August 4, 2023
Washington Has No Interest in Pursuing Peace in Ukraine
If recent commentary and discussion in Foreign Affairs is any guide, then Washington DC will not accept anything less than total Russian collapse as an end to the war.
by Dominick Sansone
Foreign Affairs magazine published an insightful piece in its most recent issue, titled “An Unwinnable War: Washington Needs an Endgame in Ukraine.” Written by RAND Corporation senior political scientist Samuel Charap, it is well argued and presents a number of reasonable proposals that prioritize a diplomatic end to the Ukraine War. Three examples—the Korean armistice, U.S.-Israeli security arrangements, and the Bosnia Contact Group—are drawn upon in order to suggest a roadmap to ceasing hostilities.
A number of responses were subsequently published in Foreign Affairs online. All take aim with Charap’s assessment that neither side currently holds the capabilities to achieve ultimate victory, defined in this context as establishing control over the disputed territory in Ukraine. Rather, they contend that Ukraine’s triumph is simply a matter of providing more—and deadlier—Western weaponry. Each argument also rests upon the assumption of a tottering Putin regime. They all cite the Prigozhin mutiny (it is mentioned a total of six separate times throughout the various responses) as irrefutable evidence of a latent contingent of discontented Russians that can and will eventually be mobilized to topple the current government.
The most extreme perspective comes from Dmytro Natalukha, Chair of the Committee for Economic Affairs of the Parliament of Ukraine and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Natalukha claims that leaving any territory occupied by Russia will allow Moscow to subsequently use that land as a launch pad for future attacks to capture the rest of the country, as he claims it did after the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015—although he conveniently ignores the fact that it was both Moscow and Kiev who consistently failed to implement the terms of both the Minsk Protocol and Minsk II. Ukraine, Natalukha argues, must therefore wage war until all occupied land is seized back from Russia. What is more, the return of the eastern oblasts and Crimea must then be followed by forcible regime change in Moscow and the installation of a Western-approved leader. This will ensure that “post-Putin Russia will have the consent of Ukraine.”
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/washington-has-no-interest-pursuing-peace-ukraine-206684
