Two months after the breathtaking Operation Midnight Hammer strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and the ceasefire with Israel that soon followed, President Donald Trump has once again upended conventional foreign policy wisdom. After years of escalatory rhetoric, moral posturing, and seemingly endless funding packages, Trump’s twin high-profile summits with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders in Washington, D.C., offer the clearest roadmap yet to finally end the tragic war in Ukraine. And perhaps the toughest part for the foreign policy establishment to swallow: It would come to pass not in spite of Trump’s nationalist “America First” instincts but because of them. Three and a half years after Putin’s February 2022 invasion, the Russia-Ukraine War is a humanitarian catastrophe and a financial sinkhole. It has often seemed to be an intractable quagmire; the permanent foreign policy class has no idea how to even begin to end it. Ever since Russian tanks first rolled into the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Western elites have clung to fanciful, idealistic slogans—“as long as it takes,” “until the last square inch,” and so forth—while sending oodles of U.S. taxpayer dollars to a deeply corrupt country at an alarming clip. No one in former President Joe Biden’s neoliberal blob had any plan to stop the killing. Trump does. And he’s showing us yet again how a sober realism—not liberal internationalist fantasy—can yield results. It begins with clarity of purpose as it pertains to the American national interest. Trump has never pretended that the precise delineation of the historically disputed Russia-Ukraine border is a question that implicates the United States’ vital interests. Simply put, Ukraine isn’t in NATO. If the invaded country were a NATO country like Estonia or Latvia, this would be a different conversation. But that’s not the case. Trump also understands the parties well. He knows that Putin is an inveterate autocrat—not a “democrat-in-waiting” who just needs a few more Harvard Kennedy School seminars to fall in line. And he also recognizes that Zelenskyy, Churchillian cosplay notwithstanding, is the president of a still-fledgling post-Soviet republic mired in venality and a dubious commitment to Western-style liberalism. Putin is a horrific thug, yes, but he is a rational actor; Zelenskyy is less barbaric than Putin, but his maximalist ambitions have been overinflated by years of Western ego-stroking. Enter Dealmaker in Chief Trump—the man who has already secured ceasefires or peace deals between Israel and Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan, India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand, and Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on what we can glean from the recent summits with Putin and Zelenskyy, Trump’s “art of the deal” strategy for a grand Russo-Ukrainian peace accord seems to center on four principles: (1) neutrality for Ukraine, (2) land swaps, (3) reconstruction guarantees, and (4) enforcement mechanisms. Neutrality means Ukraine doesn’t join NATO—period. There will be no more inching ever-eastward for NATO—the sort of reckless expansionism that helped sparked this conflict in the first place. Ukraine must remain sovereign—a tough but necessary concession from Putin, who harbors Soviet-era “Greater Russia” ambitions. It will become a bridge state not wholly dissimilar to Belarus, minus the repressive dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko. Zelenskyy has at times seemed insistent on eventual NATO membership for Ukraine, but he has also equivocated. He will have to compromise; Russia has a legitimate security interest in a buffer zone on its western border. If there is a peace deal in the offing, land swaps and territorial compromise will be the toughest pill to swallow. This is where Trump, the sober and emotionally detached realist, stands a better chance of succeeding than his ideologically inclined White House predecessor. Crimea will remain with Russia—that is both the historical and the present, on-the-ground reality. The borders of the Donbas region—full of ethnically/linguistically divided Russian/Ukrainian towns—must be redrawn too. The granular cartographic details are beyond the scope of this column, but the general guiding principle should be self-determination and peace over strife and proxy war. Third, Trump is reportedly working with European partners to create a Marshall Plan-style economic reconstruction package for Ukraine—as long as a peace deal holds. The all-important carrot for Ukraine here is economic revival, not NATO’s Article 5 missiles. The mineral rights deal inked earlier this year between the U.S. and Ukraine provides more in the way of economic inducement. Finally, enforcement. A Russia-Ukraine deal likely cannot survive on good intentions alone. Trump’s model will require teeth. The enforcement details remain to be seen—and Trump’s MAGA base would rightly resist a NATO Article 5-style “an attack on one is an attack on all”-style multilateral guarantee. Unlike NATO’s tripwires or Biden’s moralistic blank checks, Trump’s enforcement model must be transactional and rooted in the American national self-interest. Getting this part of the deal right will be crucial. Ending the Russia-Ukraine War would save countless lives, stabilize Europe’s eastern flank, and—perhaps most important—finally permit the U.S. military to truly focus on deterring its top 21st-century geopolitical threat, communist China. By already bringing us closer to peace than his predecessor ever did, Trump is again reminding Americans that the purpose of foreign policy is not moral preening but the pursuit of the national interest. The war in Ukraine has raged far too long. If Trump can bring it to a close, with a deal that both Moscow and Kyiv can live with, then he will have achieved what no Western leader since 2022 has had the courage to even attempt in earnest. And perhaps, if successful, he’ll finally get that elusive Nobel Peace Prize.          . COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Art of the Deal, Russia-Ukraine Style appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Many of today’s teachers can’t pass the most basic civics or literacy tests — and yet they’re in charge of shaping the next generation.Which is why in collaboration with conservative educational group PragerU, Oklahoma Superintendent for Public Instruction Ryan Walters has introduced a new test for teachers coming into his state from California and New York in an attempt to keep out “woke indoctrination.”These tests may be extended in the future to teachers coming from eight other Democratic-led states, and they include basic questions that would root out any indoctrinated individual who plans to teach children biological lies based on the LGBTQ+ agenda.“Ryan Walters of Oklahoma approached us and said, ‘Can you just do something very basic, because the complaints are coming in when parents are sending their kids to schools where teachers who have come in from California and New York are in charge of a classroom and are bringing in the woke indoctrination that they’ve received in California?’” PragerU CEO Marissa Streit tells Blaze media co-founder Glenn Beck on “The Glenn Beck Program.”Glenn is shocked by the questions on the test.“This is the first question,” he says, before reading the questions. “What’s the primary biological distinction between males and females? A. Height and weight, B. Hairstyle, C. Personal preference, D. Chromosomes and reproductive anatomy.”“That’s a tough one,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere chimes in.“At birth, how is a person’s biological sex typically identified? A. Personal feelings, B. Parental choice, C. Online registration, D. Visual anatomical observation and chromosomes,” Glenn continues reading.“That’s a fascinating one,” Stu says. “I mean, obviously the answer is D, but I would say a lot of people on the left would say B, right, like it’s a parental preference or something.”Glenn isn’t hopeful that any indoctrinated teachers will pass, adding, “This only gets hard if you are completely disconnected from science and reality.”Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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