A dirty proposal

The situation with the so-called "prigozhin rebellion" provides a good reason to reassess the degree to which respected Western think tanks understand the real meaning of the events in terms of the validity of the forecast and the effectiveness of proposals to end russia’s aggression against Ukraine. And once again, there is a strong impression that the views of a significant number of representatives of the analytical community are increasingly lagging behind the pace of change and are not keeping pace with the demands of the times. 

In late April, I read carefully, almost with a pencil, the article titled "The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine" (17.04.2023) in the influential Foreign Affairs magazine, in which reputable American experts Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan outlined their vision of ending the war unleashed by russia. Frankly speaking, the article caused great disappointment with its banal and predictably standard approaches.

It seems that for them, the world has been frozen in its equanimity since the Cold War. Such proposals for a so-called peaceful settlement could easily have been written by Gromyko together with Kissinger 50 years ago, and they would not have been any different from the Foreign Affairs proposals of 2023.

It seems that for a certain group of Western experts and politicians, the world has not changed at all. In this paradigm, some major players decide the fate of the world behind the scenes, while the rest of the world stands meekly at the door, awaiting their fate. But the world has moved very far ahead and the old rules no longer work. In this regard, we must pay tribute to Mr. Kissinger, who is beginning to suspect something...

The Foreign Affairs experts persistently promote the idea that the "war is headed for stalemate", "Ukraine is poised to fall well short of vanquishing Russian forces" and "it would be unwise to keep doggedly pursuing a full military victory that could prove Pyrrhic". And if so, these experts have a plan ready to go, which may be considered by certain political forces that miss normal high-marginal relations with russia. 

And Haass-Kupchan’s plan is as follows.

1. Bolster Ukraine’s military capability and then, after the combat season winds down in late 2023, usher moscow and Kyiv from the battlefield to the negotiating table.
2. The ceasefire must be durable, one that could prevent renewed conflict and prepare the ground for lasting peace.
3. The West should ask other influential countries, including China and India, to support the ceasefire proposal. 
4. By that time, the West should present a plan for brokering a cease-fire and a follow-on peace process aimed at ending the conflict. 
5. To encourage russia, sanctions will be eased.

To sweeten the bitter pill, Foreign Affairs tries to pass off wishful thinking, in effect calling on the West to turn a blind eye to the slightest deception. They say that there is no need to worry if Ukraine loses territory, as this will in no way encourage other dictatorships to engage in similar aggressions. Why? Because Ukraine has "demonstrated to other would-be revisionists that pursuing territorial conquest can be a costly and vexing enterprise". But behind this rounded wording may remain the stubborn fact that russia (in the event of a cessation of hostilities) has rewritten the borders, which is actually a verdict on Europe, planting explosives under the world order. And renowned international experts – the authors of the article – shyly call all this the "formula of strategic pragmatism". Although if "strategic" was replaced by "cynical", it would be more accurate. 

With all the "pragmatism", a lot of uncomfortable questions remain: What about the inevitability of punishment for the crimes committed? Thousands of killed Ukrainian soldiers and civilians? The deaths of children? The destroyed country? Should we just sit down and strike a deal, shaking hands with russian negotiators? From all angles, this looks like a dirty proposal from the cynical world of business as usual. 

Such a proposal looks even more cynical from the point of view of Ukraine’s real capabilities to resolve the russian issue by fully de-occupying the territory, including Crimea, and up to the 1991 borders, no matter how much some in the world may be afraid of it. All experts and politicians of character and will are convinced that if Ukraine is provided with all the necessary weapons, even not the latest and not the penultimate generation, the war will be over in the shortest possible time. The russian post-Soviet army has no chance to withstand Western military technology and NATO standards of warfare.

The next thesis of the publication is the assurance that the West should not reward russian aggression by forcing Ukraine to accept the loss of territory forever, so this situation is just "deferring the ultimate disposition of land" – an outright deception, childish naivety at best. Believe me, we know russia like no one else. If you don’t physically beat it over the head painfully and for a long time, it won’t voluntarily release anything from its dirty jaws. We cannot postpone what needs to be resolved today and now. 

The authors of the article warn in no uncertain terms that if Ukraine does not agree to the proposals of the so-called peaceful settlement, "it would hardly be the first time in history that a partner dependent on U.S. support balked at being pressured to scale back its objectives".

It is indicative that such proposals are coming from the expert community, which, when predicting the outcome of russia’s military aggression against Ukraine in 2021-2022, was categorical in its statements: Ukraine surrenders, the President flees to Poland, the "second army" marches through Kyiv in triumph. But despite this, they continue to step on their own analytical rake, being captive to conservative linear logic, not accepting the truth that the world has changed and the rules of the "Tehran" and "Yalta" era no longer work.

Similarly, this expert community, ex post facto, without concealing its confusion, comments on the "prigozhin rebellion", catching up on the events, although before that it was convinced of the stability of the putin regime and the tight control of the russian state system. However, Ukraine has repeatedly warned of the inevitability of civil confrontation and civil conflict in russia. There have been calls for the West and the world to reconsider their attitude to russia as a state entity and to plan a set of actions in the event of russia’s collapse. 

With all the events of the Ukraine-russia war shattering established views and destroying authoritative forecasts, it is time for new solutions and new approaches based on principles that are not realpolitik at all.

Ukraine is a nation that unites in its struggle and hardens on the foundation of values. Not solely on ethnic, religious, or geographical identity – it is multifaceted and diverse. And our mission, if you will, is to return the priority of forgotten values to the modern historical matrix of Western behavior. Otherwise, having lost its key weapon in the confrontation with authoritarianism, the West will lose itself.

Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine