The Art of the Toothless Ceasefire

Trump's vaunted "diplomatic breakthrough" with Vladimir Putin is disintegrating. What the U.S. flogged as a meaningful step toward peace in Ukraine is bargain-bin window dressing - a narrow agreement to temporarily stop attacking energy infrastructure, with the ground war continuing unabated.

Meanwhile, despite Trump's promises of peace, Israel has resumed its bombing campaign against Gaza, killing hundreds in a single day. The much-vaunted and discussed "bridge proposal" for a comprehensive ceasefire is going nowhere as all hell breaks loose. The State Department admits the window for peace is "closing fast," but is either reprehensibly unwilling or incompetently unable to apply the necessary pressure to achieve it.

Trump's talks with Putin are the essence of empty, performative diplomacy. Putin gets what he wants - a seat at the big table, treated as an equal partner with the United States, driving a wedge between America and Europe. Trump gets a press release claiming progress. And the Ukrainian people? They get a meaningless "energy truce" while Russian forces continue their assault on the ground, war crimes, human rights violations and all.

Where is the promised ceasefire in Gaza? Where are the solutions Trump boasted on the campaign trail? After months of horrific civilian casualties in Gaza, with the death toll exceeding 49,000 Palestinians, the bombings have resumed with terrible intensity. More than 400 Palestinians were killed in a single day of airstrikes. And now ground operations have restarted, with the Israeli military declaring it has begun a "focused" operation in central and southern Gaza.

The human cost of these failures is obscene. In Gaza, most of the 2.3 million residents have been forced to evacuate multiple times. The humanitarian crisis deepens with artificial shortages of food, fuel, and water. In Ukraine, Russian forces continue their assault while Putin dangles the possibility of cooperation on other issues to distract from his refusal to engage in meaningful peace talks.

Diplomacy is grinding to a halt while the meat grinder speeds up. Putin makes a minimal concession that protects Russia's oil infrastructure while continuing his ground offensive. Netanyahu's government resumes bombing after a period of calm, with the Israeli defense minister threatening force we "have not yet seen" if hostages aren't released. And American diplomacy is proving insufficient to the moment, unwilling to convert its substantial leverage into meaningful constraints on violence.

Trump's dealmaking is the antithesis of collective action. Putin explicitly wants to negotiate in a "bilateral format" - cutting out Ukraine's European allies and treating Ukrainian sovereignty as a matter to be decided between Moscow and Washington. These false ceasefires are nothing more and nothing less than permission structures for continued violence. They allow leaders to claim they're working for peace while actively sabotaging it. They provide political cover for the denigration of humanitarian aims.

Peacemaking is the application of leverage, tenacity, and moral clarity, none of which are features of Trump or his administration. A ceasefire that doesn't actually make anyone stop firing isn't a step toward peace, it's a farce.

Progress means Palestinian children aren't buried under rubble. Progress means Ukrainian villages aren't occupied by Russian troops. Progress means hostages eating dinner with their families instead of being used as bargaining chips. Progress means war criminals facing The Hague instead of reelection. Nobody is served by diplomatic theater that produces no substantive results.

A "partial ceasefire" that leaves tanks rolling and bombs falling isn't a step toward anything except prolonged suffering and cynicism. The used-car sale repackaging of diplomatic half-measures as humanitarian achievements is a gaslighting campaign targeting our collective desperation for any hint that the horror might be subsiding.

Peace isn't a slogan or a photo opportunity - it's the difference between life and death for countless people caught in conflicts they didn't create. Bombs stop or they don't. Hostages get freed or they don't. War criminals face judges or they don't. The oppressed get a voice or they don't.

There is no "partial credit" for pretending. You can't "fake it till you make it" when it comes to peace.

False ceasefires are moral abdications. They ask us to accept the appearance of peace as a substitute for actual peace. They ask us to look away from continuing violence because the right words have been spoken in the right order.

And it doesn't pass the sniff test.