Trudy Rubin: Trump's Ukraine policy in 2025 will show if he is a winner or a loser

As Russia viciously bombed Ukrainian cities over Christmas and shot down an Azeri airliner with antiaircraft fire, it was hard to ignore the message from Moscow.

A new foreign policy era has begun even before Donald Trump takes office. It will be quickly defined by how the president-elect deals with Moscow's war on Ukraine.

The post-Cold War era of America as sole superpower has evolved into a multipolar world where the U.S. confronts an alliance of autocracies that believe liberal democracy is a dying political system — even as many Americans have lost faith in their institutions.

Joe Biden will be the last U.S. president who came of age under the idealistic aegis of John F. Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Trump, meanwhile, has given every signal that he finds the strongman system of governance far more appealing. That is why his pledge to end the war in Ukraine "within 24 hours" will define the new era.

If Trump cuts off U.S. aid to Ukraine and rewards Vladimir Putin for his aggression, it will signal American weakness. That would encourage a new period of aggression by Russia, China, North Korea, and a nuclear-capable Iran, in which America — and Trump — will be the losers. If, on the other hand, Trump pursues "peace through strength," meaning a fair and secure peace for Ukraine, then the new era will start with a win for the president and America.

Here are seven reasons why Trump's bet on Putin is a losing strategy, and how betting on Ukraine would be a win.

1) Forget the bromance. Putin's mocking attitude toward Trump was on display shortly after the election, when he allowed state-controlled Russian TV to troll the president-elect by showing nude photos of first lady Melania Trump in her modeling days. The TV host snickered. And despite Trump's warning to Putin not to escalate the war, Putin has been intensifying his missile strikes on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure since November.

2) Trump's overeagerness for a quick deal has already convinced Putin he's in the driver's seat in any negotiations, so he keeps upping the ante. Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, has called for a cease-fire and a negotiated agreement that would let Putin keep territory already seized, without formal Ukrainian recognition. But it would supposedly "ensure Russia will make no further advances and will not attack again after a cease-fire or peace agreement."

Instead, Putin still insists Ukraine has no right to exist as an independent state. He has stated publicly that Ukraine must dramatically limit the size of its army, leaving it open to future invasion. He would no doubt soon return to trying to wreck Ukraine by force or by sabotage. Trump would go down in history as the leader who lost Ukraine.

3) Trump's and Kellogg's ideas on how to secure Ukraine against future attacks are feckless. According to Kellogg, Ukraine would have to remain "neutral" and agree not to join NATO for decades. Meantime, Trump is unlikely to send further U.S. military aid and calls on Europeans to police a buffer zone along the cease-fire line.

Yet, Putin has demonstrated in the past that buffer zones mean nothing to him. A few hundred Europeans — separate from NATO — would not be able to block a Russian attack. Moreover, Putin has announced he won't ever accept NATO membership for Kyiv, and Trump agrees. This means any forced Ukraine deal will collapse during Trump's presidency, labeling him a loser. Just like what he calls Biden over the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

4) Putin has also let it be known that his real goal in negotiations is much bigger than Ukraine. He wants to negotiate directly with Trump to divide Eurasia into U.S. and Russian spheres of influence — like the post-World War II Yalta accord between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. In other words, diminish NATO and consign all the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states to Russian dominance.

That betrayal would convince the world that a blundering Trump had surrendered global power to U.S. adversaries.

5) Trump kids himself that his negotiating skills will enable him to split Russia from China. "I'm going to have to un-unite them, and I think I can do that," he boasted to Tucker Carlson in October. This is a fantasy. A weak Russia needs China as a crucial market for oil and gas and as a partner in its effort to undermine the West. If Trump abandons Kyiv, he will convince both Putin and Xi Jinping that their partnership brings results.

6) While Putin is a present and future loser — unable to beat much smaller Ukraine in three years and recently driven out of Syria — Kyiv is a potential future winner. At a time when the U.S. and China are competing for key resources, Ukraine is a "mineral superpower," with some of the largest reserves of 117 of the 120 most used minerals in the world, according to the Washington Post, including 22 of the 50 strategic minerals the U.S. considers crucial to its national security. Ukraine is also the breadbasket of Europe and Africa — when Russia is not shelling its remaining ports. Will Trump give up the chance for great deals?

7) Ukraine is also a tech superpower that already shares innovative information with the U.S. military. Its experts have developed advanced drones and other military tools that are cheaper and quicker to produce than comparable U.S. weapons. The Ukrainian military is now the most skilled in Europe, and expanding its own weapons production. Although Europe gives Kyiv more aid, it cannot produce many of the weapons Ukraine needs.

To sum up, Trump's treatment of Ukraine will be a signal to the world of whether the president has conceded global leadership to Russia and China, whose goal is to undermine the United States. As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's savvy Russia analyst, Alexander Baunov, recently wrote in Foreign Affairs, "In Putin's schema, Ukraine has become a tipping point in a global struggle between the Western elite and a new, Russian-led order."

Trump still can tip the balance of the global struggle back toward the West. But that would require the president-elect to recognize that Putin is a liar who is far weaker than his pretenses. It would also require a steady flow of arms to Ukraine and an invitation to NATO — both necessary to convince Putin that Trump will only support peace through strength.