History shows US security guarantees seldom last
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, argues that any US-organized peace agreement would have to be accompanied by 'security guarantees' from the US to prevent Russia from resuming its offensive in the future.
However, Donald Trump has so far said the US will not commit to sending troops to Ukraine if Russia doesn't stand by any such deal.
Another way of assuring a security guarantee would be for Ukraine to be allowed to join Nato. As a Nato member, Ukraine would be protected by Article 5 which states that if one member is attacked, others will come to its aid. But Trump has also ruled out this option.
The US president claims the proposed US-Ukraine minerals deal will compensate the US for its expenditure in support of Ukraine to date, and that the associated presence of US personnel on Ukrainian territory will deter Russia from a fresh invasion.
Yet for such a guarantee to be effective, Russia must believe in it. This seems unlikely given that in the last few weeks, Trump has appeared to blame Zelensky for the invasion of his own territory, called him 'a dictator' for not holding elections in wartime, and insisted that Vladimir Putin wants peace while Zelensky does not.
But have US security guarantees worked in the past to provide the protection that Zelensky is looking for? The history of this kind of protection deal is worth interrogating for answers.
After years of involvement by US forces in the Vietnam war (1965-1975), the 1973 Paris Peace Accords allowed President Richard Nixon to present himself as a peacemaker in a conflict which most Americans had come to see as unwinnable.
The war had pitted South Vietnam and its US ally against communist North Vietnam, backed by China and Russia. The accords endangered South Vietnamese security by permitting North Vietnam's forces to remain on the south's territory after a ceasefire.
The US said it would continue to provide adequate military support to permit South Vietnam to continue the struggle – and critically, Nixon promised the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, that should the North Vietnamese communists mount another general offensive, the US would return to South Vietnam, with massive air power.
But, when the communists launched their 1975 offensive, Nixon's guarantee proved worthless. Forced out of office by the Watergate scandal (which showed Republicans connected to Nixon's re-election campaign had raided offices of the Democratic National Committee), Nixon was succeeded by his vice-president, Gerald Ford, who announced on April 25 1975 that 'the Vietnam War is finished as far as America is concerned.'
An ignominious withdrawal of the remnants of US support from the then capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, occurred a few days later, and the South Vietnamese were left to their fate.
Like Zelensky, President Thieu protested these arrangements. On his resignation in 1975, he said:
At the time, there was collusion between the communists and the United States with a view to reaching the agreement of 26 October 1972 … I had enough courage to tell Secretary of State Kissinger at the time … 'You want to sell the interests and lives of the South Vietnamese. As for me, a Vietnamese, I cannot do so.'
However, Thieu had to accept these agreements for fear of the total withdrawal of US support – just as Zelensky, however intense his resistance, may also have to.
More recently, the 2020 Doha agreement, negotiated between Trump's first administration and the Taliban, fulfilled the US president's desire to pull the US military out of Afghanistan.
As in Vietnam and Ukraine, the US negotiated this agreement without the participation of its ally, the Afghan government.
The Taliban promised not to support terrorist groups on Afghan territory, and to engage in intra-Afghan negotiations. But when the Taliban went back on the first of these conditions, the US did not halt the withdrawal of its forces. Reports suggest the Trump administration had undermined the morale of the Afghan army and telegraphed the date of US withdrawal from the country.
The Taliban needed only to wait for Nato and US forces to start withdrawing in May 2021 before continuing its campaign to take back power. The US government clearly wanted to get out of Afghanistan whatever happened to its ally. By mid-August, the Afghan government had collapsed and the Taliban had retaken Kabul.
When the Afghan armed forces collapsed, there were still Nato and US personnel in Kabul. Their chaotic withdrawal could then only occur with the permission of the Taliban.
Drawing on this knowledge of what happened in Afghanistan, mood music from the Trump administration might suggest to Putin in 2025 that he need only bide his time until US rejection of its erstwhile ally renders Ukraine's defence untenable.
National policies change, especially in democracies, and such changes have consequences.
Since 1945, American presidents have understood themselves to be 'leaders of the free world'. But Trump sees this only as shorthand for foreign exploitation of American generosity, which is how he regards US expenditure in support of Ukraine.
Under such circumstances, US allies might be less likely to rely on American promises and guarantees than they were in the 1970s during the Vietnam war.
The history of US security guarantees in Vietnam and Afghanistan should give Zelensky, and all US allies, pause when considering their value this time around.
Ian Horwood is senior lecturer in history, York St John University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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