Ending the Ukraine War in an Imperfect World

The war in Ukraine has been going on for more than four months. What began as a European conflict has had a global impact. Of course, Ukraine and its people have suffered the most. More than five million Ukrainians have left the country and more than eight million have been internally displaced. Rising casualties and massive destruction have pushed the country back decades. Recent estimates are as high as $750 billion to rebuild destroyed cities and infrastructure.

During 2020-21, most economies that could afford provided generous financial assistance to their citizens in the form of direct payments and subsidized food to tide over the economic hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Suffering from supply chain disruptions, aggravated by politics. The economic recovery has created demand, leading to inflationary pressures. Today, inflation rates around the world are rising and reaching levels not seen in the largest economies since the early 1980s. As these countries tighten the money supply, the fear of recession is huge. The war in Ukraine has aggravated the situation of poor countries by creating food and fertilizer shortages. The sharp jump in energy prices threatens the prospects of economic recovery. Given the escalating tensions between the major powers, the potential for collective global action to address these challenges appears far-fetched.

And so, the war goes on, with no end in sight.

inevitable conflict

It is a fact that Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022 in blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international law; It is equally true that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is not an innocent bystander. In 2022, Russia is to blame, but NATO’s folly has forgotten that the cost of its expansion increases as it gets closer to the Russian border. Its strategic error was in concluding that Russia was in terminal decline and adopting an ‘open door’ policy.

As of 2005, 11 former Eastern European and Baltic states had joined NATO. Addressing the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin described NATO’s decision to move east and deploy forces closer to Russian borders as “a serious provocation”. The warning was ignored. At the NATO summit in early 2008, the United States insisted on opening membership to Ukraine and Georgia. Sensitive to Russian concerns, France and Germany successfully blocked the deadline for implementation. As a compromise, it was the worst of both worlds. This convinced Russia of the potential for NATO hostility and threats to Georgia and Ukraine that NATO could not accomplish.

Later that year, Russia intervened on the grounds of protecting Russian minorities in Georgia, annexing the neighboring provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 2014, following a Euromaidan protest in Kyiv against President Viktor Yanukovich, who was pro-Russian, Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Russian separatists, with the aid of Russian mercenaries, created autonomous regions in eastern Ukraine. The fuse that was lit in 2008 was now smoldering.

After 2014, NATO continued to strengthen its ties with Ukraine by providing Ukraine with training and equipment, formalizing it in 2020 by making Ukraine a NATO Enhanced Opportunity Partner. The presence of British and American warships in the Black Sea began to increase. In 2019, the United Kingdom entered into a cooperation agreement with Ukraine to develop two new naval ports, Ochakiv on the Black Sea and Berdyansk on the Sea of ​​Azov, a move that Russia saw as a potential threat. Dye was added.

Liberalism beats realism

Neither side wanted war. NATO members insist that Ukraine will not join NATO, but are unable to back down from their 2008 statement. This would be seen as ‘appeasement’. In diplomacy, appeasement was long accepted as a respectable route to ensure peace, practiced by the British in their dealings with European powers, and the US in particular, since the mid-19th century because It sought to implement the Monroe Doctrine. Neville Chamberlain also used appeasement in 1938 to discuss “peace in our times”, but Winston Churchill employed it as his pillar and the term never gained respect thereafter.

A similar term emerged – sensitivity to each other’s core interests – practiced during the Cold War to prevent the US and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from getting into conflict. With the end of the Cold War, it became history. Liberal ideology, after defeating Marxist ideology, was now convinced of the righteousness of its objective. If only the rest of the world could be made to see reason, democracy would flourish, free markets would ensure prosperity and a Western-led rules-based order would prevail. The triumph of liberalism led neo-con believers to interventionism (Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, the Color Revolution, Syria); Others, attracted by the prospects of the Chinese and Russian markets, confuse themselves that economic growth will lead to political opening up.

The Realist school of thought cautioned against military interventions backed by a one-size-fits-all democratic prescription and the risks of excessive economic dependence on China but these voices were dismissed. Many American scholars and strategic thinkers cautioned against expanding NATO, warning that Russia may be vulnerable but it would be reckless to neglect its security interests; He was accused of ‘appeasement’. Liberalism was upholding ‘moral values’; It was easy to reject unethical realism as immoral.

In February, French President Emmanuel Macron talked about Finland’s model as an alternative to Ukraine. Austrian neutrality, imposed by the US, USSR, UK and France in 1955, was mentioned in its constitution. But these solutions found acceptance in a war-weary Europe when politics was frozen by the Cold War. Finland accepted limited sovereignty and was guided by only two presidents – Urho Kekkonen (1956–82) and Mauno Koivisto (1982–94) and both also served as prime ministers. In 2022, in the flux of power politics, with rivalry intensifying and populism, such stability is impossible.

In early March, in an interview to Russian media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine was not pressing for NATO membership, but wanted a guarantee of neutrality; He even talked of a 10-year period for the Donbass to negotiate autonomy and Crimea as a compromise. But that interview was soon forgotten.

how do wars end

Wars often develop their own pace and the Ukraine War is no exception. Russia likely anticipated a short, intense conflict, the collapse of the Kyiv regime (perhaps as what happened in Kabul last August) and the lack of NATO reconciliation. It has had to re-adjust its targets as it prepares for a long and brutal war. The G-7, the European Union (EU) and NATO have displayed unusual cohesion and the Ukrainians have shown exemplary patience and motivation. Russia is in a bind. Even its limited war objectives to control the Donbass and the Black Sea coast have been a slog. Finland and Sweden joining NATO will further squeeze it into the Baltic Sea. Ukraine’s fighting ability depends on how long Western money and military hardware keeps flowing.

In a moral world, there is a right and a wrong and Russia must be taken into account. But in the real world, other factors come into play. A blame game or establishing the root cause will not help end the crisis. Ultimately, negotiations will need to take place between Ukraine and Russia, and with NATO and the US playing an outside role behind the scenes. This means acknowledging Russia’s security interests in its neighbourhood.

The problem is that war is now being poured into binaries – a fight between freedom and tyranny, between democracy and autocracy, a choice between a rules-based order and brute force. This makes it difficult to compromise. And Russia cannot be defeated unless NATO wants to engage in a full-scale war.

The longer the war lasted, the greater the suffering for the Ukrainians. The more territory Ukraine loses, the weaker its bargaining position at the table. And the longer the war goes on, the greater the risk of unintentional escalation. History tells us that when faced with choices, the propensity of the major powers to double. Nuclear prohibition has been in place since 1945; Wise voices need to ensure that it is not violated. The sooner the war ends, the better for Ukrainians, Russians and the world. It’s an imperfect world but we don’t have another.

Rakesh Sood is a former diplomat and currently Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation