Ukraine’s top Freedom Caucus ally gets cold feet
Ukraine’s top Freedom Caucus ally gets cold feet
He [Rep. Andy Harris] said of Ukraine’s springtime offensive that was intended to turn the tide of the war: “I’ll be blunt, it’s failed.” And he was blunt, too, about the prospects for a victory ahead: “I’m not sure it’s winnable anymore.”
You're viewing a single thread.
With more sober assessments of the course of the conflict on both sides of the Atlantic, we may hope for a prompt attempt at serious negotiation and, if fate is kind, an end to the hostilities.
If only this ultra-complex situation could be solved more easily. Wait, it can! Russia could just fuck off and send its soldiers home.
How come nobody thought of this? Brilliant! I guess the war is over then?
Your comment implied that Ukraine should just accept that Russia has conquered a fourth of its territory. That is as ridiculous and unlikely a scenario as Putin voluntarily leaving.
No such implication is there. All I said was serious negotiations, which given the state of facts entails the prospect of territorial concessions. I don't expect the negotiations would lead to a simple redrawing of the borders to take account of what each side materially holds at present. In fact, I don't have much of a preconceived idea of what such negotiations would be like other than I find it extremely unlikely that Crimea will return to Ukrainian control. That's the point of negotiation: finding out what the belligerents can live with.
Are you even reading your own comments? You are implying it right now.
I'm not. Crimea is not a fourth of Ukraine's territory (27000 km^2 out of 603000 km^2). That's about a 1/22nd part.
The problem is that negotiation only means something if the parties trust each other to follow it (or an agreement will be enforced by external parties with credible ability to do so).
Russia and Ukraine already have an agreement - the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed in 1994. It opens with this: "The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine". Note that the 1994 borders of Ukraine include Crimea and the entire Donbas region.
If agreements only apply until Putin feels it is ready to take more of Ukraine, and then Putin can just take more by force, but not risk what it has 'locked in' through Ukraine upholding its previous agreements, then an agreement is meaningless for Ukraine - at best, all it does is lets Russia recover economically and rebuild reserves so it can prepare for a large push and take more of Ukraine next time.
The only ways this could meaningfully be settled would be:
- Ukraine leaves Russia in a materially worse position than before the war, and remains prepared to do it again for ongoing deterrence, so that game theoretically it would be a bad idea for Russia to attack Ukraine again ever.
- Major political upheaval in Russia moves them to legitimately democratic, pluralistic and trustworthy leadership, and Ukraine and Russia then come to a new agreement that both sides will genuinely uphold.
- An agreement includes other countries who will credibly enforce the agreement - e.g. Ukraine agrees to give up some of their territory, and the rest of NATO agrees that Ukraine immediately will become part of NATO and be protected by Article 5 - so that Russia cannot take any more territory from Ukraine ever without unthinkable consequences for Russia.
Historically many if not most conflicts started with the breach of an agreement. Without getting bogged down in irrelevant detail, there are issue of self-determination of Crimea, which repeatedly in 3 referenda (2 if you wish to exclude the last one) pronounced in favour of either autonomy or being part of the CIS (effectively Russian Federation). Likewise, and setting aside the 2014 events for the moment, there also were agreements that, in principle, may have served as a valid status quo, such as Minsk II, and were not complied to by the parties.
So, sure, some form of trust-building will be necessary. But what's the alternative? Endless war?