A Cold Peace: Trump, Putin, and the Birth of a New U.S.–EU Security Framework

8/16/2025 | EBH

[Macoozie]

This is a well-crafted and well-reasoned take on the issues.

Many thanks to EBH for posting this article.

[BobL]

One of the interesting historical points about the Soviet Union was that the Russian areas of Ukraine (Donbass, Crimea, and other areas) were only included in Ukraine, to prevent Ukraine from being ethnically pure and thus easy to radicalize against the central government in Moscow.

Given what the Neocons have now done to Ukraine, it only makes sense to adjust the borders to reflect ethnic realities, which is, by the way, EXACTLY what the Neocons had NATO do in Kosovo, to set the precedent.

[aynrandfreak]

Good piece!

[chajin]

Only left out one thing: removing Obama and Biden from the picture has made all of this possible. Keeping them removed will be necessary to secure the peace.

[EBH]

Tells from Alaska Summit

Venue = Alaska
Not Brussels, not Geneva. Midpoint between DC and Moscow → signals equal footing.

Business Delegations
Putin didn’t bring only generals — he brought businesspeople. Translation: this is about trade corridors and sanctions relief as much as borders.

“Peace Agreement, Not Ceasefire”
Trump’s wording wasn’t sloppy. That phrase is a marker of permanence, not a pause.

Phones in Europe Ringing Same Day
If this was theater, EU leaders would have condemned it. Instead, they quietly dialed in. That’s tacit buy-in.

Zelensky Flying to DC Within 48 Hours
If there were “no deal,” Z wouldn’t be summoned. His trip is proof a framework exists — he’s being walked into it.

US–EU Security Pact Floated
The press downplayed it, but this is the pivot: Europe could get guarantees directly from Washington outside NATO. If that sticks, NATO becomes redundant — and Moscow has no reason to posture. That’s a tectonic shift.

[POGO163]

In 1991 Putin said Ukraine was a free and independent country. Now he has attacked Ukraine and is trying to kill as many civilians at night as he can. And you say it is the President of Ukraines fault! This president was not in office when Russia first invaded in 2014. And you are saying that Russia should continue to try to kill as many Ukrainians as possible?? Leaving out the important facts is a habit of you Russian bots.

[Sacajaweau]

It’s getting very noticeable that the President and VP are in different places all the time. Good idea...

[silverleaf]

What a great article…thanks

[silverleaf]

And Yugoslavia

[EBH]

yes, I agree with you.

[AndyJackson]

This is not well-reasoned. It's a goat rope and I hope we stay out of it. I want nothing to do with EU until the countries in the recognize basic human rights, secure their borders against invasion, remove alien criminals, and take pride in their deep and glorious culture and contributions to Western civilization. And NATO needs to die as a bloated sclerotic bureaucracy whose mission evaporated with the Berlin wall.

Now can we drop all of that fideldydoo designed to employ FSOs and bureaucrats in Foggy Bottom over useless nothingness and instead worry about defense of our maritime alliance in the Pacific.

[EBH]

Splitting POTUS and the VP isn’t just symbolism—it’s a security necessity. History tells us that when the stakes are highest, leaders don’t travel together. Think JFK and LBJ on Cold War trips, or even the separation you see with heads of state during critical diplomatic shifts.

Especially now, as Trump and Vance navigate what could be a real turning point in global alignment, the risks aren’t theoretical—they’re real.

[bakeneko]

The only way any treaty endures is if they throw all of the BlackRocks, Central Bankers and Rothschilds out of the room before beginning. The only purpose of ‘peace’ treaties since Napoleon has been to ensure that war breaks out again within a few years so the money-changers can continue collecting their cut.

[Brian Griffin]

“Putin...trying to kill as many civilians at night as he can”

Ukraine is probably the fourth largest arms producer in the world (after the US, Russia and China).

It would make sense for Russians to attack the Ukrainian weapons factories rather than kill a dozen or so Ukrainian civilians occasionally.

Kiev has about 320 square miles, so it might receive about one targeted 115/200 lb. drone warhead per 2.5 square miles per day.

If one also includes the shot down drones that explode on Kiev, that might amount about one 115/200 lb. drone warhead (targeted/free fall) per square mile of Kiev per day.

As most Kiev civilians need be concerned, the drones are in reality a noisy nightly nuisance.

Of course, if the Ukrainian evening news shows images of say 10 strikes daily, the Kiev civilians might get as scared as many American liberals are of guns.

[BobL]

“And Yugoslavia”

Yep, thanks. The initial wars were the central government in Kiev, I mean Belgrade, trying to keep the country together. The Neocons went in there, took the side of the insurgents, and TOTALLY DISMEMBERED the country.

So it’s HUMOROUS to see the Neocons claiming that they are against forcible border changes!

[EBH]

NATO is already dead weight, agreed. But that’s what makes Alaska historic. Trump’s building the exit ramp. Once Europe is stabilized under a U.S.–EU framework, we’re free to shift gears toward the Pacific where the real fight is. Peace in Ukraine isn’t appeasement, it’s repositioning.

[Texas Fossil]

Thanks. The Money Line?

---

For all the fiery rhetoric from NATO headquarters and hawkish European capitals, the Alaska summit revealed the true state of play. The United States and Russia, the only two nuclear superpowers capable of annihilating the planet, have no desire to march into Armageddon over Donbas. They have looked each other in the eye and signaled: enough.

---

The rest of the story? What a real mess the EU and parts of NATO created. Unelected stupid bureaucraps in control of a failing illusion (Socialism) have used talk instead of wisdom and the mass immigration path is one straight to hell. Death to civilization.

[Brian Griffin]

“In 1991 Putin said Ukraine was a free and independent country.”

If you kick a bear cub on your property, expect the teeth and claws of momma bear to be sunk into your flesh.

The ‘cubs’ are Russian ethnics and ‘momma bear’ is Putin and the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

Ukraine WOKEsters are getting daily retaliation for anti-Russian discrimination.

You may think of a passport as merely an expensive ID, but it really says mess with me at your peril.

When I traverse a foreign land, my US passport implies the full military might of the USA may be applied to provide for my safety.

[Brian Griffin]

What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world’s peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/President_Wilson%27s_Fourteen_Points