Ukraine’s fate in 2026 will define the international order

Opinion, Fareed Zakaria

A flimsy peace would legitimize conquest. A durable one could still salvage deterrence. 

Yesterday [January 2], 2026 at 3:49 p.m. EST

 

The Washington Post

Ukrainian rescuers work sift the ruins of an apartment building in Kharkiv hit by a Russian airstrike on Jan. 2. (Sofia Gatilova/Reuters)

January inevitably spawns a cottage industry of forecasts. Will the U.S. economy slip into recession? Will the stock market discover gravity? 2026 contains more than the usual share of genuine uncertainty.

But one question is likely to be resolved this year: the fate of Ukraine. And depending on which way things go, the consequences will not be incremental but rather seismic for the international system.

The situation is grim. From the start of its second term, the Trump administration has followed a simple, if amoral plan: Pressure Ukraine to make concessions; package those concessions as the “realism” necessary for peace; then present them to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the hope that he will take a deal. 

But when gifted a summit with President Donald Trump in Alaska that promised major concessions and left Ukraine out, Putin demanded more — more territory than he had already seized in his war of aggression. As Winston Churchill said of another aggressor, the “appetite may grow with eating.”

At that point, Trump had options. He could have pivoted to pressure Russia. Instead, as the New York Times reported in an exhaustive account, the administration has been ramping up the pressure against Ukraine by withholding arms and intelligence, slow-walking what supplies it does send, and always leaving the country uncertain and nervous about U.S. support. It sometimes seems as though the Trump administration wants Ukraine to lose so that it can be done with this complicated war.

In late December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States was offering 15-year security guarantees as part of a peace plan. He was hoping for something much longer — up to 50 years — to deter Russia. While 15 years might sound like a substantial guarantee in a briefing paper, in reality it is perilously close to meaningless.

A time-limited guarantee advertises its own expiration date. It tells Moscow: Bide your time, rebuild your forces and return when the clock runs out. It also tells every investor, insurer and boardroom in the world that long-horizon commitments in Ukraine are a gamble against a calendar. Who finances a power plant, a rail corridor, a semiconductor facility — or even the slow, patient rebuilding of a national economy — if the country’s security is contractually uncertain by a certain date?

This is why serious peace settlements are built on durable architecture, not provisional promises. There is a profound difference between a ceasefire and a peace deal. A ceasefire is a pause in fighting; it may be necessary, even lifesaving, but it is inherently transient. A peace deal is a new order — rooted in credible deterrence, political support, and a framework that reduces the incentive and capacity to resume war. 

We have just watched this distinction play out elsewhere. The administration can rightly claim it helped broker a ceasefire in the Middle East, yet it has been unable to translate that initial halt in violence into an enduring settlement with enforceable political terms and credible guarantees. Israel still controls more than 50 percent of Gaza, Hamas is still in power, and violence remains widespread. That is not a critique of diplomacy; it is a reminder of its limits. A ceasefire can be achieved by exhaustion, but peace requires structure. 

The Ukraine war is the ultimate test case because it is not merely a border dispute. It is a referendum on whether conquest is back — openly, unapologetically — in 21st-century geopolitics.

If Russia is allowed to seize territory by brute force and then, after sufficient destruction, have that seizure ratified through Western pressure on the victim, Ukraine, the lesson will echo far beyond Europe. It will be heard in every capital that lives in the shadow of a stronger neighbor — and especially so in an Asia increasingly dominated by China. The rules-based international order will not be abolished with a speech. It will be hollowed out by precedent. 

And if, on the other hand, Ukraine emerges in 2026 with a settlement that is genuinely defensible — one that does not invite a rematch, one that provides long-term security serious enough to unlock reconstruction and investment — then the West will have shown that deterrence is still possible, that alliances still mean something and that rogue powers cannot simply outlast democratic attention spans. 

Ukraine will be the big story of 2026. It will tell us whether the Western alliance that largely sustained international stability for 80 years can persist into a harsher century — or whether we are watching the unraveling of a historic arrangement in real time. 

The tragedy is that the choice is not between peace and war. It is between a peace that prevents the next war and a peace that schedules it. 

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--Highlights 

The conversation explores the potential impact of Ukraine's fate on the international order by 2026, with many participants expressing concern over the influence of Donald Trump's administration on global dynamics. Several comments highlight fears that Trump's perceived alignment with Vladimir Putin could undermine Ukraine's resistance and weaken U.S. alliances, particularly with Europe. There is a strong sentiment that a flimsy peace agreement could legitimize Russian aggression, while a durable peace is necessary to maintain deterrence. Some participants argue that the U.S. under Trump may not be a reliable ally, suggesting that Europe might need to take the lead in supporting Ukraine. The discussion also touches on the broader implications of U.S. foreign policy decisions, with concerns about the erosion of the post-WWII international framework and the potential for increased isolationism. Overall, the comments reflect a deep apprehension about the future of international relations and the role of the U.S. in maintaining global stability.