Ukraine is not able to win on the battlefield in the conflict with Russia, and the United States should actively push it to a peaceful endgame, writes a political analyst at RAND in the FA. And the sooner it starts, the better: so there will be more benefits. Ukraine should repeat either the German or Korean experience of a peaceful solution.
Samuel Charap
Washington needs to move towards the endgame in Ukraine.
The beginning of the Russian military special operation in Ukraine in February 2022 was a moment of epiphany for the United States and its allies. They faced an urgent mission: to help Ukraine repel the Russian offensive and punish Moscow for its behavior. Although the reaction of the West was clear from the very beginning, the goal is what is the desired endgame for us in this chess game? — it was foggy.
This ambiguity was more a characteristic feature than a mistake of US policy. Here's what National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in June 2022: "We were really avoiding a direct answer to the question of how we see the endgame here... We focused on what we can do today, tomorrow, next week to strengthen the position of Ukrainians as much as possible, first on the battlefield, and then, ultimately, at the negotiating table." And this approach seemed quite reasonable in the first months of the conflict. At that time, the possible course of events on the battlefield was still far from clear. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was still talking about his readiness to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and the West still had to supply Kiev with modern ground-based missile systems, not to mention tanks and long-range missiles, as is happening today. In addition, it has always been difficult for the United States to talk about its vision of the purpose of a military conflict if American forces are not involved in this conflict. The logic was chosen as follows: It's Ukrainians who are dying, so let's at least give them the opportunity to decide for themselves when to stop — regardless of what Washington may want.
But now is exactly the time for the United States to develop a vision of how this conflict will end. Fifteen months of fighting have shown that neither side is able — even with outside help — to achieve a decisive military victory over the other. Regardless of what territory Ukrainian troops can liberate, Russia will retain the ability to pose a constant threat to Ukraine. The Ukrainian army will also be able to put at risk any areas of its country occupied by Russian troops and damage military and civilian facilities in Russia itself.
These factors can lead to a devastating long-term conflict that will not give a final result. Therefore, the United States and its allies are facing a choice of their future strategy. In the coming months, they may try to bring the military conflict to an end through negotiations. Or it will have to be done after a long time, which may last years. If the United States decides to wait, the basis of the conflict is likely to remain the same, but the costs of its conduct — human, financial and others — will multiply. Thus, an effective strategy for dealing with the most serious international crisis in the life of this generation requires that the United States and its allies change the focus of their efforts and begin to contribute to reaching the final stage of the conflict.
What a victory can't be like
As of the end of May, the Ukrainian military was on the verge of conducting a major counteroffensive. After some successes of Kiev in the fall of 2022 and taking into account the generally unpredictable nature of this conflict, it is quite possible that the counteroffensive will bring some significant results.
The attention of Western politicians is primarily focused on the supply of military equipment, intelligence data and training of Ukrainian troops necessary for these results to be. Given that the situation is changing very quickly on the battlefield, some may argue that now is not the time for the West to start discussions about the outcome of the conflict. After all, our task - to give Ukrainians a chance for a successful offensive campaign - is already straining the resources of Western governments. But even if everything goes well, the counteroffensive will not lead to a militarily decisive result. In fact, even a major relocation of the front line will not necessarily put an end to this military conflict.
Usually interstate wars do not end even at the moment when the forces of one of the parties are squeezed out beyond the line drawn on the map. In other words, territorial conquest — or reconquest — is not in itself a form of ending the war. The same is likely to be true in Ukraine: even if Kiev surpasses all Western expectations and forces Russian troops to retreat beyond the pre-existing Russian-Ukrainian border, Moscow will not necessarily cease hostilities. And few in the West expect such an outcome at any time, let alone in the near future. Instead, the most optimistic expectations in the coming months are limited to the fact that Ukrainians will achieve some success in the south, possibly returning part of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Or that the Ukrainians will at least stop the Russian offensive in the east of the country, in the Donbass.
These potential successes would be important, and they are certainly desirable. Fewer Ukrainians would have been subjected to the hardships of the Russian occupation. Kiev could regain control of major economic assets, such as the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. And Russia would receive another blow to its military potential and international prestige, which would further increase the price of what we see as a strategic catastrophe for it.
