Three Years of War

Most of the editorials and opinion pieces that have caught my eye recently have been devoted to the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m going to cite, quote, and comment on several of them here. The first is from former U. S. Ambassador and former US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker at the Center for European Policy Analysis:

As Ukraine enters its fourth year of defending against a full-scale Russian invasion, there is a feeling of change in the air — hope that 2025 might bring an end to the fighting, but deep concern that a high price might be paid for a fleeting and unjust peace.

Russia is at its weakest since February 2022: economically, militarily and politically. Inflation is running rampant, interest rates are pegged at a staggering 21%, there is both a manpower shortage for the army and a labor shortage in the civilian economy, the state budget is in deficit, and without access to global financial markets, it is burning through its remaining foreign exchange reserves. It is reliant on North Korea for ammunition and manpower, and Iran for drones.

Within six months to a year, Russia will need a pause in the war. But until then, the Kremlin’s overnight bombing offensive and front-line assaults continue.

Ukraine is also feeling the strains of war. The population is tired. Even though the casualty ratio is roughly 3:1 in Ukraine’s favor, the Ukrainians care more about that one soldier than Russia does for dozens of its own troops. The front line has scarcely moved in two years, but the costs to Ukraine are high.

He sees the four pillars of the present U. S. approach as:

• ceasefire
• reciprocity
• deterrence
• burden-sharing

which is thornier than it may sound. Somewhat contrary to that are the remarks of Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth at The Hill:

Since Team Trump is set more on a deal benefiting the U.S. than on a fair and equitable solution that concludes the war, Zelensky should make this a quid pro quo arrangement — also known as a conditions-based contract, especially since NATO and the EU are hopelessly stuck in bureaucratic inroads.

This would put skin in the game for Team Trump.

So, let’s make a deal.

In exchange for a minerals contract with the U.S. to reimburse its investment in Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression, the U.S. sets conditions for the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all of Ukraine, including Crimea. Those conditions, diplomatic or kinetic, depend on the Kremlin.

Call it what it is: diplomatic shock and awe, but it is long overdue. As Vice President JD Vance has stated, “there’s a new sheriff in town.” Only now the phrase is properly directed at the adversary — Moscow.

which sounds notably like what have been referred to as “Ukraine’s maximalist objectives”. Here are the observations of the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

Monday marks the third anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the Kremlin marked the weekend with the largest drone attack of the war. President Trump says Vladimir Putin wants “peace,” but Ukrainians have hard experience about what such a promise means in practice. The anniversary is a good moment to recall the post-Cold War history of Russia’s broken promises.

They began with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 amid the illusion of the “end of history.” Ukraine yielded its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S., U.K. and Russia. Moscow explicitly promised to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and refrain from economic coercion. So much for that, and here’s a trail of Russia’s other broken commitments…

One of the things notable about the commentary is that many of the parties want to start the clock, start history at different points. Some in February 2022. Some in December 2021. Some in 2014. Some, like the WSJ, in 1994. Some in 1991. Some in 1954, the 1930s, 1919, or even in the 18th or even 17th century.

Quite contrary to most of the above are the remarks of David P. Goldman at Asia Times:

From the howling in the war camp, you’d think it was the end of the world. But it’s not the end of the world: It’s just the end of them. Nothing fails like failure, and the twenty-year campaign to launch regime change in Russia from Ukraine failed miserably, as the Russian Federation built more weapons than the whole of NATO combined. Relentless Russian gains hollowed out the Ukraine Army.

The war party’s only hope is to blame their failure on Trump, and to spin out the conflict until it becomes a permanent state of war.

Somewhere in between is the lament of Marcus Stanley at Responsible Statecraft:

Today marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With the war entering its fourth year and serious diplomatic moves toward peace finally underway, it’s an appropriate time to look back on the U.S. approach to the conflict.

The Ukraine war is the most devastating European conflict since WW2. While accurate casualty figures are difficult to come by, in September 2024, The Wall Street Journal estimated that the war had already resulted in more than one million casualties, with more than 250,000 dead and some 800,000 wounded.

The carnage has only increased since then. Estimates are that the war has caused some $1 trillion in damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure and capital stock. Even before the war Ukraine was already one of the poorest countries in Europe. As of late 2024, the U.S. government had allocated some $175 billion in military and non-military aid to support Ukraine’s war effort.

The early months of the war saw astounding Ukrainian success in resisting Russian aggression, as Ukraine mobilized to drive Russian forces back from the Kyiv region and the Black Sea coast. After an additional offensive in September 2022 gained some further ground, the war settled into a grinding stalemate in Ukraine’s Eastern regions.

Since the end of 2022, the front lines in Ukraine have barely moved, with Russia holding 18% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territories in December 2022 and 18.6% of those territories today. But the costs of war continued to mount, with hundreds of thousands of additional dead and wounded and continued assaults on Ukraine’s infrastructure.

The military stalemate in Ukraine was predictable.

Not only was it predictable but it was predicted.

I don’t believe that either Russia is on the verge of economic, political, or strategic collapse. Indeed, I think it’s in a somewhat stronger position than it was in December 2021, IMO a perverse outcome. I also don’t believe that the Ukrainian government is on the brink of collapse, especially not if the U. S. continues to supply and fund it. I see no way the “maximalist objectives” AKA “not letting Putin win” can be accomplished without nuclear war. I also believe that U. S. repute in the world was entirely based on U. S. economic power, at least since our withdrawal in defeat from Vietnam.

I would suggest that we view the conflict strictly based on how we prioritize several values:

• hatred of Russia
• love of Ukraine
• love of the United States
• abstract principles like the rule of law in the international arena, spreading democracy, etc.

For me the highest priority among those above is love of the United States and those “abstract principles”. I don’t hate Russia and I don’t love Ukraine. I recognize that for some hatred of Russia or love of Ukraine are actual priorities and that making a buck is subsumed under “love of the United States”.