>A bit of context often missing from the story is that from the Ukrainian perspective, there was an ongoing war in the Donbas region long before Russia formally invaded..... As president, he agreed to a controversial German-backed Donbas peace agreement
Yes. For the 'wHy DoN't ThEy TrY nEgOtIaTing' crowd- I'm amazed that more people don't know that Russia and Ukraine negotiated almost continuously from Russia's initial invasion in 2014, all the way up to 2022. Literally no one seems to know this! They were called the Minsk agreements, and they were brokered by France and Germany. *After* Russia seized 20% of Ukraine's territory, there were multiple rounds of talks, and multiple cease fires declared. Ultimately "on 22 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed", and that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for their collapse. Russia then invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements
After 8 years of it, I think one could reasonably say that Ukraine has, in fact, tried negotiating. There may ultimately end up being a negotiated settlement, but it'll come after Russia feels militarily pressed- not before
Is there the possibility for a peaceful resolution to the conflict?
A peace settlement can only occur when both sides makes credible commitments, but at this point it’s hard to imagine any commitment made by Russia being credible considering their repeated history of revanchism.
Just in the same way that after Hitler invaded Poland there could be no peace, even in Britains darkest moments, I fear the same is true for Ukraine. No matter how good the deal offered we know as soon as Russia is in a better position they’ll reopen the conflict.
"The counterpoint to this might be that said European allies are paying a much heavier economic price for the sake of upholding the tit-for-tat sanctions on Russia."
That would probably be because Europe in general simultaneously underinvested in defense and built economic ties with Russia, heedless of the dependent position it put them in.
Some EU countries (especially in the east) had an perfectly reasonable justification for doing this, but many others did not.
Germany deserves special ire given their shirking of their NATO obligation, despite their economic clout.
All that being said, we should keep supplying Ukraine until they drive the Russians out.
Great piece. Where the realists have a point I think is in the warning against getting too ideological over this. When a workable deal is there we should be open to it, and not go all 'Munich 1938!' But it seems to me the best way to get to that point is to equip Ukraine to keep inflicting conventional defeats on Russia.
There’s one anti-peace argument that must be refuted: the canard that any type of territorial concession would unacceptably “reward” Putin’s aggression. This argument has two flaws. First, Russia has undermined its strategic position by exposing its military weakness and inspiring Europe to find other energy sources even if it gets to keep Crimea and Donbas. Second, no war has ever ended short of exhaustion without some concessions. I doubt Crimea is enough to pacify Putin, but Crimea and the ethnically Russian parts of Donbas might be enough if and when Ukraine recaptures more territory. That’s better for everyone than a 10 or 20% chance if nuclear war.
Just once, it would be nice for Matthew Yglesias to mention that there are three large ethnic communities on the Crimean peninsula: Crimean Tatars, Ukranians, and Russians. And that the reason that the Russian community is the largest now is due to historical and ongoing ethnic cleansing by Moscow. Also, that the referendum for Crimean accession to Russia was blatantly falsified, just like the ones for the Ukranian oblasts recently.
At the end of the day Russia broke the cardinal rules of the game established in 1945. Namely that war must not be “diplomacy by other means”, and that you cannot simply initiate an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country to better your situation.
Any outcome other than “Russia must fail and be seen to fail” in this war would be catastrophic, as it will show that this behavior is legitimate. More wars in Europe will be sure to follow, as will the invasion of Taiwan. The odds of nuclear conflict will *increase* exponentially.
We don’t need a Versailles-level punitive-humiliating agreement for Russia , but we do need one that shows clealry and *beyond question* that the war wasn’t worth it, and not just from the humanistic perspective that “alll wars are bad” but from a nationalist perspective too, i.e. Russia must lose all it took since 2014. The principle of sovereignty must be reaffirmed on the ground. I repeat and stress that the interest of Justice and security for all (preventing nuclear war) are aligned here. To appease putin out of fear of nuclear war would just make that outcome more likely.
Another great, well thought out piece that I found very thought provoking.
I do differ a little on the section of "Russia wrecking their army in Ukraine is good for NATO." If Ukraine wins a quick victory, I agree. But if the war goes on for a long time, the Russians will be forced to adapt and learn (just like Europe is forced to adapt economically). They have to figure out how to deal with HIMARS, for instance. So, in the long term we may also be training Russians to fight against us.