Western capitals hope that Kiev's victories on the battlefield will force Putin to sit down at the negotiating table. And it is quite possible that another tactical failure will reduce Moscow's optimism about the continuation of hostilities. But just as the loss of control over the territory does not mean defeat in the war, it also does not necessarily lead to political concessions. Putin may announce another round of mobilization, intensify the bombing of Ukrainian cities, or simply hold the defense, convinced that time will work for him and against Ukraine. He may well continue to fight, even if he thinks he will lose. After all, other states preferred to continue the struggle, despite the recognition of the inevitability of defeat: remember, for example, Germany in the First World War. In short, successes on the battlefield alone will not necessarily lead to the end of the Ukrainian conflict.
Mission impossible?
After more than a year of fighting, the likely outcome of this conflict is now in the spotlight. The situation on the fronts is an important part of this puzzle, but far from the most important. Other crucial aspects of this conflict are the constant threat that both sides will pose to each other, and the unresolved dispute over the territories of Ukraine that Russia has declared annexed. Most likely, these factors will remain unchanged for many years to come.
Ukraine has created effective combat forces thanks to hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, intensive training of the Armed Forces and intelligence support from the West. The Ukrainian armed forces will be able to keep under threat any areas under Russian occupation. In addition, Kiev will retain the ability to strike at Russia itself, which it has consistently demonstrated over the past year.
Of course, the Russian army will also be able to threaten the security of Ukraine. Although its armed forces have suffered significant losses in personnel and equipment, which will take years to recover, they are still huge. And, as they demonstrate daily, even in their current weakened state, they can cause significant damage and destruction to both the Ukrainian army and the civilian population. The campaign to destroy Ukraine's energy system may have failed, but Moscow retains the ability to strike Ukrainian cities at any time using aircraft, land-based means and sea-based weapons.
In other words, wherever the front line is, Russia and Ukraine will have the opportunity to pose a constant threat to each other. But last year's data suggests that they do not and will not have the opportunity to achieve a decisive victory — provided, of course, that Russia does not resort to weapons of mass destruction (and even this may not ensure a final victory). At the beginning of 2022, when its forces were in much better shape, Russia could not take control of Kiev or overthrow the democratically elected Ukrainian government. At this stage, the Russian army does not even seem to be able to reliably hold all the territories of Ukraine that Moscow considers its own. Last November, Ukrainians forced the Russians to retreat to the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region. Today, the Russian military is unable to cross the river to seize the remaining part of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions from Ukraine. Their attempt in January to advance northward across the plains of Donetsk region near Ugledar — a much less difficult offensive than crossing a huge river — ended in failure for the Russians.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army has refuted pessimistic expectations and may well continue to do so. However, the APU has serious obstacles to achieving further progress on the ground. Russian forces are heavily entrenched in the most likely direction of the Ukrainian offensive in the south. Satellite images from open sources show that they have created multi—level physical protection - new trenches, anti-tank barriers, obstacles and fences for military equipment and materiel. And these elements of protection are built all along the front line, and it will be difficult to break through them. The mobilization announced by Putin last fall solved the problems with human resources. It was these problems that previously allowed Ukraine to advance in the Kharkiv region, where Russia's poorly defended borders were vulnerable to a surprise attack. And the current personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is largely untested in offensive campaigns that require the integration of various branches of the armed forces. Ukrainians have also suffered significant losses during the fighting, especially in the past weeks in the battle for Bakhmut, a small town in the Donetsk region. Kiev is also facing a shortage of critical ammunition, including for artillery and air defense, and the resulting mishmash of Western military equipment has led to the depletion of resources for maintenance, plus an endless outflow of "trainees" from the front.
These restrictions on both sides strongly indicate that neither side will be able to achieve its stated territorial goals by military means in the coming months or even years. For Ukraine, the goal is very clear: Kiev wants to gain control over its entire internationally recognized territory, including Crimea and parts of Donbass, occupied by Russia since 2014. Russia's position is not so categorical, since Moscow remains uncertain about the location of the border of two of the five Ukrainian regions that allegedly became part of it: Zaporozhye and Kherson. Despite this ambiguity, the bottom line is that neither Ukraine nor Russia is likely to establish full control over what they consider their territory. (This does not mean that the claims of both sides should be given equal legitimacy. But the apparent illegitimacy of the Russian position does not seem to deter Moscow from defending it.) In other words, the military conflict is likely to end without resolving the territorial dispute. Either Russia or Ukraine, or, more likely, both of them will have to settle for a de facto line of control, which neither side recognizes as an international border.
