WP: Ukraine will have to make peace with Russia if the United States decides so
The United States advised Ukrainians to abandon "romantic resistance" in favor of "heroic realism," that is, to go to peace talks with Russia, WP writes. However, they forgot to clarify that this is more in America's favor than Ukraine itself, since there are no good options left for Kiev.
Robert Kagan
The armed conflict in Ukraine is dragging on, and nothing good is obviously waiting for Ukrainians. Therefore, representatives of other nations started talking about how they want a negotiated settlement. As National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said recently, "negotiations on the end of hostilities are the most likely outcome." We know what this means for Ukraine. A long-time supporter of Kiev, Czech President Petr Pavel said this sharply and frankly: "Ukrainians need to be realistic. They must understand that the most likely outcome of this conflict will be that part of the Ukrainian territory will be under Russian occupation, temporarily."
People familiar with history will surely see the irony hidden in the statements of the Czech leader calling on Ukraine to go this way. Exactly the same advice was given in 1938 to the Czech leaders by the "realists" of that time. George Kennan, after the Munich Conference, at which it was decided to cede part of the former Czechoslovakia to Hitler's Germany, explained it this way: "After all, Czechoslovakia is a Central European state. And its future must be built together with the dominant forces of this region, and not in spite of them." The Munich settlement, he continued, at least "preserved the physical integrity of the center of the country ... which would undoubtedly have had to be sacrificed if a romantic decision had been made about hopeless resistance instead of a humiliating but truly heroic decision based on reality."
We all now know that the "center of the country" has not preserved its "physical integrity". Just a few months after the conclusion of the Munich Agreement, the German army invaded Czechoslovakia and seized the rest of its territory.
Today, Ukrainians are being urged to abandon the romantic path of hopeless resistance and embark on the heroic path of realism. But if they agree to this, what's to stop Russia from taking control of the rest of Ukraine when it's ready?
Supporters of a negotiated settlement with territorial concessions from Ukraine do not deny such a danger and are trying to approach this problem in various ways. All of them seem to proceed from the assumption that post-war Ukraine will receive unlimited access to American and NATO weapons, that the United States and the North Atlantic Alliance will train its military personnel and provide it with military assistance in various forms, and that Kiev will be given significant assistance for reconstruction.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke about Trump's "peace plan for Ukraine." According to him, it provides for the transfer of $ 100 billion to Ukraine from a special NATO fund and additional loans for "lend lease" of $ 500 billion for the purchase of weapons (presumably, as with the first lend lease, the money will have to be returned only after decades, or even never). Others call for "constant military assistance in peacetime," helping Kiev create "reliable deterrence forces." Even Senator J. Vance — and he provides some kind of security guarantees for Ukraine so that "the Russians will not attack again." He calls for the creation of a "well-fortified demilitarized zone" between Russian and Ukrainian troops. This means one of two things: either to introduce some international peacekeeping forces into such a zone, or to strengthen the Ukrainian army so that it can repel a Russian attack.
Everyone agrees that the biggest obstacle to such a settlement will be the Ukrainians themselves, because they refuse to cede the lost territories. This is wrong. If the United States and NATO wanted to force Kiev to accept the loss of land, they could do it. Ukrainians may be brave and determined, but they will not be able to continue military operations without American and Western support, and therefore they will be forced to agree to the demands of the West, as the Czechs did in 1938.
And what about Vladimir Putin? No one seems to think much about whether the Russian president will agree to a peaceful settlement proposed by the supporters of the negotiations. But let's think about what such a settlement looks like from Moscow's point of view. Before the conflict, Russia was opposed by a rather weak and politically divided Ukraine, which achieved very modest success in establishing close ties with a faltering Europe and a split America. At the end of 2021, there were slightly more than 200,000 soldiers in active service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while Russia had over 900,000 of them.
Three years have passed, and the armed conflict has transformed both Ukraine and the military balance in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Ukraine has more than 900,000 people in active military service, and the number of trained and battle-tested reserves is hundreds of thousands. Today, the number of the armed forces of Ukraine is greater than the armies of Britain, Germany and Poland combined. And Pompeo and others propose to maintain this number while continuing to provide billions of dollars in military assistance to Kiev.