It's kind of like antibiotics, if you take the full course and wipe out the bacteria, they are great. But if you stop early and allow a resistant strain to flourish, they can be counterproductive.
Great piece. It is worth stressing that we are in this dangerous position in no small part because we’ve tolerated Russian aggression before. Putin had real reason to think he could get away with this. Crimea. South Ossetia. Russian bounties on American soldiers. Obama’ red line against Russian ally Assad. All without a serious response from the West.
The time to draw lines and demonstrate resolve is while the stakes are relatively low, not after the aggressor is emboldened to launch a major conflict. Otherwise, Putin will force the West into concession after concession till he finally demands something we won’t trade, and we end up in a real war. Ukraine is a scary situation, and Biden is right to tread carefully, but the world will get even scarier if we don’t make Russia hurt in a big way.
While this expresses the present correctly, the history is flawed.
"You can also have conflicts in the form of free-riding. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, America’s European allies objectively needed help defending themselves against the Soviet Union. Thus the logic of NATO. Today, though, Europe clearly has the financial resources to defend itself which would let the United States focus on helping Asian allies who actually don’t have the scale to stand alone against China."
The reason for low European spending in 1949 was only partly their inability to afford more. It was also because of a perception that European powers could not be trusted with large military budgets - and had caused all the devastation two world wars by that very spending. The USA, whose large isolationist political faction meant that it could be trusted not to start aggressive wars with that large military, was therefore deputed to run the defence of Europe against the USSR.
The most obvious case here is West Germany in 1949, when the sense was that a large Bundeswehr would be too similar to a restoration of the Wehrmacht of the Nazi era and of the Kaisers and therefore restricting their military and supplying the defence of Germany through the large US deployment and the smaller UK, Belgian and Dutch deployments, but Italy was also seen as similarly problematic, and lots of countries hadn't gotten over the threat that a powerful France would represent if all of its adversaries were rendered incapable of defending themselves. The idea of de Gaulle going on a conquest spree like a third Napoleon might seem laughable now, but it did not seem so in the 1940s.
The modern political situation - and, indeed, the entire post-Cold War era - is completely changed, but there are plenty of Europeans who still prefer the idea of American soldiers protecting them to soldiers of their own nation whom they do not trust.
>>One way that people try to address this psychologically discomfiting reality is to act as if there is some unilateral course of action that Joe Biden could take that would guarantee a non-catastrophic outcome.<<
This seems overstated if by "not-catastrophic" Matt's referring to avoiding nuclear war. Sure, "guarantee" is a pretty strong word, and yes, if the Putin regime were sufficiently suicidal, I guess we couldn't prevent them from launching a first strike on US cities. But there are things Joe Biden could do that would nudge the probability toward zero that the US becomes involved in a nuclear war with Russia over this conflict (namely, disengage).
The Biden administration could, if it wanted to, announce tomorrow morning: that it it will provide no further military aid to Ukraine; that it will not intervene militarily in the region under any circumstances; that it is lifting sanctions on Russia; that it intends to adhere to strict neutrality in this conflict starting immediately; and that it urges the two sides to reach a ceasefire.
There are a number of reasons the above is not going to happen. There may also be reasons why the above *should* not happen. But America's choice to be heavily involved in a conflict between two third party states is just that, a choice. Let's be crystal clear about that.
Agree with this broadly - Joe Biden is certainly not the impediment to peace - but I think there is definitely reason to think that a significant divergence of interests between the U.S. and Ukraine could emerge, and quickly. Arguably the divergence doesn't appear right now because neither Ukraine or NATO is willing to make concessions in the face of vague nuclear blackmail, but if Putin starts to take actual steps to make the risk of nuclear war seem more likely then it is quite possible that Ukraine and NATO's risk calculus will diverge. That could be because of either different perceptions about whether Putin is serious or because they have different stakes and goals in the situation (Ukraine's goal is to emerge battered but sovereign; America's is to preserve the nuclear taboo).
