I'm John Batchel. Jeff McCausen is here. Colonel Jeff McCausen in the United States Army retired, CBS News.

And we're going to NATO because Jeff's a veteran of NATO. I always call upon his vision for NATO, headquartered at Brussels, same as the EU.

And yet these last days, there have been conversations in Berlin, in Paris, in London, and

in Rome, although dissenting in Rome, about a European military presence to guarantee security

in Ukraine following a theoretical settlement. Simultaneous, parallel, working with NATO?

How does this work, Jeff?

Very unclear, John, and unclear what the European role will be.

You know, we've got to quote a European and all this,

and a corresponding favorite European, strategically it was always Karl von Klausowitz, who once said war is politics by other means.

But I used to negotiate, as I did with the Russians, the Soviets at one time, we used to say from the Russian perspective, negotiations is war by another means.

And that's what I think Mr. Putin is doing right now.

He has certainly underscored and even said so in his discussion with Mr. Trump,

this should be a bilateral negotiation that isolates the Europeans.

I haven't seen any effort by Mr. Trump so far to have a large, a long phone call with our European allies to talk about this discussion with Mr. Putin.

He has spoken today with President Zelensky, but trying to maintain some form of unity.

And you're right, the Europeans have talked about putting in peacekeeping forces to secure a ceasefire if one can be negotiated on the ground in the

Ukraine.

But two things are very important.

One is that Mr. Putin has rejected that particular idea categorically, number one, and

number two, the Europeans have said, well, they'd be happy to put people on the ground, they need an American backstop.

What that American backstop might look like?

Aircraft, logistics, intelligence, et cetera.

...