If you think it through logically there are only so many variants:
- Ukraine will defeat Russia. Russia will be forced to drop all, or most of their, claims, and retreat back behind the 1991 borders to lick their wounds, if not break up completely. This may come about through force or arms or a collapse of the Russian economy due to sanctions.
- Russia will impose a military defeat on Ukraine. The regime in Kiev will collapse and Russia will attempt to impose their demands or ‘support’ the formation of a new government which will agree to all or most of their demands.
- The current situation will persist. A war of attrition. Europe (with or without the US) will continue to pour in money and arms. The frontlines may stabilise, or the rate of Russian progress will be glacial that final defeat (2) will be put off for the foreseeable future.
- Negotiations with the current regime in Kiev will lead to Kiev accepting all or most of Russia’s demands and the war ending in some kind of internationally-backed Treaty.
That seems to be about it, though, obviously, there are are variants of the variants. In order to think properly about this one needs to grasp that Russia’s core demands are absolutely non-negotiable. They are seen in Moscow, as they have been right from the moment in 2008 when Bush pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to be accepted into NATO, as key red lines touching on the existential security of the Russian state. Russia sees NATO in Ukraine as an existential threat. This is true across the board in Russia. It is not a demand of any one “regime”. Witness the well-known cable from William Burns, then US Ambassador to Moscow, and now head of the CIA, in which he clearly explained that all factions in the Kremlin see NATO in Ukraine as a red line:
Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. . . . Today’s Russia will respond. Russian – Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze. . . . It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. [1]
At this point, Crimea is considered as part of Russia and they can no more let it go than they could, for example, let Kursk province go. There may be some room for manoeuvre in relation to exactly where a border could be drawn in Eastern Ukraine, but Moscow is now committed, to, as they see it, defending the ethnic Russian and their pro-Russian fellow travellers in Eastern Ukraine. One can, in theory, imagine a government in Moscow which would be willing to compromise slightly more than the present one on these points. However; it is worth pointing out that, again, Crimea is a massively unifying issue in Russia. Even Navalny was basically supportive of Crimean annexation/reunification. He talked about a new referendum, but one imagines, this was chiefly done to make his position acceptable to his Western backers. At any rate in order to get any concessions on these points would take a collapse in the current political settlement in Russia; essentially 1) above.
The problem with 4) is, simply, that there is no common ground between the positions of Moscow and the regime in Kiev. The positions are irreconcilable, as witnessed by the predictable failure of the recent talks in Istanbul to produce anything.
1) may be logically sound. But; where is the evidence it is achievable? Backers of this idea have been talking about it for three years. And while they have been talking about it, its likelihood has been vanishing ever further into the unreal. The Russian economy may not be quite the success story of some of the more enthusiastic of Russian-sympathetic commentators in the West. But it is pretty resilient. [2] On the battlefield; Russia is slowly gaining ground despite not having fully mobilised against an opponent who is already at full mobilisation. Weapons have been pouring in to Ukraine for 3 years, (in fact since 2018). And, with US support weakening, (is Congress really going to approve another $60 billion package?), the trajectory here is for fewer weapons.
That leaves 2) and 3). The current trajectory is for 2), albeit slowly. I am not a military historian, but I wonder just how long a war of attrition can be sustained at a high rate of damage and casualties, until something gives. With their manpower problems, and dependency on unreliable partners the fragilities seem to lie on the side of Kiev.
The logic suggests that if 4) is not chosen then 2) will be the result. The European war party is still trying to keep 3) alive on the basis that 1) is still possible, though the grounds for believing that are extremely low. In reality, the European war party is trying to keep 3) (with the illusion of 1) alive – because option 2) is very bad for them. It is bad for them for two reasons. Firstly; people will ask; and we sent all that money and so many people lost their lives and, once again, we have been defeated, (as in Afghanistan)? * And secondly, and worse, if 2) happens, Russia will impose its conditions and then return to behind its (albeit modified) new borders. They will not “attack a NATO country”.** And, everyone will see that all that talk about Russia being a threat to Europe was hocus-pocus by a bankrupt set of leaders trying to keep their hegemonic dream alive. They will be stripped bare for their publics to see. Kiev is also, one imagines, engaged in regime survival. At their backs are nationalists who seem willing to insist on the unrealistic aims of being able to impose Ukrainian nationalism on the whole territory of Ukraine as it was in 1991 at any cost.
If you simply think it through you end up in the same place as Professor John Mearsheimer. The most likely end game is a messy Russian win. (Option 2)).
* One reason we, (the West), keep getting defeated is that for the Western elites who order them the wars are not heartfelt. They are just business. They, and this is especially the case with European leaders, approach them like any other political problem. They just agree a huge budget line, (after all, it isn’t their money – and indeed because of their connections to the financial and corporate sectors, elites do pretty well when they spend money in government). They approach a problem like Afghanistan or Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, just as they approach a problem like the Covid pandemic. They just throw a vast amount of money at some contractors. This is not the way that wars are won. Even in the 21st century, spirit and fighting will still matter an awful lot.
** Unless, once again, provoked by the West to do just that. But, that time, one imagines it could involve mushroom clouds, so maybe something will tell them to desist.
Notes
- Sakwa, Richard. The Lost Peace: How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (p. 86). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. Sakwa is citing Burns: Burns, Back Channel, p. 233. He had earlier warned that ‘Ukraine remained the reddest of red lines for Putin’, p. 222.
- https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russias-wartime-economy-isnt-weak-it-looks