This is a tricky but vital fact to acknowledge. We don't know which red lines need to be crossed for Putin to escalate, but it seems quite likely that they include the protection of Crimea and the naval facility at Tartus. Ukraine's stated goal is to reconquer all of the territory taken by Russia, including Crimea. So if current trends continue then there is at least a chance that we are heading for the point where U.S. and Ukrainian interests might diverge significantly. That's why NATO policymakers are talking about it already, because it will be extremely difficult to think clearly and act safely once the red line is crossed.
Acknowledging this doesn't mean we have to buy into any of the rubbish from anti-anti-Russia types who want to blame Biden or excuse Putin. Rather it means seeing that we're already in a situation where just as only Putin has it in his gift to bring peace, Putin also has it in his gift to divide Ukraine from its allies and dramatically increase the stakes in the conflict - and that he might do so at some unpredictable but increasingly-likely point in the future. It understandably makes policymakers and publics in NATO feel helpless to be reduced to standing back and hoping that their ally's gains don't push a guy with a tenuous grip on reality into starting World War III, especially when they have few options for escaping that dynamic.
“But ever since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has been physically present in this region halfway around the world”
I’m pretty sure the US presence in the Middle East long predates 2003. There was a US military presence in Saudi Arabia since WWII and a number of military bases in the smaller gulf states since the 1991 Gulf War.
I mentioned before that Putin has clearly been incompetent in this war.
The attempt to take Kiev was a farce brought about by foolish underestimation of the Ukrainian military. The failure to launch mobilisation in March or April has now resulted in a lack of manpower, and there are too few men to properly train the guys getting called up now. When the Kerch Bridge was blown up, he fired lots of rare cruise missiles at relatively unimportant targets as revenge.
The problem here is that it is easy to see Putin finally carrying out a geopolitical mass shooting (i.e. nukes) if he sees he is going to get beat. The whole thing is incredibly scary.
> while Russian material is killing Ukrainian soldiers. That’s a deal in our favor.
I understand the point you’re making, and I know its not what you meant, but you might want to rephrase any sentence that refers to the deaths of Ukrainians as a great deal for the US.
>A bit of context often missing from the story is that from the Ukrainian perspective, there was an ongoing war in the Donbas region long before Russia formally invaded..... As president, he agreed to a controversial German-backed Donbas peace agreement
Yes. For the 'wHy DoN't ThEy TrY nEgOtIaTing' crowd- I'm amazed that more people don't know that Russia and Ukraine negotiated almost continuously from Russia's initial invasion in 2014, all the way up to 2022. Literally no one seems to know this! They were called the Minsk agreements, and they were brokered by France and Germany. *After* Russia seized 20% of Ukraine's territory, there were multiple rounds of talks, and multiple cease fires declared. Ultimately "on 22 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin declared that the Minsk agreements "no longer existed", and that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for their collapse. Russia then invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements
After 8 years of it, I think one could reasonably say that Ukraine has, in fact, tried negotiating. There may ultimately end up being a negotiated settlement, but it'll come after Russia feels militarily pressed- not before
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/05/minsk-conundrum-western-policy-and-russias-war-eastern-ukraine-0/minsk-2-agreement (written in 2020)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_Format (another Wiki piece on the 'negotiations')
Is there the possibility for a peaceful resolution to the conflict?
A peace settlement can only occur when both sides makes credible commitments, but at this point it’s hard to imagine any commitment made by Russia being credible considering their repeated history of revanchism.
Just in the same way that after Hitler invaded Poland there could be no peace, even in Britains darkest moments, I fear the same is true for Ukraine. No matter how good the deal offered we know as soon as Russia is in a better position they’ll reopen the conflict.
"The counterpoint to this might be that said European allies are paying a much heavier economic price for the sake of upholding the tit-for-tat sanctions on Russia."
That would probably be because Europe in general simultaneously underinvested in defense and built economic ties with Russia, heedless of the dependent position it put them in.
Some EU countries (especially in the east) had an perfectly reasonable justification for doing this, but many others did not.
Germany deserves special ire given their shirking of their NATO obligation, despite their economic clout.
All that being said, we should keep supplying Ukraine until they drive the Russians out.
Where do these conservative find the balls to tell the Ukranians they should give up part of their country to make life better for us in the US?
If someone invaded their home and claimed it as theirs, could I tell them "Can't you give them half just to keep the peace?"
It's their land, their people getting, their soldiers doing the fighting. It's their decision to make.
