Daniel Fried: The Empire Could Be Shattered

• 27.02.2026, 18:55

And that is good news for Belarusians.

What vision of NATO has the United States offered Europe? How can Putin be stopped? And will the end of the war in Ukraine affect Belarus?

These questions were addressed by former U.S. State Department sanctions coordinator, former U.S. ambassador to Poland, and Atlantic Council expert Daniel Fried in an interview with Charter97.org.

— How do you see the future of Transatlantic relationships after the recent Munich Security Conference?

— There are many views of Secretary Marco Rubio's speech, but I'll give you mine, which is ultimately he was making an offer to the Europeans of a continued transatlantic alliance based on greater European contributions — and that's a good offer.

There are many things in the speech I didn't like. The greatest hole in the speech was the lack of discussion of the greatest threat to European security that exists now, which is Russia's war against Ukraine. So, that was a mistake, and it weakened the speech. A second problem was that he defined Western civilization in almost exclusively right-wing terms. There is a way to describe Western civilization in broader terms to capture the widest possible base of political support from right to left, and I'm sorry he didn't do that. But look, this is the Trump administration. He was going to make this kind of a defense of the transatlantic alliance. He was going to do it based on right-wing assumptions, which I don't necessarily share, but I will certainly accept if the bottom line is transatlantic.

So, put me in the corner of those who support the speech. As a follower of foreign policy, I disagreed with many of the elements of the speech, but I don't have to agree with it. As a former professional, a practitioner in the foreign policy world, the real question is: could I work with the speech? And the answer is yes. I welcome the speech.

I don't think that Munich Security Conference Chair Wolfgang Ischinger, who took the speech with relief, was wrong to do so, because he's also a professional. I think he reacted as a professional, that is, he heard in the speech something Germany and he could work with, which is a commitment to a renewed transatlantic alliance, and the renewal has to come about through greater European strength. Trump has made this point, and he is correct to do so, but he's hardly the first US president. US presidents have been complaining about European relative weakness since Eisenhower. It is certainly the case that since the end of the Cold War, Western Europe, Germany, and Britain have not invested enough in their militaries and now they're trying to catch up.

Considering the number of people in the Trump political world who oppose any transatlantic alliance, this was a positive speech.

— Do you see Secretary Rubio as the person who actually defines foreign policy for the US? Does the speech carry real political weight?

Those are two different questions. First, the President defines US foreign policy. It is also true that the Trump administration is not a single thing. It is rather a collection of fractious, inconsistent and sometimes hotly competing groups. All administrations have factions. This one has more than most, and because it doesn't have a regular foreign policy process, there is more confusion, more swirling around the president than is customary.

Secretary Rubio is only one player, but he has some impact. There are other voices. If you look at Trump world, well, I'd rather have Rubio's conservative definition of Western civilization than, let's say, Stephen Miller's view that according to the iron laws of history, to borrow his phrasing, only strength, only force, only power matter. That is not an embrace of the Christian tradition in Western civilization, but a repudiation of it. Frankly, I'll take a conservative definition of the West, which at least in theory, embraces elements like the Catholic just war doctrine or the traditional Judeo-Christian notion that power and might is not the sole measure of the responsibility of sovereignty. So, these are deeper philosophical elements, and I'll take Rubio's version rather than Stephen Miller's. But both Miller and Rubio are part of the Trump administration. There are other people with different views as well. Every strategic idea that has been floating around the American foreign policy community for the last hundred years is present somewhere in the Trump administration, including the bad strategic ideas. So I'll take Rubio's speech because I have a very good sense of the alternatives that are worse.

— Over the course of the last year, it became apparently clear that Putin has no real interest in making a peace deal with Ukraine. How do you make Putin seek peace?

— Put more pressure on him — very simple answer. Putin wants Ukraine's effective surrender. From Putin's point of view, this is a rational tactic. That is, he may believe that the Trump administration will fold, will cease supporting Ukraine, or that Europe will tire and back away from Ukraine, or that Ukraine will collapse. As long as he has a reasonable expectation of these outcomes, he is behaving rationally by demanding the maximum, demanding Ukraine surrender. But we have options.

