Peace With Russia Is INEVITABLE. NATO Is In Terminal Decline | Ray McGovern

## Peace with Russia: inevitability and urgency The exchange makes a provocative claim: a general peace in Europe with Russia is not a matter of if but when. That inevitability, the conversation insists, arises from a simple mismatch between ambition and capacity. Moscow, according to the analysis offered, has hardened its bargaining position through battlefield gains and strategic leverage; Washington and its allies have exhausted political capital and public patience. The moral urgency flows from that structural reality: if peace is coming regardless, the only meaningful political question is how to hasten it in a way that spares lives and stabilizes a fragile continent. Seen this way, negotiating now — even from an unattractive position — could save thousands who would otherwise die in a prolonged conflict of attrition. The argument cuts against prevailing media narratives that treat Russian concessions as both impossible and morally unacceptable. Instead, the discussion proposes a pragmatic calculus: when power relationships change, so too must expectations about outcomes. That recalibration is uncomfortable for many, but refusing to engage with it risks accepting a slow-motion catastrophe. ## What a deal would look like: concessions, packaging, and political optics A central theme of the conversation is the paradox of leverage and presentation. One strand of the analysis imagines a deal that gives Russia much of what it seeks — notably security guarantees that prevent Ukraine from joining NATO — yet packages that outcome as a diplomatic triumph domestically for the United States. The practical elements of such an accord would include territorial compromises, arrangements for shared or multinational access to key ports, and a written or time-bound limbo over NATO membership rather than an immediate, categorical prohibition. The conversation stresses that the political art is as important as the legal text. If U.S. political leadership can portray the concessions as a major victory — extracting a verifiable Russian promise not to attack Poland, the Baltics, or the remainder of Ukraine, for instance — then domestic audiences might accept terms that would be intolerable under a different narrative. This packaging is not merely spin. The interlocutors argue it is essential because many voters are psychologically predisposed to equate American diplomacy with strength; a skilled presentation can therefore turn an asymmetric bargain into a palatable outcome. A further practical innovation suggested in the discussion is time-limiting contentious clauses: put the NATO question on hold for decades rather than force an irreversible answer now. A 25-year revisit clause — neither an absolute yes nor a categorical no — allows both sides to save face and build confidence incrementally. ## NATO’s crisis: terminal decline or transformational moment? Perhaps the most alarming conclusion advanced is that NATO is in deep trouble. The conversation portrays the alliance as fragmented, politically strained, and increasingly unable to perform the role it set for itself after the Cold War. Elements of that diagnosis are institutional: unilateral decisions by members, differentiated threat perceptions across Europe, and unequal burdensharing have chipped away at cohesion. Politically, several participants cast European governments as desperately dependent on American strategic guidance and military presence, which undermines the credibility and autonomy of the alliance as an institution. Yet the crisis can also be read as an opening. If NATO cannot credibly offer collective security across the full expanse of Europe, then treating its future as fixed is a mistake. The conversation suggests that states might pursue flexible regional arrangements, bilateral or multilateral security guarantees, or new verification regimes tailored to the realities of post-conflict Europe. To critics who hear “terminal decline” and imagine chaos, the interlocutors respond that institutional transformation is a more realistic outcome than outright collapse: alliances do not disappear overnight, but their form and function can change substantially. ## Leadership, unpredictability, and the calculus of adversaries A recurring concern in the exchange is the role of political unpredictability. The discussion treats the character of national leaders not as mere personality trivia, but as central to strategic calculation. On one side, unpredictability can be stabilizing if it injects caution into an adversary’s planning; on the other, it can be a source of dangerous miscalculation that provokes escalation. The interlocutors single out the current U.S. political context as particularly fraught. One argument is that an American presidency that speaks impulsively and announces sweeping ideas without vetting with professional agencies creates strategic confusion. That confusion is not only problematic for