Why couldn't Trump end the Ukraine war in 24 hours?

Everyone recalls that during the U.S. presidential election in November last year, Donald Trump announced his determination to end the Ukraine war. The Republican candidate claimed he could halt the relatively protracted conflict between Kyiv and Moscow, fueled by NATO's intervention, within 24 hours. However, nearly four months into Trump's presidency, there is no sign of a ceasefire in the Ukraine war!

Moreover, White House officials are now discussing options like a 30-day ceasefire (instead of a permanent one) as desirable goals for this conflict. The issue is clear: Trump has evidently acknowledged his inability to swiftly end the Ukraine war and accuses both parties—Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky—of making excessive demands.

U.S. officials have told Zelensky that he must cede parts of Ukraine's territory, including Crimea and Donetsk, to Russia to finalize a peace agreement. On the other hand, Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, believe that Russia is overreaching by demanding not only the contested regions but also areas not yet under its control.

A strategic deadlock in Ukraine

The reality is that we are facing a strategic deadlock in the Ukraine war, rooted in a broader policy on both sides of the Atlantic: the strategy of creating targeted crises. This is one of the main reasons for the European resistance to ending the war. European NATO members argue that they have borne the cost of hosting the war on their continent and, by persistently pushing for NATO's eastward expansion, provoked Moscow into attacking Ukraine.

In this context, ending the war with Russia annexing parts of Ukraine and receiving firm guarantees that Ukraine will never permanently join NATO is a nightmare for European countries. However, Trump does not consider this concern a significant factor in his Ukraine policy.

The U.S. president now faces dissatisfaction from Russians, Ukrainians, and Europeans alike regarding the White House's approach to the ongoing war. Additionally, an agreement to exploit Ukraine's rare mineral resources in exchange for U.S. military aid to Kyiv has further hardened Vladimir Putin's stance toward Trump.

In other words, the Russian president believes Trump has reneged on the initial agreement both sides (Russia and Trump's America) reached in the early days of the Republican administration.

Failure of the crisis simplification strategy

What is increasingly doomed to fail in this arena is the White House's strategy of simplifying crises. Trump believed his position and power allowed him to easily resolve crises that Washington itself had instigated. However, the crises now embedded in U.S. security and foreign policy cannot be resolved with a single phone call or diplomatic meeting!

It seems Trump is so focused on commercial and financial paradigms that he overlooks the basic principles of political-strategic relations in the international system. Contrary to his assumptions, not only is the Ukraine war far from being resolved in 24 hours, but signs of its growing complexity and worsening situation are becoming more evident every day!

Many military and security analysts in NATO believe that the war's prolongation has increased risks and escalated the crisis, with much of it becoming uncontrollable even for the U.S. and Europe, the primary instigators of this all-out conflict.

Trump's admission

One point that cannot be ignored is Trump's significant admission regarding NATO's failures. Unlike his predecessor, Joe Biden, the current U.S. president believes the Ukraine war resulted from the joint U.S.-European insistence on NATO's eastward expansion, strategically encircling Russia by integrating countries like Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova into the alliance.

In this context, Trump has fundamentally altered the incomplete narrative of Biden and the Democrats, placing greater blame on NATO in the international blame game. This bitter war was waged to counter NATO's strategy of "comprehensively encircling Moscow" and to prevent the realization of its new geostrategic plans in Russia's periphery.

After the war began, Washington and London urged Zelensky to continue fighting while making diplomacy and negotiations over disputes with Moscow a red line in this bloody equation. The Ukrainian president had no choice but to play in the rocky terrain prepared by the West. Even now, with Republicans in the White House, Zelensky is forced to operate within the framework dictated by Trump, even if he resists it for a time!

NATO's catastrophic miscalculation

In the early months of the Ukraine war, when there was still an opportunity to end it, senior NATO officials believed that "time" would be a catalyst for Ukraine's ultimate victory and NATO's ability to extract concessions from Moscow. However, the passage of time and the war's attrition have not favored Zelensky and his army.

In this context, prolonging the war will generate far greater costs for NATO. Trump has clearly realized that the next phase—deepening the crisis—will be far more complex than the current situation, and Washington will undoubtedly lack the capacity to manage it.