Great piece. Where the realists have a point I think is in the warning against getting too ideological over this. When a workable deal is there we should be open to it, and not go all 'Munich 1938!' But it seems to me the best way to get to that point is to equip Ukraine to keep inflicting conventional defeats on Russia.
There’s one anti-peace argument that must be refuted: the canard that any type of territorial concession would unacceptably “reward” Putin’s aggression. This argument has two flaws. First, Russia has undermined its strategic position by exposing its military weakness and inspiring Europe to find other energy sources even if it gets to keep Crimea and Donbas. Second, no war has ever ended short of exhaustion without some concessions. I doubt Crimea is enough to pacify Putin, but Crimea and the ethnically Russian parts of Donbas might be enough if and when Ukraine recaptures more territory. That’s better for everyone than a 10 or 20% chance if nuclear war.
Just once, it would be nice for Matthew Yglesias to mention that there are three large ethnic communities on the Crimean peninsula: Crimean Tatars, Ukranians, and Russians. And that the reason that the Russian community is the largest now is due to historical and ongoing ethnic cleansing by Moscow. Also, that the referendum for Crimean accession to Russia was blatantly falsified, just like the ones for the Ukranian oblasts recently.
At the end of the day Russia broke the cardinal rules of the game established in 1945. Namely that war must not be “diplomacy by other means”, and that you cannot simply initiate an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country to better your situation.
Any outcome other than “Russia must fail and be seen to fail” in this war would be catastrophic, as it will show that this behavior is legitimate. More wars in Europe will be sure to follow, as will the invasion of Taiwan. The odds of nuclear conflict will *increase* exponentially.
We don’t need a Versailles-level punitive-humiliating agreement for Russia , but we do need one that shows clealry and *beyond question* that the war wasn’t worth it, and not just from the humanistic perspective that “alll wars are bad” but from a nationalist perspective too, i.e. Russia must lose all it took since 2014. The principle of sovereignty must be reaffirmed on the ground. I repeat and stress that the interest of Justice and security for all (preventing nuclear war) are aligned here. To appease putin out of fear of nuclear war would just make that outcome more likely.
Another great, well thought out piece that I found very thought provoking.
I do differ a little on the section of "Russia wrecking their army in Ukraine is good for NATO." If Ukraine wins a quick victory, I agree. But if the war goes on for a long time, the Russians will be forced to adapt and learn (just like Europe is forced to adapt economically). They have to figure out how to deal with HIMARS, for instance. So, in the long term we may also be training Russians to fight against us.
It's kind of like antibiotics, if you take the full course and wipe out the bacteria, they are great. But if you stop early and allow a resistant strain to flourish, they can be counterproductive.
Great piece. It is worth stressing that we are in this dangerous position in no small part because we’ve tolerated Russian aggression before. Putin had real reason to think he could get away with this. Crimea. South Ossetia. Russian bounties on American soldiers. Obama’ red line against Russian ally Assad. All without a serious response from the West.
The time to draw lines and demonstrate resolve is while the stakes are relatively low, not after the aggressor is emboldened to launch a major conflict. Otherwise, Putin will force the West into concession after concession till he finally demands something we won’t trade, and we end up in a real war. Ukraine is a scary situation, and Biden is right to tread carefully, but the world will get even scarier if we don’t make Russia hurt in a big way.
While this expresses the present correctly, the history is flawed.
"You can also have conflicts in the form of free-riding. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, America’s European allies objectively needed help defending themselves against the Soviet Union. Thus the logic of NATO. Today, though, Europe clearly has the financial resources to defend itself which would let the United States focus on helping Asian allies who actually don’t have the scale to stand alone against China."
The reason for low European spending in 1949 was only partly their inability to afford more. It was also because of a perception that European powers could not be trusted with large military budgets - and had caused all the devastation two world wars by that very spending. The USA, whose large isolationist political faction meant that it could be trusted not to start aggressive wars with that large military, was therefore deputed to run the defence of Europe against the USSR.
The most obvious case here is West Germany in 1949, when the sense was that a large Bundeswehr would be too similar to a restoration of the Wehrmacht of the Nazi era and of the Kaisers and therefore restricting their military and supplying the defence of Germany through the large US deployment and the smaller UK, Belgian and Dutch deployments, but Italy was also seen as similarly problematic, and lots of countries hadn't gotten over the threat that a powerful France would represent if all of its adversaries were rendered incapable of defending themselves. The idea of de Gaulle going on a conquest spree like a third Napoleon might seem laughable now, but it did not seem so in the 1940s.