I've dealt with foreign policy problems where you really didn't have good options, didn't have a lot of tools. This is not the case – with respect to Ukraine, we do have tools. We can apply considerably more pressure on Russia's economy, which is already hurting. The Trump administration has imposed some major sanctions: the full blocking sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil. It has also seized a couple of Russian ships. We can do more work with Europe. We can do more to supply Ukraine's military with advanced weapons, maybe —Tomahawks. We can do more to put pressure on Russia's economy. Trump can send the message to Putin that we're tired of being played. Trump should no longer suggest that it is Ukraine's responsibility to compromise. Ukraine has compromised. It is willing to support a ceasefire in place, leaving Russia in effective possession of nearly twenty percent of Ukraine's territory. That is a big concession by Ukraine. They're not going to recognize Russia's illegal annexation, but they are willing to have a ceasefire along the current lines. Trump used to support this. He needs to support it and push Putin to accept it. President Trump should say that he's tired, to borrow his phrasing, of being tapped along by Putin. He can do this, and it would not be empty boasting. We have the assets. To be blunt about it, we have a couple of clubs lying on the table — pick them up and use them.

— If peace between Ukraine and Russia was reached, Ukraine would obviously stay with the West. What is the path for Belarus in such an arrangement?

— Well, a peace in Ukraine requires security arrangements for Ukraine, but if this is achieved if 80% of Ukraine is secure and free, what happens to Belarus? This is interesting because Putin will have failed in this case. He will claim victory. He can have victory parades in Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea, but he will have failed in his strategic objective, which is to take all of Ukraine, directly or through a puppet government. He will have failed, and this failure may have consequences for his rule. This is now a big war. This war has gone on longer than the Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voyna (the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), and Putin has much less to show for it than Stalin did. If Trump and Europe push back Putin, and Ukraine is free, it will rapidly recover and develop quickly. Ukrainians will demand that they get a country worthy of their sacrifice, a country without corruption, a country that is developing rapidly, a democratic country, a free country.

Russians will see this, and so will Belarusians. They will see it, and the defeat of Putin's imperial ambitions. This is a war of empire, and you need no American to tell you: that will have a profound impact. I think the empire could be shattered. That is, Putin's attempt to restore the Russian Empire by subordinating Georgia, by conquering Ukraine, by grabbing Moldova, by tightening control on Belarus, and maybe by going after the Baltics, all of this will be defeated. It will be very good news for Belarus, which deserves a better future, and may get one.

— But let's look back in history. After Stalin had accepted the fact that Finland could not be his entirely, that created preconditions for World War II. Wouldn't be Putin having at his disposal combat-experienced troops, tempted to, let's say, think about Baltics?

— If Putin is defeated in Ukraine, Russians will ask what all of that sacrifice was for. I can't rule out a scenario that you've described, that Putin would try to start yet another war, that he would take another risk, but in the wake of a Russian defeat in Ukraine, I think, there would be considerable opposition inside Russia to another Putin-led adventure. The Baltics are not without support. The Europeans will fight, and the Americans might also. There are troops inside the Baltic countries. The Finns are serious. The Baltics will fight. The Russians may not be in a position to mount such a war. We will have warning if they do so.

If Trump leads a successful effort to block Putin's ambitions in Ukraine, he will emerge a winner. He likes winning more than he likes just about anything else (except maybe money). He wants to win, and he will see that by backing the Baltic States, he will win again, and Putin will lose. But I think if Putin loses in Ukraine and has to give up his ambition to conquer it, Putin will be much weakened. Of course, I can't rule out the scenario you mentioned, but Putin will be in a weaker position. Imagine the alternative, that Putin wins in Ukraine and then can start pressuring Moldova, Romania, the Baltic States, Kazakhstan — much worse scenario.

— You wrote recently in an article, "the big wars have big consequences", and this Russian war in Ukraine could be the end of the empire. How?

— If Putin loses, his imperial dream may be discredited, and Russians may seek a different path. Russian history is not marked by continuity, it is marked by discontinuities: Stalin to Khrushchev, to Brezhnev, to Gorbachev, to Yeltsin, to Putin — radically shifting changes. Putinism is an ideology of imperial restoration abroad and oppression at home. If he loses, that ideology may be shattered, and there may be another chance for a better Russian leadership.

Andrius Kubilius has said that Russia does, in fact, have democratic potential, and that potential lies through its defeat in Ukraine. Kubilius is no fool about the Russians. He's not exactly a soft-minded, naive West European. He was one of the leaders of Sajudis. He knows the Russians. I have respect for his judgment — empire ending and opening up new possibilities for Russia.