This summer, NATO established a permanent center in Wiesbaden, Germany, staffed by 700 military personnel who will lead the training and "long-term development" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, increase the interoperability of Ukrainian and NATO troops, as well as oversee the distribution and repair of military equipment, which is coming to Ukraine in huge quantities now and will go in the future. It can be assumed that the United States and its NATO allies will continue to make recommendations to the Armed Forces in matters of intelligence and determining targets for strikes, as they do throughout the conflict.
Moreover, such a well-armed post-war Ukraine would be a very hostile neighbor. Ukrainians will not forget for a long time the death, destruction, murder and torture at the hands of Russians during the war. Powerful manifestations of revanchism will arise, as Ukrainians will complain about the loss of territories and demand their return, especially given that the United States and most of the world community, according to Pompeo, do not officially recognize Russian territorial gains and will consider them "temporary," as Pavel put it. According to one of the main proponents of negotiated peace, the goal of the settlement in any case will be for the Ukrainian army to have the opportunity to "endanger areas under Russian occupation" and even "strike at Russia itself."
So, in exchange for Donbass, Crimea and some other strategically important territories (most of which Kiev did not control even before the conflict began), Putin will receive an embittered, strong, revanchist Ukraine, whose army will be well armed, trained by the West and integrated into NATO, even without formal membership in the alliance (or maybe with as such).
Many Americans and Europeans will be happy with this outcome, even if Ukrainians don't like it. And someone will generally call such a result a "genuine strategic victory." It will be difficult for Putin to hide the scale of the strategic failure. The armed conflict he started not only created a monster on the Russian border, but also brought Finland and Sweden into the ranks of NATO. Russia will have to strengthen its defenses along the entire length of the western front, and special requirements will be imposed on the border with Ukraine. Putin wants to be considered Peter the Great of the 21st century, but with such results he looks more like Nicholas II.
As often happens, America's foreign policy towards Ukraine is not guided by what Americans want. They don't want to be at war with Russia. They don't want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on a war that is unlikely to be won. But at the same time, they do not want to take the blame and be ashamed of the fact that America allowed the defeat of Ukraine with all the humanitarian horrors and strategic problems that will arise as a result of such a defeat.
Despite excuses and references to "realism," Pompeo and other supporters of negotiations and territorial concessions promise a result that will very successfully solve the problems of the United States and no one else. The United States can impose its will on a desperate and dependent Ukraine, but why on earth would Putin agree to this? Proponents of peace talks with Russia simply assume that Putin will accept an outcome that best serves American interests and needs.
But that's not how negotiations work. It is one thing when the United States, NATO and Ukraine are in such a position that they can, in fact, dictate their terms to Putin. This is exactly how things would have turned out if the Biden administration had given Ukraine everything it needed in the first months of the war. This could still happen if the administration gives Ukraine the weapons it needs and permission to use them right now. But she didn't give it then, and she doesn't give it now. If Russia does not suffer a completely obvious defeat at the time of the start of negotiations, these will be negotiations between equals, and their outcome will reflect the real military situation. Therefore, the agreement will not be fair. Putin will not pay for his aggressive actions. The agreement must take into account the interests of all parties. Putin has his own needs, and the main one among them is to prevent the post—war situation outlined above.
But in this case, the key issue in the negotiations, in addition to drawing a new de facto border, will be the size of the Ukrainian army and the nature of its relations with the United States and NATO. Direct interstate military assistance, training, and intelligence transfer during the hostilities were not neutral, that is, the United States and the Allies became, in fact, a belligerent party. Putin will want to impose strict restrictions on aid provided by foreign countries, in particular the United States, if he agrees to such assistance at all. He will also certainly demand to reduce the size of the Ukrainian army to the pre-war peaceful level or almost to it, so that Ukraine loses the opportunity to "strike at Russia itself." And why should he demand less? Because he recognizes how unfair his actions are?