The modern political situation - and, indeed, the entire post-Cold War era - is completely changed, but there are plenty of Europeans who still prefer the idea of American soldiers protecting them to soldiers of their own nation whom they do not trust.
>>One way that people try to address this psychologically discomfiting reality is to act as if there is some unilateral course of action that Joe Biden could take that would guarantee a non-catastrophic outcome.<<
This seems overstated if by "not-catastrophic" Matt's referring to avoiding nuclear war. Sure, "guarantee" is a pretty strong word, and yes, if the Putin regime were sufficiently suicidal, I guess we couldn't prevent them from launching a first strike on US cities. But there are things Joe Biden could do that would nudge the probability toward zero that the US becomes involved in a nuclear war with Russia over this conflict (namely, disengage).
The Biden administration could, if it wanted to, announce tomorrow morning: that it it will provide no further military aid to Ukraine; that it will not intervene militarily in the region under any circumstances; that it is lifting sanctions on Russia; that it intends to adhere to strict neutrality in this conflict starting immediately; and that it urges the two sides to reach a ceasefire.
There are a number of reasons the above is not going to happen. There may also be reasons why the above *should* not happen. But America's choice to be heavily involved in a conflict between two third party states is just that, a choice. Let's be crystal clear about that.
Agree with this broadly - Joe Biden is certainly not the impediment to peace - but I think there is definitely reason to think that a significant divergence of interests between the U.S. and Ukraine could emerge, and quickly. Arguably the divergence doesn't appear right now because neither Ukraine or NATO is willing to make concessions in the face of vague nuclear blackmail, but if Putin starts to take actual steps to make the risk of nuclear war seem more likely then it is quite possible that Ukraine and NATO's risk calculus will diverge. That could be because of either different perceptions about whether Putin is serious or because they have different stakes and goals in the situation (Ukraine's goal is to emerge battered but sovereign; America's is to preserve the nuclear taboo).
This is a tricky but vital fact to acknowledge. We don't know which red lines need to be crossed for Putin to escalate, but it seems quite likely that they include the protection of Crimea and the naval facility at Tartus. Ukraine's stated goal is to reconquer all of the territory taken by Russia, including Crimea. So if current trends continue then there is at least a chance that we are heading for the point where U.S. and Ukrainian interests might diverge significantly. That's why NATO policymakers are talking about it already, because it will be extremely difficult to think clearly and act safely once the red line is crossed.
Acknowledging this doesn't mean we have to buy into any of the rubbish from anti-anti-Russia types who want to blame Biden or excuse Putin. Rather it means seeing that we're already in a situation where just as only Putin has it in his gift to bring peace, Putin also has it in his gift to divide Ukraine from its allies and dramatically increase the stakes in the conflict - and that he might do so at some unpredictable but increasingly-likely point in the future. It understandably makes policymakers and publics in NATO feel helpless to be reduced to standing back and hoping that their ally's gains don't push a guy with a tenuous grip on reality into starting World War III, especially when they have few options for escaping that dynamic.
“But ever since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has been physically present in this region halfway around the world”
I’m pretty sure the US presence in the Middle East long predates 2003. There was a US military presence in Saudi Arabia since WWII and a number of military bases in the smaller gulf states since the 1991 Gulf War.
I mentioned before that Putin has clearly been incompetent in this war.
The attempt to take Kiev was a farce brought about by foolish underestimation of the Ukrainian military. The failure to launch mobilisation in March or April has now resulted in a lack of manpower, and there are too few men to properly train the guys getting called up now. When the Kerch Bridge was blown up, he fired lots of rare cruise missiles at relatively unimportant targets as revenge.
The problem here is that it is easy to see Putin finally carrying out a geopolitical mass shooting (i.e. nukes) if he sees he is going to get beat. The whole thing is incredibly scary.
> while Russian material is killing Ukrainian soldiers. That’s a deal in our favor.
I understand the point you’re making, and I know its not what you meant, but you might want to rephrase any sentence that refers to the deaths of Ukrainians as a great deal for the US.