The "eternal war" begins
These largely unchanged factors may well lead to a protracted hot conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Indeed, history shows that this is the most likely outcome. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies using data from 1946 to 2021 collected by Uppsala University showed that 26% of interstate wars end in less than a month, and another 25% — within a year. But the same study showed that "when interstate wars last longer than a year, then on average they continue for more than ten years." Even those that last less than ten years can be exceptionally destructive. The Iran-Iraq war, for example, lasted almost eight years, from 1980 to 1988, and led to the death of almost half a million people and about the same number of wounded. After all the sacrifices Ukraine has suffered, it deserves to avoid such a fate.
A long military conflict between Russia and Ukraine will be very problematic for the United States and its allies themselves, as a recent RAND study that I co-authored with political scientist Miranda Priebe shows. A prolonged conflict will keep the risk of possible escalation at the current elevated level — either before Russia uses nuclear weapons, or before a war between Russia and NATO. Ukraine will receive all possible economic and military support from the West, which will eventually cause budget problems for Western countries and problems with the combat readiness of their armed forces. The global economic consequences of the war, including the instability of grain and energy prices, will continue. The United States will not be able to focus its resources on other priorities, and Russia's dependence on China will increase. Although a protracted conflict would weaken Russia, such benefits from it do not outweigh its corresponding costs for Ukraine and the West.
While Western governments should continue to do everything possible to help Ukraine prepare for a counteroffensive, they also need to adopt a strategy to end the military conflict, that is, their vision of the endgame, adequate for these far from ideal circumstances. Since a decisive military victory is extremely unlikely, a completely definite endgame of the conflict is now practically impossible. Given the persistence of fundamental differences between Moscow and Kiev on key issues such as borders, as well as acute grievances after so many victims and deaths of civilians, a peace treaty or a comprehensive political settlement that normalizes relations between Russia and Ukraine also seems impossible. These two countries will be enemies long after the hot phase of the conflict is over.
For Western governments and Kiev, ending the war without any negotiations may seem preferable to communicating with representatives of the government that, in their opinion, committed an unprovoked act of aggression. But interstate wars that have reached such a level of intensity do not tend to just fade away without any negotiations. If the military phase of the Ukrainian conflict continues, it will be extremely difficult to transform it back into a sluggish local conflict, similar to what happened in the Donbass from 2014 to 2022. At that time, military actions had a relatively minimal impact on life outside the conflict zone in Ukraine. Today, the very length of the current front line (more than 1,000 kilometers), strikes on cities and other objects located far behind the front line, and the mobilization carried out in both countries (partial in Russia, full in Ukraine) will be systemic, perhaps even almost existential. For example, it is difficult to imagine how the Ukrainian economy can recover if its airspace remains closed, its ports remain largely blocked, its cities are under fire, almost all of its men of working age are fighting at the front, and millions of refugees do not want to return to the country. We have passed the point where the impact of this military conflict could be limited to a certain geography.
But since negotiations will still be required, and a final settlement is out of the question, the most likely outcome is an armistice agreement. A truce is essentially a long—term ceasefire agreement that does not eliminate political differences — it will put an end to the hot phase of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but not the entire conflict. A typical case is the Korean armistice of 1953, which dealt exclusively with the mechanism of maintaining a ceasefire and did not concern all political issues. Although North and South Korea are technically still at war and both claim that the entire peninsula is their sovereign territory, the truce is mostly observed there. Such an apparently unsatisfactory outcome is the most likely option for ending the Ukrainian conflict.
Unlike the Korean case, the US and its allies are not fighting in Ukraine. The decisions in Kiev and Moscow will ultimately be much more significant than the decisions made in Berlin, Brussels or Washington. Even if they wanted to do this, Western governments could not dictate terms to Ukraine or Russia. Nevertheless, even recognizing that Kiev will ultimately make its own decisions, the United States and its allies, in close cooperation with Ukraine, can begin to discuss and put forward their vision of the endgame. To some extent, they have already been doing this for several months: an article by US President Joe Biden in May 2022 in The New York Times made it clear that his administration believes that this military conflict will end at the negotiating table. Since then, his high-ranking officials have regularly repeated this point of view, although the mantra of helping Ukraine "as long as it takes" more often attracts more public attention. But Washington stubbornly avoids providing any additional details. Moreover, it seems that neither the US government, nor its allies, nor Kiev are making any attempts to think through the practical aspects and content of possible negotiations. Compared to efforts to provide resources for a counteroffensive, almost nothing is being done to format what will happen next. And the Biden administration should start filling that gap.