U.S. policymakers; it is a foreign policy variable that adversaries must incorporate into their own risk assessments. For Moscow, the preference might be for predictable interlocutors who can be read and whose commitments are reliably enforced. For Kyiv and NATO capitals, by contrast, unpredictability erodes trust and complicates planning. The conversation raises an important institutional counterweight to presidential volatility: a director of national intelligence or other national security professionals who can present sober, verifiable assessments even when political leaders have rhetorical flights of fancy. If such officials can credibly explain the balance of power — for instance, that Russian gains are greater than public perceptions suppose — they can steer policy toward a negotiated settlement rather than an open-ended escalation. ## Verification: the indispensable technology of diplomacy If pragmatic bargains and time-limited clauses are the architecture of a settlement, verification is the plumbing that makes it work. The exchange reiterates a frequently overlooked lesson of Cold War diplomacy: formal paper commitments without inspection mechanisms are fragile. Treaties that dissolved or constrained dangerous capabilities — from the INF Treaty to SALT and the ABM arrangements — derived much of their value from mutual verification. Inspectors, technical intelligence, on-site visits, and other mechanisms turned promises into observable behavior that could be enforced or corrected without instant recourse to arms. Those who participated in the conversation point to historical precedents where verification produced results. Properly designed, inspection regimes can detect violations quickly and provide the political ammunition needed to demand remediation. Given contemporary distrust in guarantees and the U.S. domestic tendency to rescind agreements across administrations, the interlocutors argue that hard verification — satellite imagery, intrusive inspections, and transparent monitoring — is the only route to durable peace. This conclusion has an uncomfortable implication: peace that depends on verifiable restraint is possible only if the parties accept that their sovereignty will be partially traded for stability. For many national audiences that will be a steep sell, but the conversation insists it is unavoidable if any treaty is to outlast political cycles. ## Europe’s dilemma: agency, dependency, and the limits of “poodle” politics A blunt aside in the discussion describes Europe as, at present, politically subordinated — a “poodle” for American strategic choices. That phrasing is deliberately provocative, but it illuminates a real dynamic: many European governments appear constrained by alliance politics and domestic political calculations that prevent frank bargain-making with Moscow. Whether through public opinion, electoral fear, or reliance on American military power, European capitals are often unable or unwilling to pursue the kind of pragmatic diplomacy the conv

Peace With Russia Is INEVITABLE. NATO Is In Terminal Decline | Ray McGovern [Part 2 of 3] A general peace in Europe with Russia is not a question of if but when even if the neocons left and right of the Atlantic are trying everything to prevent it. The only question is how to get there faster to save thousands of lives. Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and long-time political activist for a sane US foreign policy explains why the way to peace might be one that gives Russia everything it demands (and would enforce anyhow) while packaging it as a "great deal" for Donald Trump. Ray McGovern online: raymcgovern.com Neutrality Studies is on Spotify and Apple Podcasts now! You can follow us here: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ch/podcast/neutrality- studies/id1791051233 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2vvTf44yckVz1hDggVolgB? si=03305b3fe8ad4cf3 #M3 And they work out a regime that satisfies the Russians that they're not going to be attacked from what's left of the old Ukraine. Okay. And then this sticky wicket: What about NATO? Well, NATO has fallen apart. Okay. What's NATO going to look like in 25 years? Okay. So I can see if I was advising Putin, I'd say, oh, all right. We won't insist that you commit not to put Ukraine in NATO. Let's revisit that. Let's put that in this contract. We'll revisit it in 25 years. #M2 Let's shift gears just a little bit to current affairs, which I want to ask you about. If Tulsi Gabbard actually becomes the head of the intelligence agencies, will she be primarily responsible for liaising with the president? Will other people compete for the attention of Donald Trump? And if you look at what happened in the last three or four days... with Netanyahu coming to Washington and then Donald Trump making this shocking announcement that he wants to empty the Gaza Strip and rebuild. And he read that from cards. These were prepared cards, right? This was a prepared affair with people