To Save Ukraine, Trump Needs to Think Bigger

Julian Zelizer : Normalizing U.S.-Russian relations while ending the war in Ukraine can be done well or badly.

He says a thirty-day ceasefire is the right way to begin, but the way the administration is going about it is loaded with “ifs” Zelizer writes.

Zelizer says the administration needs a more expansive strategy that integrates Ukraine 's security future into Europe ’s security future.

Vladimir Putin has demanded, even for a ceasefire, a guarantee that Ukraine will be shut out of NATO .

Peter Bergen : Ukraine ’s postwar security is intimately bound up with the stability of the postwar security setting in Europe .

He says Putin has set as fundamentally a precondition for a resolution of the conflict.

Bergen says NATO allies must be part of the process of creating a defensible Ukraine .

Robert Legvold : Ending the war in Ukraine must be done in the broader framework of an altered U.S.-Russian relationship.

Successfully altering that relationship, however, can only be done by dealing with the European dimension of the relationship’s demise, he says.

Creating a defensible Ukraine outside NATO is essential to reaching a peace agreement and coordinating with Ukraine 's allies to achieve this is key to dealing with a peace-averse Putin .