At Military.com Alia Shoab lists six ways the war in Ukraine might end:
- Cease-fire
- A peace deal
- Russian victory
- Russian retreat, Ukrainian victory
- Long-term war
- Nuclear war and/or NATO intervention
while at 1945 Daniel Davis says there’s only one way it will end:
The stark, cold realities of modern warfare, however, reveal that to the contrary, there is no end to the war in sight, and the most likely case remains – however unpopular in the Western world – a negotiated settlement.
The only question that remains: how many more Ukrainians must die before this harsh reality is grasped by the leaders of both warring parties?
concluding:
Each time the opportunity for a peaceful end was rejected by the two sides, more people died and more cities were destroyed. That vicious cycle will continue, as I project we’ll be in the same no-win position this summer when the next opportunity comes to find a negotiated settlement – after God-only-knows how many more people have been killed or maimed in a pointless striving for the unattainable. Wisdom says the parties should end the war now, on the best possible terms for each side.
But wisdom is an attribute in frighteningly short supply among today’s senior leaders.
I lean more towards Lt. Col. Davis’s view. However, if the U. S. genuinely thinks that a negotiated settlement is inconsistent with its values and sticks to that, I would hasten to suggest that the six possible outcomes are not equally likely. A cease-fire would not be a resolution. The peace deal is identical to a negotiated settlement so we’re ruling that out. Russian victory is possible but unlikely as long as the U. S. is willing to keep supplying Ukraine and/or escalate its involvement. IMO outright Ukrainian victory is even less likely.
That leaves long-term war or nuclear war.
There will be a negotiated settlement with territory going back to 2014 lines. Russia keeps Crimea. Russia just needs to find a way to declare that a victory that they can sell to their people. This assumes no major failure on the part of either military.
Steve
The article pretty much elides the fundamentally political nature of war.
And there is, with few exceptions, always a negotiated settlement.
A Clausewitzian summary includes three categories or factors for war termination:
1. Defeat – the inability to carry on fighting.
2. Costs that become unacceptable – you can carry on fighting, but the costs are too high, so you choose not to.
3. The improbability or inability to win – this is the inability to achieve your political objectives via warfare.
We negotiated a settlement with Japan and Germany after WWII, even though it was totally one-sided. Japan could have kept fighting and forced us to invade. Germany could have fought to the last man or changed to guerilla warfare. We left Afghanistan because of #2 & #3, not #1.
Right now, the political balance on both sides strongly favors a continuation of the conflict. Neither side is facing defeat. The costs have not become unacceptable to either side, and neither side thinks winning is improbable enough to stop fighting. A cease fire is not in the cards because it would give Russia an advantage so Ukraine wouldn’t accept it. All the other five potentials listed are contingent on circumstances that are not yet in evidence.
The US and UK have repeatedly intervened to prevent a peaceful settlement. The US forced Poroshenko to renege on both Minsk I and II. Those agreements would have prevented the current war and kept Ukraine intact, except for Crimea. The US lackey UK also intervened to stop the peace agreement reached between Ukraine and Russia last March. Boris Johnson was sent to Kiev to browbeat Zelenskii into reneging on that deal.
There will be no peace deal, because the US wants this war to continue.
I hope a negotiated settlement ends it soon.
I’m truly dismayed by the reports I see of Russians torturing, killing civilians, killing their own wounded, sending untrained and basically unequipped conscripts to the front and pulling the commanding officers.
I understand the reports may be biased or untrue, but in toto it adds up to a Russian government that is as concerned with human life as it was under Stalin.
Russians prefer death to life, and if live they must, won’t do that sober.
There are nations that need to be perpetual pariah’s, and Russia is the largest of them.
We read rumors of Putin looking abroad to find cannon fodder. Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea, Chechnya.
The hell with logistics, get them to the front, half starved, unarmed and disease ridden.
That’s how Putin thinks, and Russians are conditioned to accept it. After all, it’s been their fate for centuries.
This is a good piece that goes much deeper than the Shoab article:
https://open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/why-putin-prefers-war-war-to-jaw
Yes, that’s a good piece, Andy. Thank you.
One thing missing from it is that the only way, repeat ONLY that Russia will not continue to threaten Ukraine is if Russia ceases to exist, presumably by splitting it up into tiny landlocked statelets. Consequently, either that must happen or Ukraine must remain threatened.
Either the U. S. or Ukraine insisting on Ukraine no longer feeling threatened makes the conflict existential for both Ukraine and Russia. IMO that’s why the situation is so dangerous.
Nice piece. Makes clear that it really all hinges on Putin. He needs an out but at the same time he is making it harder for Ukraine to offer one. Anyway, makes it clear Putin wont actually negotiate. For him negotiating starts with the idea that he gets everything he wants. Anyway, it hasn’t even been a year yet so it will go on for a while.
Steve
Be cautious of assigning the idea that if one person goes poof — this all goes away. First, much of the Russian elite believes this war goes to the core interests of Russia that Putin does; its the reason why so many IR specialists have warned about a possible war for 30 years. If anything, Putin is in the center of Russian elite opinion and his replacement could be by a hawk. As to popular feeling — I suspect given how wars go and the stakes at large; the Russian populace aren’t about to toss out their government.
As to nuclear war. The thing that should worry people is the circumstances it was used in 1945. It wasn’t used when the US was objectively in mortal danger; the Japanese hadn’t attacked the US homeland in over 2 years. It wasn’t to change the course of the war, the US was about to decisively defeat Japan. It happened because it was the right tool for a specific goal.
That to me says once the “safeties” are off as they are right now, the use of nuclear weapons won’t depend at all on objective measures of who’s winning the war, or how much danger either side is in; it will happen if the esoteric circumstances which we won’t know.
The Russian homeland was not attacked.
Steve