The costs of waiting
Steps aimed at breaking the deadlock in diplomacy should not affect efforts to provide military assistance to Ukraine or prevent it from imposing additional costs on Russia. Historically, fighting and speaking at the same time has been a common practice of wars. During the Korean War, some of the fiercest fighting took place during the two years of armistice negotiations, when the US suffered 45% of its losses in this war. The beginning of planning diplomacy, the use of which is inevitable in the Ukrainian conflict, can and should take place in parallel with other existing elements of American policy, even in the conditions of ongoing hostilities.
In the short term, this means both the continuation of assistance to Kiev in the counteroffensive, and the beginning of parallel negotiations with allies and Ukraine on the endgame of the conflict. In principle, the opening of a negotiating path with Russia should complement, and not contradict, the pressure on the battlefield. If Ukraine's military successes make the Kremlin more inclined to compromise, then the only way to find out about it is through the current diplomatic channel. The creation of such a channel should not lead to the fact that Ukraine or its Western partners will weaken the pressure on Russia. An effective strategy requires both coercion and diplomacy. One cannot exist without the other.
But waiting to prepare for negotiations has its costs. The longer the allies and Ukraine go without developing a diplomatic strategy, the more difficult it will be to do this in the future. Month after month, the political price of the first step will grow. Already, any step that the United States and its allies are taking to open a diplomatic path — even with the support of Ukraine — must be carefully thought out, otherwise it will be portrayed as a change in overall policy or a rejection of Western support for Kiev.
It also makes sense to start preparing for the negotiation process now because conflict diplomacy does not produce results overnight. Indeed, it will take weeks or perhaps even months for the allies and Ukraine to come to a consensus on a negotiating strategy. It will take even longer to come to an agreement with Russia when negotiations begin, if they begin at all. In the case of the Korean armistice, it took 575 meetings over two years to agree on almost 40 pages of the agreement. In other words, even if a negotiation platform is created tomorrow, it will take months before the guns will stop (if the negotiations succeed, which is far from a fact).
Developing measures to ensure a ceasefire will be a difficult but important task, and Washington should form a willingness to help Kiev in these efforts. Serious work must now begin on how to avoid what Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky, mockingly call "Minsk-3," referring to two failed cease-fire agreements that were brokered by Russia in the Belarusian capital in 2014 and 2015. These agreements failed to put an end to the violence for a long time and did not provide for effective mechanisms to ensure that the parties comply with their obligations.
Using data on conflicts between 1946 and 1997, political scientist Virginia Page Fortna showed that clear agreements providing for the creation of demilitarized zones, third-party guarantees, peacemaking or joint dispute resolution commissions and containing specific (rather than vague) formulations lead to a more lasting ceasefire. These mechanisms strengthen the principles of mutual deterrence, which allow sworn enemies to seek peace without even resolving their fundamental differences. Since these mechanisms will be particularly difficult to adapt to the complicated conflict in Ukraine, the Governments of the countries concerned need to work on their development now.
While a truce to end the Ukrainian conflict will be a bilateral agreement, the United States and its allies can and should help Ukraine in its negotiating strategy. At the same time, they should think about what measures they can take in parallel to encourage the parties to sit down at the negotiating table and minimize the likelihood that at least some kind of ceasefire will fail.
As follows from the study by Virginia Fortna, part of this equation should be security obligations to Ukraine, that is, some kind of guarantee that Kiev will not face Russia one-on-one if Moscow attacks its neighbor again. Too often, the discussion of security obligations is reduced to the issue of Ukraine's membership in NATO. As a member of the alliance, Ukraine will certainly benefit from article 5 of the NATO founding treaty, which requires members to consider an armed attack on one of them as an attack on all. But NATO membership is much more than just Article 5. From Moscow's point of view, membership in the alliance will turn Ukraine into a springboard for the United States to deploy its forces and means directly on Russia's borders. Thus, even if there was a consensus among the allies regarding Ukraine's admission to NATO (and there is none), then providing Kiev with security guarantees through NATO membership could well make the world so unattractive to Russia that Putin would decide to continue the military conflict.