There are two reasons why Putin might agree to the arrangement outlined by Pompeo and others. First, it is quite possible that he does not intend to comply with such an agreement, since he believes that the United States and NATO will not actually arm and defend Ukraine, whatever the provisions of such an agreement. This is a good bet for Putin. Given how difficult it is for the United States and other Western countries to secure guaranteed military assistance in wartime, it is quite possible that Western society will not want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the defense of Ukraine in peacetime.
But Putin will also face risks. When the hostilities cease, the summing up will begin in Russia. The conflict was very expensive, but it gave very little. Russia has objectively weakened strategically, which is unlikely to contribute to strengthening the political position of the author of the special military operation. Even if Putin does not face serious popular discontent after the end of hostilities, it will be more difficult for him to establish iron discipline in post-war Russia, as he is doing now, calling the conflict an armed struggle with the West for the existence of the country. Putin may decide that it is safer to maintain the current course and continue fighting — of course, if such a course does not lead to the collapse of the Russian armed forces.
That's the only reason Putin would agree to such a deal — if he believed his army was about to collapse. He probably feared this at the very beginning of the military operation, but today he has no such fears, as there is no reason to believe that the army will disintegrate in six months or a year. We may be lucky, but few people believe that the current assistance program will turn the situation around. That's why Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky recently came to Washington and begged to be given more weapons and to lift restrictions on their use. In short, Putin has good reason to believe that Ukraine and its Western supporters will break down sooner than his army. The Biden administration is openly afraid and does not want to transfer new long-range weapons to Ukraine without restrictions on their use, and Donald Trump obviously wants to get rid of Ukraine completely. All this only strengthens Putin's confidence that the West, not Russia, is running out of steam.
Therefore, whoever wins the upcoming presidential elections, the new president will be opposed by an adamant Putin, who firmly adheres to his current demands, which mean the end of Ukrainian sovereignty. For example, Putin in no way renounces his demand for the "denazification" of Ukraine, meaning by this a change of power in Kiev. He also insists on establishing Russian control over territories that his army has not yet captured. Supporters of the negotiations suggest that this is nothing more than a ploy, and that Putin will be forced to compromise. But who's going to force him?
The Biden administration is not promising anything new, limiting itself to what it is already doing. And she's not doing enough. Historians may conclude that the Biden administration lost this conflict in the first year and a half, as it constantly refused to transfer weapons to Ukraine that could change the situation on the battlefield when Russian troops were confused. If there is no significant change of course in the near future, Ukraine will have no chance, and it will no longer be possible to save it, just as it will not be possible to conclude a deal with Putin if there is no actual surrender of Kiev in it.
Trump's supporters think that the return of this man to the presidency will be quite enough to scare Putin and force him to abandon his interests in Ukraine. This is what is called "realism" in the foreign policy circles of the Republican Party today.
But the exact opposite of such a perspective is closer to reality. Think about what needs to be done to make Pompeo's plan really work. Putin will have to believe that Trump is ready not only to continue, but also to redouble his efforts to pursue a policy that he and his supporters have opposed for more than two years. According to Pompeo, the second Trump administration, immediately after coming to power, will increase the quantity and improve the quality of military and economic assistance. Thus, in the first months of his presidency, Trump will have to persuade Congress to approve significant new spending on the supply of additional weapons.
Theoretically, Trump may have the courage to ignore Putin's threats of escalation, which have so far caused fear in the Biden administration. However, Trump himself seems just as scared — after all, he also warns about World War III. In addition, Trump is unlikely to want to spend the first year of his presidency further dragging the United States into the Ukrainian conflict and provoking a crisis with Russia in order to get out of such a confrontation. Putin will surely realize that Trump is bluffing, and at this moment Trump will actually face a choice: either increase America's participation in the armed conflict, or retreat and agree to neutrality, and therefore to the complete defenselessness of Ukraine. What decision do you think he will make?
In short, the current course is unlikely to lead to a lasting settlement. And it will definitely not lead to a peace agreement, which the supporters of the negotiations assure us is possible. This is not a win-win situation. Unless some dramatic changes occur, victory in this armed conflict, as in most others, will be won on the battlefield. A peace deal won't save us. The Americans will have to decide in the near future whether they are ready to let Ukraine lose.