around him, at least partially responsible for making sure that this is policy, not just a brainchild of the moment. He has a lot of those, right? He talks off the cuff. But this one was prepared. Who is running or is going to run this administration apart from the impulses of Donald Trump? #M3 I don't know. And that's the problem. Putin doesn't know. Nobody knows. Given the example of the last several days, it looks like Trump is going to just speak off the cuff and propose preposterous things that have not really been vetted with the bureaucracy or the specialists, such as they are. So -- 1 of 6 -- this is, I mean, there are adjectives to describe what he said about Gaza. The best ones I got from a friend of mine who said that he was deranged, delusional, and dangerous. Now, during the electoral campaign, Mr. Putin was asked, you know, who do you prefer? I mean, it looked like Biden versus, and he said, oh, Biden. Tongue in cheek. I read about that. Well, because he's predictable. Sotto voce, we don't have to deal with this unpredictable guy that we know what's going to do. And then when it turned out to be Vice President Harris, he said, oh, yeah, now we're going to vote. We hope that Harris wins because Joe Biden told us to vote for her and they would be more predictable. Well, you know, that was tongue in cheek, but this is essential. I spent a long time putting myself in the shoes of Soviet or Russian leaders. What they hope for, what they yearn for, what they lust for is a president across the Atlantic Ocean who is predictable. After all, they have their fingers on the codes, for God's sake, the nuclear codes. So what is Trump to make of all this? Who's in charge? It was bad enough when a person who was really non compos mentis, that would be Joe Biden, was deferring these decisions to the likes of Blinken and Sullivan. And the worst was prevented because every now and then the Defense Department would intervene and say, no, that's a little, that's a bridge too far. We won't go that far. And then they'd be overruled. And then anyhow, there was a real Donnybrook. Now, what's going on now? Trump is making these decisions all by himself. Now, what's the other side of this? He did pick Tulsi Gabbard to be his director of national intelligence. Now, that is big because he must have known and he must have been advised that she knows which end is up and she might even tell him things that he didn't want to hear. Let's assume that she was picked for that reason. What's she going to tell him? Well, assume she's confirmed. I think she will be confirmed in the next couple of days. Well, on Israel, I think that is all run by the State Department and the ideologues and the Israeli lobby. And she has not been very good on Israel because I guess she felt that if she had any chance at all of getting approved, she had to repeat the Israeli line. On Ukraine, she does know which end is up. And she's going to be telling the president, look, Mr. President, I hate to tell you this, but it's not the case that Putin lost the war. As a matter of fact, Putin was very close to winning the whole shebang. We could do a deal with him, but the deal will have to be much more negative for our purposes than the one that we worked out in April 2022 when we had an agreement that Ukraine would not be part of NATO and the whole business. So she's going to know this, and she's going to brief him. And the Mike Waltz and who else? Oh, the General Kellogg people who say, we're going to pressure Russia, we're going to come in strong. Well, Tulsi is going to be able to tell the president, look, that didn't work, okay? That didn't work since February of 2022. Now, it's in spades not going to work now that the Russians clearly have the upper hand. Putin is willing to deal with you. Now, this is my concept of what Tulsi Gabbard might say in maybe her second or third session with the president. Mr. President, the American people have been trained to think that Putin is a danger because he wants to take over all of Ukraine and then Poland, and then the Baltic states. And God knows he won't stop there. Okay. Now, Mr. President, you may not know this, but Putin already -- 2 of 6 -- stopped. Okay. That was April 2022. He stopped. He withdrew forces from around Kyiv. They had a deal. He stopped. He was going to let Donbas remain part of Ukraine. It was just going to have some autonomy as had been promised. So, for your own information, you could say, well, you can feel, you can understand that he did stop. What does that mean? Mr. President, just between you and me, that means that he doesn't want to take over all of Ukraine. My God, what a headache that would be—a Vietnam for him. There are people in Western Ukraine who hate his guts, okay? You don't have to deal with that, okay? Nor does he. Mr. President, you've been to Poland, right? You've been to Poland. Why would Putin want to take over Poland? So look, here's the deal, Mr. President. What you say is, you say, look, I