There’s a growing community of foreign-policy thinkers arguing that the Indo-Pacific (specifically Taiwan), not the Euro-Atlantic (specifically Ukraine), is key to securing U.S. interests. For instance, Rebecca Munson and Admiral Anthony Cothron in their thoughtful Providence essay raise concerns about “Europe-centric policies,” note that America’s “main adversary is not in Europe” and make the case that losing Taiwan would end U.S. hegemony but losing eastern Ukraine would not. Similarly, Trump administration officials contend that “Ukraine is not nearly as important to us as other regions,” argue that the U.S. should elevate Taiwan over Ukraine, and have announced—directly to their European counterparts—that Washington “is prioritizing deterring war with China.”
In our view, the Trump administration is creating a false dichotomy. The challenge confronting America and its allies is not an either-or proposition. Both Europe (specifically Ukraine) and Asia (specifically Taiwan) are important, with the former bearing directly on the latter; neither exists in a vacuum. Rogue and revanchist regimes are monitoring Russia’s unjust invasion of Ukraine and taking notes. What happens in Ukraine matters for Taiwan. To prevent the further advance of tyrant regimes—and further loss of more swaths of the free world—we must resist the “tyranny of the or.”
Alarms
“There are good reasons to be alarmed that [President Donald] Trump’s desired peace plan makes a dangerous moral equivalency between Ukraine and Russia,” Munson and Cothron observe. “That does not mean an imperfect peace in Eastern Europe would lead to a geostrategic collapse.”
We share their alarm about Trump’s failure to discern victim from aggressor in Ukraine. We also recognize that the most likely outcome of this largely-stalemated war will be an “imperfect peace.”
Our concern with this is fourfold.
First, we are concerned about the moral dimensions of this imperfect peace—especially any “peace” that abandons Ukraine. If we abandon Ukraine, any negotiated settlement would not merely be “imperfect,” it would be unjust. “Peace,” it needs emphasizing, can be illicit, as societies controlled by the mafia, terrorists and tyrants illustrate. If free nations, with the U.S. in the lead, fail to address Putin’s evil and Ukraine’s victimhood, we will unintentionally aid and abet the collapse of the international order.
In this vein, it’s important to recognize America’s role in supporting Ukraine, as spelled out, for example, in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Therein Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” were affirmed, with the U.S. as a signatory and the promise of assistance in the event of aggression against Ukraine. Of course, failure to make good on that promise underscores that words aren’t enough to guarantee an “imperfect peace.” Actions and material support are what Ukraine needs going forward—not to roll back Putin’s army to the pre-2014 borders, but to deter it from another landgrab.
That said, words do matter, which leads to a second concern: How we describe such an imperfect peace is important. While imperfect outcomes are often the best we can achieve in an imperfect world, we should neither accept them as permanent nor contribute to their permanency.
To illustrate: The Roosevelt administration made clear in 1940 that it wouldn’t recognize Moscow’s annexation of the Baltics by rejecting “the devious processes whereunder the political independence and territorial integrity of the three small Baltic republics…were to be deliberately annihilated by one of their more powerful neighbors.” Washington maintained that stance until 1990, when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania regained their independence.
Similarly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018 announced that the U.S. “rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea” and “pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.” In 2024, all 32 NATO members agreed to that position: “We will never recognize Russia’s illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.”
Yet 23 days into his second term, Trump broke NATO’s promise and reversed what his own secretary of State had declared.
Third, how we defend and sustain an imperfect peace is crucial to the maintenance of such a peace.
History reminds us that the free world can sustain an imperfect peace.
Consider post-World War II Germany. After a period of occupation, the country’s western half was rearmed and invited into NATO as a full member in 1955—despite massive Soviet bloc armies ringing West Berlin, despite West Germany facing an overwhelming military disadvantage across a heavily-armed border, despite profound disagreements between the superpowers: The U.S. didn’t formally recognize the post-World War II territorial-political settlement in Europe until 1975—30 years after the war’s end—and West Germany never abandoned hopes for reunification. Those hopes weren’t realized until 1990.
Consider the Korean Peninsula. Despite territorial disagreements, despite the absence of a peace treaty, despite the threat posed by a massive hostile army north of the 38th Parallel, the U.S. provided security guarantees to South Korea in late 1953—guarantees still in force. South Korea still looks forward to the reunification of the peninsula under the banner of freedom, notwithstanding the reckless tyranny and brutal inhumanity of the North Korean regime.
Consider America’s global posture during the Cold War. President Harry Truman declared that the U.S. would “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”—whether in Europe or Asia. Thus, he shielded West Berlin; supported European democracies under assault; midwifed fledgling democracies in Japan and West Germany; and defended South Korea. Likewise, President Ronald Reagan explained that “support for freedom fighters is self-defense” and “is tied to our own security.” Thus, he provided assistance and aid to those in Moscow’s crosshairs—whether in Europe, Asia or the Americas; welcomed a democratic Spain into NATO; and supported South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines as they walked the path from dictatorship to democracy.
Trump, on the other hand, shows no indication that America will supply Ukraine with deterrent capabilities; no indication that America will be part of guaranteeing an imperfect peace; no indication that he’s willing to provide France and Britain with the minimum of “backstop” capabilities as they shoulder the burden of boots-on-the-ground peacekeeping.
Fourth, what happens in Ukraine will resound beyond Europe. Just as there was a linkage between the defense of West Germany and the defense of South Korea during the Cold War, Ukraine and Taiwan are linked today.
If Ukraine is left defenseless, if Ukraine is forced into a suicidal peace deal, if Putin is undeterred, if his landgrab is blessed by Washington, if Moscow is granted a veto over Ukraine’s sovereignty or NATO’s membership roster, then Moscow and Beijing will see a green light to continue assaulting the free world. That’s how a mishandled postwar Ukraine could lead to “geostrategic collapse” and a larger conflict.
However, if Ukraine is rearmed and rebuilt, if Kiev is given real security guarantees and tools of deterrence, if Washington recommits to NATO and assists those allies taking the lead in Ukraine, if Putin is put on notice by a revived Euro-Atlantic community, then a very different signal will be sent to Beijing.
Neither
We agree with Munson and Cothron’s premise that “U.S. hegemony”—America’s ability to influence the world and to promote a liberal economic and political order that encourages human flourishing—plays a positive role in a broken world. What’s important to consider is that Trump perhaps doesn’t care about U.S. hegemony—or may be content with trading the near-global hegemony America has exercised since the Cold War’s end for a retreat to hemispheric hegemony and a return to great-power spheres of influence. Indeed, the aim of Trump’s entire foreign-policy project seems to be to dismantle the pillars of American hegemony: the expansion of free trade, the defense of free government, the interlocking system of alliances of free nations.
Trump’s advisors and defenders may earnestly argue that he’s taking a tough-love approach to Europe, demanding that Europe lead in Ukraine and pulling back from the Euro-Atlantic—all so that America can husband its resources and pivot to the Indo-Pacific. What they overlook is the possibility that for Trump, guaranteeing security in the Euro-Atlantic and in the Indo-Pacific is not an either-or proposition, but rather a neither-nor proposition.
