ending the war, or if the reason they began fighting remains as compelling to them as ever.
For example, until about a year ago Ukrainians were opposed to any ceasefire. Their country had been invaded, and they had had considerable success in taking back territory that Russian forces initially seized. They thought they could get back more, and the evidence of rape, torture, child abductions and murder they found in liberated towns convinced them this was also a moral duty. A ceasefire would, by contrast, lock in Russia’s occupation, together with its horrors.
Even today, a look at the conflict maps produced by Washington’s Institute for the Study of War show that Ukraine has retaken about as much land as it lost since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. However, hopes of reclaiming any more have faded.
Most Ukrainians now say when polled that they want a ceasefire, even if that means accepting loss of control over occupied territory. It is Putin who is resisting any truce, because his forces are making daily gains and he thinks he could get more.
This is why Trump’s bilateral summit in Alaska was a strategic disaster for Ukraine and its allies, for the result was that the US has now abandoned the threat of sanctions and other forms of pressure to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire. This has left him with no reason to stop, let alone end, his invasion, unless it is as part of a strategy to secure through diplomacy the territories and other war aims he has been unable to win on the battlefield.
So, yes, a ceasefire in Ukraine would matter, enormously. Getting one is at this point a near-impossible mission, given Putin’s continued appetite for war. However, it is also one that Trump, uniquely, has the leverage and tools to execute, should he ever choose to accept it.
Mare Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.
Yesterday’s recall and referendum votes garnered mixed results for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). All seven of the KMT lawmakers up for a recall survived the vote, and by a convincing margin of, on average, 35 percent agreeing versus 65 percent disagreeing. However, the referendum sponsored by the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on restarting the operation of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County failed. Despite three times more “yes” votes than “no,” voter turnout fell short of the threshold. The nation needs energy stability, especially with the complex international security situation and significant challenges regarding
Most countries are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with condemnations of militarism and imperialism, and commemoration of the global catastrophe wrought by the war. On the other hand, China is to hold a military parade. According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Beijing is conducting the military parade in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 to “mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.” However, during World War II, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had not yet been established. It
Much like the first round on July 26, Saturday’s second wave of recall elections — this time targeting seven Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers — also failed. With all 31 KMT legislators who faced recall this summer secure in their posts, the mass recall campaign has come to an end. The outcome was unsurprising. Last month’s across-the-board defeats had already dealt a heavy blow to the morale of recall advocates and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while bolstering the confidence of the KMT and its ally the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). It seemed a foregone conclusion that recalls would falter, as
Many foreigners, particularly Germans, are struck by the efficiency of Taiwan’s administration in routine matters. Driver’s licenses, household registrations and similar procedures are handled swiftly, often decided on the spot, and occasionally even accompanied by preferential treatment. However, this efficiency does not extend to all areas of government. Any foreigner with long-term residency in Taiwan — just like any Taiwanese — would have encountered the opposite: agencies, most notably the police, refusing to accept complaints and sending applicants away at the counter without consideration. This kind of behavior, although less common in other agencies, still occurs far too often. Two cases
RSS