Russian President Vladimir Putin is banking on the United States backing ceasefire terms that neither Ukraine nor Europe can accept - and then exploiting the fallout to shatter the Western alliance. That is the blunt assessment of H.R. McMaster, who served as national security advisor during the first Trump administration.
Speaking on the World Class podcast at Stanford University alongside former Biden-era national security advisor Jake Sullivan, McMaster laid out what he sees as Moscow's endgame. As "Hvylya" reports, McMaster was unequivocal: "What Putin wants, what he thinks he can get, is for the United States to support terms for a ceasefire that are unacceptable to the Ukrainians and the Europeans, and to use that gap to break apart the alliance. This is what Putin is dreaming about."
McMaster tied the Ukraine question to a broader pattern of adversaries reading American signals. He argued that "the perception of weakness is provocative to our adversaries" and pointed to mixed messages from Washington - from gratuitous insults aimed at allies to failures to back partners publicly - as fueling doubts about U.S. reliability. Sullivan agreed that what is unfolding amounts to "an associated erosion of trust" among allies, though he acknowledged that the structural foundations of Western alliances have not yet been irreparably damaged.
McMaster warned that encouraging Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping through perceived weakness could "transform them into enemies and lead to war." He expressed cautious optimism that Europe could end up spending far more on defense, taking greater responsibility, "and then rebuilding that bridge of trust - it could be the best of both worlds."
The retired lieutenant general also made a broader case for American engagement abroad. "What is necessary is for American leadership to explain to the American people how problems that develop abroad can only be dealt with at an exorbitant cost once they reach our shores - and how much cheaper it is to prevent a war than to have to fight one," he said. Sullivan, for his part, acknowledged a bipartisan drift toward retrenchment, noting that allies now worry they "cannot trust the United States for any longer than four-to-eight-year increments based on who is in power."
Earlier, we reported: Putin Can Neither Win Nor Stop: Kofman on the War of Attrition in Ukraine.