Politics
Nick Weston: Ronald Reagan’s lesson for ending the war in Ukraine
Forty years ago this week, Ronald Reagan stood up from the table in Reykjavik, Iceland, and walked out on Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviet leader had offered sweeping cuts to both nuclear arsenals, on the condition that Reagan confine his missile defense program to the laboratory.
The press called the summit a failure.
Fourteen months later, the two men signed the INF Treaty and eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons. Reagan secured the treaty by teaching Moscow that he would not pay for peace in advance.
Four decades later, the same question sits at the center of President Trump’s effort to end the war in Ukraine. Nearly every American wants that war to end. Very few want American troops anywhere near it. Trump’s open dialogue with Moscow is what responsible statecraft with a nuclear power requires. The debate is over where the pressure should fall.
For the past month, it has fallen mostly on Ukraine. The President has pressed Kyiv to stop striking Russian refineries, licensed Russian diesel back onto world markets while Ukrainian negotiators sat in talks with his envoys, and said the next day that Ukraine needs a new President. This week, Ukraine faced restrictions on the Pentagon’s Starshield satellite network, which it uses to intercept Russian drones. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told Florida Politics that the United States is “waiting on Ukraine.”
The diesel itself is a small detail. The total amount of fuel the President announced would cover about nine days of American demand, and pump prices have since gone up. What matters is the message it sends to Moscow less than a month after the President signed the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act: sanctions bend, and patience pays off.
Pressing the invaded country to give ground might buy a ceasefire, though Russia’s own record suggests it will not buy peace. Moscow went into Georgia in 2008, took Crimea in 2014, and launched a full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, each time after judging the price would be bearable. A settlement that rewards that pattern sets up the next round of aggression, which could reach a NATO ally that America is bound by treaty to defend. Beijing is watching how this ends, too.
Luna says critics of the deal “have provided no solution.” Peace through strength offers one, and it asks nothing of American soldiers.
It begins with the law the President already signed. The Graham sanctions law authorizes tariffs of up to 100% on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, but the diesel license calls those tariffs into question. Imposing them would put the cost of the war back on the country that started it, without a single new vote in Congress.
Relief can still be part of the bargain, as long as Russia acts first. The President’s Oct. 11 “energy ceasefire” shows why that order matters. Kyiv agreed to stop striking Russian energy sites if Moscow did the same, and within hours reported new Russian strikes on its own power plants. The Kremlin did not confirm any agreement. Washington should ease sanctions one verified step at a time, and Moscow should earn the first step by keeping an energy truce. Treasury can revoke a general license at any time, turning last week’s concession into leverage whenever Washington decides to use it.
Ukraine should keep the leverage it has built. Its refinery strikes hit the oil revenue that funds Russia’s army, and Washington should not ask Kyiv to give them up for nothing. Europe should also carry more of the cost, as the President told the United Nations last year. And Washington should keep talking to Moscow from a position of strength, as Reagan did.
Few places understand the stakes better than Tampa Bay. U.S. Central Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, is running the war with Iran. U.S. officials told the Washington Post in March that Russia had passed Iran the locations of American warships and aircraft, and in July Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified that Russia is “enabling some of the things Iran is doing.” Every ton of Russian diesel Washington licenses sends money to a government helping Iran target American forces.
Forty years ago, Reagan walked away from Gorbachev’s bad deal at Reykjavik. Fourteen months later, he signed a treaty that made the world safer. Now the world is counting on President Trump to do the same.
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Nick Weston is a St. Petersburg resident and former congressional staffer with a Juris Master in national security from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. His work has appeared in Florida Politics, RealClearDefense, and the Tampa Bay Times.
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