talked to my friend Vlad. I extracted a promise from him, and he's not going to try to take over all of Ukraine. And he expressly signed this little piece of paper that says, I don't want to take over Poland or the Baltic states. And so, Mr. President, to the degree that 80 percent of the American people were conditioned or brainwashed—not too strong a word—to believe that this was the case by the earlier administration, we'll play on that. Let's say they believe that. Well, you've got this great concession, okay? He's not going to take over the rest of Ukraine. He does have legitimate security concerns. My God, Trump has already said that. Trump has said, and this is a virtual quote, I can understand. I can understand why Putin and the Russians wouldn't want a NATO-armed and equipped-to-the-teeth nation on their long border with Ukraine. I can understand that. That's the whole reason for the war. There are hints that Trump is not as ideologically or as wedded to these notions that Putin has to be defeated. I think there's room for negotiations. Putin has already said, and some of his people have said, look, we don't even want all of Ukraine that we could have easily now, like Odessa, like Kharkiv, you know. I mean, why do his people say that? Well, because they could work out, you know, deals where now Odessa, if Ukraine is bereft of Odessa, it's just a landlocked farm for the rest of Europe, right? It has no access to commerce out through the Black Sea. So a deal could be worked out. You have multi-nation domain over the port. That's been done before. So there are all kinds of things that could be worked out. And the sticky wicket, of course, and this is what all my colleagues say, and everyone says, the Russians' one big no-no is no Ukraine membership in NATO. Now, do I agree with that? Do I agree with that? Yes, I do. But now, just let me continue for one more minute. So they come down to the end of the negotiations, okay? And they work out a regime that satisfies the Russians that they're not going to be attacked from what's left of the old Ukraine, okay? And then this sticky wicket. What about NATO? Well, NATO has fallen apart. It's like, OK, what's NATO going to look like in 25 years? OK, so I can see if I was advising Putin, I'd say, oh, all right, we won't insist that you commit not to put Ukraine in NATO. Let's revisit that. Let's put that in this contract. We'll revisit it in 25 years. Not a yes and not a no, but let's put that on the back burner. I can conceive of that. These things can be worked out. If Trump has any merit, he -- 3 of 6 -- does do deals, and he's got the short end of the stick here, but there's still some flexibility on the Russian side, I am convinced, as long as he realizes that his hand is a pair of deuces and Putin's is four aces. #M2 I hope this is understood, but the craziness of the situation is that I think you're absolutely right. A pivotal part of whatever agreement is going to come out with the Russians has to include some clauses forcing President Putin to sign something that he always said he will never do, and then sell that as a win. Oh, we made him promise verifiably that he will never attack Poland, which he always said, we don't want that. We don't want Western Ukraine. We don't want that. But in this sense, I think he wouldn't have a problem signing that. He would probably have a problem understanding why that is in the treaty in the first place. But there's a line, and I think you're absolutely correct. #M3 Well, let me just add, Pascal, you're the only one among many interviewers or friends who have said that. In other words, there's this almost ideological firm position: no, no, no, Putin will always insist on a firm "no Ukraine in NATO." And I try to say, well, look, 25 years from now, no decision yes or no in NATO, but put it off for 25 years. This is all very, very speculative, but why not? If he wants a deal, and he thinks he does, and if Trump wants a deal, these kinds of rhetoric and these kinds of playing on the mistakes of what Biden and the others persuaded the American people to believe... You're the first one, I have to say, and I thank you kindly for coming forward and saying, yeah, that makes sense to you because it doesn't make sense to many other people. #M2 Because, look, there's one more very important element, which is that the United States of today is not the United States of the 1990s anymore in the global perception. I think the one thing that is utterly clear to the Russians and the Chinese is that no piece of paper that the United States signs is safe from the president that signed it or from the successor. None of them, not the North American Free Trade Agreement, not its successor, currently the new treaty that Trump himself made. I mean, any promise, anything on paper is and will be broken. So the only thing that actually matters is the verifiable mechanisms that you create. And I think Vladimir Putin understands that very, very well. So whatever is on the