"We've Been Handed a Way to Deter China" — Timothy Snyder on Ukraine and Taiwan

Timothy Snyder argues that Ukraine’s battlefield success matters far beyond Europe because it changes China’s calculation on Taiwan. He says every Ukrainian victory makes a hot war against Taiwan less likely by showing that a small, technologically capable force can resist a larger adversary, and that the U.S. has effectively been handed a way to deter China without fighting that war directly.

He also says Russia’s nuclear blackmail is teaching the wrong lesson: if nuclear powers can invade non-nuclear states and still win, more middle powers will seek nuclear weapons of their own. Snyder says Ukraine’s original disarmament under the Budapest memorandum now looks like a warning to other states that safety guarantees may fail, which could worsen global proliferation.

On U.S. policy, Snyder argues the Trump administration has weakened Ukraine by cutting aid, giving diplomacy to non-professionals, and diverting munitions to the Iran conflict. He says those weapons were spent “utterly pointlessly” and could have changed the war in Ukraine. He is also sharply skeptical of Witkoff and Kushner as peace brokers, saying they cannot articulate Ukrainian interests and do not command trust because they approach the conflict in transactional terms.