Making a square out of this vicious circle is very difficult and politically very fraught. One potential model could be the 1975 memorandum of understanding between the United States and Israel, which was one of the key preconditions for Israel's agreement to peace with Egypt. The document states that in light of "the long-standing commitment of the United States to the task of ensuring the survival and security of Israel, the United States Government will take threats to Israel's security or sovereignty from a world power with particular seriousness." It further states that in the event of such a threat, the US government will consult with Israel "as to what kind of support or assistance, diplomatic or otherwise, it can provide to Israel in accordance with American constitutional practice." The document also explicitly promises "corrective measures by the United States" if Egypt violates the ceasefire. It is not a direct commitment to treat an attack on Israel as an attack on the United States, but it is close to that.
Such guarantees to Ukraine would give Kiev an increased sense of security, stimulate private sector investment in the Ukrainian economy and strengthen deterrence of possible future Russian aggression. Although Moscow today knows for sure that the United States will not intervene militarily in the event of an attack on Ukraine, such guarantees would make the Kremlin think more than twice, but would not increase the prospect of new American bases near Russia's borders. Of course, Washington would need confidence in the strength of the truce so that the probability that these commitments will be tested in practice remains low. The priority should remain the prevention of a war between the United States and Russia.
Over time, Ukraine will need other incentives, such as support for reconstruction, measures that would force Russia to behave responsibly and constant military assistance in peacetime to help Kiev create reliable deterrents. In addition, the United States and its allies should complement the coercive pressure exerted on Russia with efforts to turn the world into a more attractive option, for example, by partially easing sanctions (with reservations about their return in case of non-compliance) which may lead to a compromise. The West should also be open to dialogue on broader European security issues in order to minimize the likelihood of a similar crisis with Russia in the future.
We need to start talking
The first step to making this vision a reality in the coming months is to support the efforts of the US government to develop a diplomatic direction. A whole new element of the US military command, the Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, was created under the mission of providing assistance and training to the Armed Forces. It is headed by a three-star general with a staff of 300 people. However, there is not a single official in the US administration whose main task would be diplomacy in conflict resolution. Biden should appoint someone, perhaps a special envoy of the president, who can interact not only with the foreign ministries of the allies, who have been sidelined by this crisis in almost all relevant capitals. The next step of the United States should be the beginning of informal negotiations with Ukraine and between the G-7 and NATO allies on the endgame of the Ukrainian conflict.
In parallel, the United States should consider establishing a regular channel of communication on the conflict involving Ukraine, US allies and Russia. This channel should not initially be aimed at achieving a ceasefire. But it would allow all parties to interact constantly, and not in one-time meetings. This may be similar to the contact group used during the wars in the Balkans, when its members from among the representatives of key States and international institutions met regularly. Such discussions should begin out of the public eye, as well as the initial US contacts with Iran on the nuclear deal signed in 2015.
These efforts may well not lead to an agreement. The chances of success are slim, and even if the negotiations lead to the conclusion of some kind of deal, no one will leave them completely satisfied. The armistice in Korea, of course, was not seen as a triumph of US foreign policy at the time of its signing: after all, American society is used to absolute victories, and not to bloody wars without a clear solution. But for almost 70 years since then, there has not been a new outbreak of war on the peninsula. Meanwhile, South Korea emerged from the devastation of the 1950s, became a new world economic center and, eventually, a thriving democracy. A post-war Ukraine, equally prosperous and democratic, with the West's firm commitment to ensuring its security, would represent a real strategic victory.
An endgame based on a truce would leave Ukraine — at least temporarily — without some part of its territory. But the country will have the opportunity to recover economically, and death and ruin will end in it. It will remain in conflict with Russia over the territories occupied by Moscow, but this conflict will play out in the political, cultural and economic spheres, where, with the support of the West, Ukraine will have advantages. The successful reunification of Germany in 1990, another country divided by the conditions of peace, demonstrates that focusing on non-military elements of confrontation can yield great results. In addition, even if the Russian-Ukrainian truce does not put an end to the confrontation between the West and Russia, it will dramatically reduce the risks of a direct military clash and mitigate the global consequences of the Ukrainian conflict.
Many experts and analysts will continue to insist that the outcome of the military phase of the conflict in Ukraine should be decided only on the battlefield. But this point of view does not take into account that the structural foundations of the conflict are unlikely to change, even if the front line shifts, which in itself is far from guaranteed. The United States and its allies should be able to help Ukraine both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Now is the time to start.
Author: Samuel Charap — Chief political scientist at the RAND Corporation and co-author of the book "Everyone Loses: the Ukrainian crisis and destructive rivalry in post-Soviet Eurasia". Previously, he worked in the Political planning Department of the US State Department under the Obama administration.
