On March 6, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs succinctly tweeted that country’s goal in any negotiation process: “A just peace, in which war does not return.” Ukraine’s elected leaders and diplomats make clear that they see the road to a just peace through the alleged foreign policy doctrine of President Donald Trump: peace through strength.

But Trump and his team oscillate wildly between this doctrine and a slapped-together settlement based on unilateral concessions to Russia and strong-arming Ukraine into consent.

Trump’s advisors and congressional allies suggested he could be a far tougher opponent for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin than his hesitant predecessor, Joe Biden. But Trump then abruptly threw away key negotiating positions like Ukraine’s possible membership in NATO and U.S. participation in a peacekeeping mission. He consistently deflected Ukrainian pleas to commit to major arms support or security guarantees. “Before I even think of that, I want to settle the war,” he said, claiming that security “will be the easy part.” One Trump negotiator signaled openness to a Russian proposal requiring that Ukraine actually shrink its army and arsenal.

Unsurprisingly, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t want to enter into a peace process rigged for maximum accommodation with Russia unless Trump reset the scales with strength, i.e., military deterrence. Ukrainians fear that without this a ceasefire will only be a terrible preface to war’s return. They know that Russian politicians and pundits call for the extinguishing of Ukrainian statehood on a daily basis.

Zelensky’s stubborn insistence led to the fiasco in the Oval Office of Feb. 28, after which an enraged Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would deny Zelensky the “advantage” in negotiations that U.S. backing gives him. The U.S. froze military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, which greatly reduced the accuracy of American-made rockets and possibly contributed to Ukraine’s hasty retreat from its military bridgehead in the Russian region of Kursk. When a journalist asked Trump why he wouldn’t at least provide air defense rockets to Kyiv he said, “Because I have to know they want to settle.”

But then, far from the alpha male clashing in the Oval Office, peace through strength seemed to make a comeback. After Ukrainian and American negotiators agreed on an end to the freeze and a ceasefire proposal for Russia in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio adopted Zelensky’s language about the need to strengthen Ukraine so that a peace settlement would not slide back into war after a few short years.

And yet within days, Trump was again denigrating Ukraine for having “picked a fight with someone much bigger” (by allowing itself to be invaded?). He claimed to be begging Putin to spare the lives of thousands of Ukrainian troops surrounded in Kursk, despite a lack of any corroborating evidence. On March 18, Trump and Putin spoke for two hours, but the latter agreed only to a mutual ceasefire against power plants and demanded that during it all arms and intelligence transfers to Ukraine must end. Within hours his forces attacked a power plant in the war-torn Ukrainian city of Sloviansk.

The most generous interpretation of Trump’s rush to a settlement is that he wants to avoid getting trapped in an open-ended commitment to the Ukrainian war effort like his predecessor Joe Biden. The latter’s Ukraine strategy failed because he was prepared neither to arm Ukraine for victory (fearing escalation with nuclear Russia) nor take on ideologically messy negotiations with the Kremlin.

What is truly needed is not to lurch toward accommodation with the Russian aggressor, but rather to carefully pursue the balance of deterrence and concessions that Biden avoided. Zelensky has shown a willingness to consider painful concessions if he knows his country will not be left unarmed and alone against Russian revanche. Trump has shown a great openness to concessions, but what about the strength?

The good news is that the EU, U.K. and Canada, alarmed by Trump’s vacillation, are mulling unprecedented military support for Ukraine and even deploying peacekeepers to secure a durable ceasefire. But rather than welcoming this external dose of strength on someone else’s dime, Trump has sent Vice President JD Vance to denigrate the European efforts.

Ukraine and its friends must push on regardless in their vision for a “just peace, in which war does not return.” And we Americans must communicate to our president in the clearest of terms that it is time to join this effort. He must turn U.S. power back to the negotiating advantage of the brave nation of Ukraine, where it belongs.