It is time for Washington to recognize Russia’s legitimate interests in Ukraine and NATO.

The Responsible Statecraft reported that while diplomats were working hard to reach the Dayton Accords in 1995, then-Defense Secretary Bill Perry advised: “No deal is better than a bad deal.” Given that Washington’s allies in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw oppose any outcome that could lead to the end of the war in Ukraine, no agreement would be desirable.

But for President Donald Trump, there is no point in equating the illusion of peace in Ukraine with a meaningless ceasefire that does not solve any problem in the ongoing war.

During these days, Ukraine is sinking into a swamp of corruption, starting at the highest levels of government in Kiev. It turns out that sending $175 billion of borrowed money there “regardless of the supposed length of time” is worse than recklessness.

The US national sovereign debt rises to about $38 trillion, and is rising by $425 billion per month. President Trump should turn his attention away from financing Joe Biden’s wars and focus instead on the faltering American economy.

Trump must make clear that the insistence of the administration of former President Joe Biden to provide assistance to establish a Ukrainian military institution aimed at waging an offensive war against Russia, instead of engaging in the diplomacy necessary to avoid it before 2022, was a grave strategic mistake.

Washington’s European allies are completely wrong to insist that Moscow has no right to show defiance to an existential threat to it, emanating from NATO on its borders.

Were it not for the decades-long project to transfer technology, advice and money to Ukraine, the threat Russia faces in Ukraine would not have emerged.

Trump’s recent decision to reconsider the feasibility of sending Tomahawk missiles for use in Ukraine is a step in the right direction. Just as Washington has legitimate interests in Mexico and the Caribbean Basin, it is time for Washington to recognize Moscow’s legitimate national security interests with respect to Ukraine and the NATO countries located in its region.

It is time for Europe and the United States to realize that stability in the region is in everyone’s interest, and this means not encouraging Ukraine into endless war.

We hope that President Trump has finally seen the US missile stockpile. His reluctance to send Tomahawk missiles, which cannot be operated without American planning and execution of missions, indicates that he and his team may also have asked to know the status of more vital missile systems, such as the Standard series of missiles. The exact numbers of the US missile inventory are not known, but President Trump should demand detailed answers to his questions.

It is also important for Trump to understand that no matter how much pressure he puts on the US defense industry base to increase production, the delivery timelines will not change much. The party with the most missiles at the start has an excellent chance of winning. The party that has fewer of them will lose.

It appears that American military power is in a state of decline that will require a number of decades to restore it to its previous status. In his pursuit of true military power, the American President must not confuse the eagerness of his senior military commanders to comply with his policies or ideas as evidence of loyalty or professionalism. Washington, DC, suffers from a shortage of sycophantic and boastful generals whose experience in real war does not exceed – at best – the level of ordinary familiarity without real experience.

The commander of US forces in Europe and Africa, General Christopher Donahue, gained notoriety when he stated in June of this year that US (NATO) forces were able to seize Russia’s heavily fortified Kaliningrad region “in an unprecedented time frame.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or President Trump may have welcomed these statements. Emotions often play too much of a role in national decision-making, yet generals who publicly spread claims of military superiority should be treated with suspicion, because it has happened before.

After the outbreak of the Korean War, the commander of the 24th Infantry Division, Major General Din, insisted that his men “simply appear on the battlefield, and the North Korean People’s Army will disappear into the hills.” According to British journalist and historian Max Hastings, when the North Koreans attacked Din’s division, the resulting crushing defeat resembled the collapse of the French army in 1940 and the British army in Singapore in 1942.

Before a future meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump should ignore the false claim about the weakness of the Russians and the claim of “Ukraine’s strength” promoted by Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and a group of neoconservatives in Congress. He must pay attention to what was revealed about the real state of readiness of the American armed forces.

Honest statements may prompt Trump to reconsider pushing Moscow to the brink of abyss, in the hope of achieving a “victory” that he can announce to the American public. An analysis of the current state of mind and readiness of the US Navy is presented in an article titled “The Global Navy Crisis,” which is more clarifying. This article is the latest in a series of warnings dating back to the aftermath of Desert Storm and the so-called “peace dividend,” where the author of the article said, “Imbalances are everywhere,” pointing to a number of points such as:

– Littoral combat ships that were decommissioned before deployment, a $30 billion experiment, could not withstand reality.

– Destroyers delayed for years, of the “Zumwalt” class, which were designed as revolutionary, but were inoperable when they were received.

The F-35C aircraft is a symbol of a defect in joint acquisitions.

– Shipyards cannot make or repair ships on time.

The problems are not limited to the Air Force and Navy. According to sources in Congress, most of the ground combat vehicles used by the US Army and Marine Corps are not ready to support operational missions, due to a lack of maintenance and spare parts.

Fighting battles with the forces you have is inevitable, but conflict must be avoided if the forces are not effectively commanded, organized, trained and equipped with the appropriate equipment to fight, even when the enemy is as weak as Venezuela. Before President Trump and his government decide to start a new conflict with Venezuela, the concern that Trump should feel before anyone else is intellectual impotence, not financial.

Trump, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, must abolish the unfortunate habit among the senior military ranks, which is to submit to naive ideas, and work to create an alternative to them, which is a core group of military professionals with the integrity and competence necessary to confront the unexpected when it arises.

In short, if President Trump’s reconsideration of the Tomahawk option indicates a new tendency toward a serious self-evaluation of the limits of American military power, then this is good news. Meanwhile, President Trump’s main strategic challenge is not to interfere in Ukraine, the Middle East, or Latin America.

President Trump’s top priority is restoring American economic prosperity. The security of the United States – in the future – will increasingly depend on its economic strength more than its military strength. The first American president, George Washington, argued in 1797: “Twenty years of peace, coupled with our remote condition, will enable us to challenge any power on earth,” and President Washington’s words still apply. About “Responsible Statecraft”

• Ukraine is sinking, these days, into a swamp of corruption, starting from the highest levels of government in Kiev.

• Washington’s European allies are completely wrong to insist that Moscow has no right to show defiance to an existential threat to it, emanating from NATO on its borders.