/ world today news/ While Ukrainians suffer through their second winter of war, the Biden administration has apparently abandoned thoughts of victory and Ukraine whole and free. Instead, Washington believes the two sides should negotiate.
Politico reports:
The Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in eventual negotiations to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a Washington-based European diplomat. Such negotiations would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia.
This is the fruit of nearly two years of war.
In February 2022, the US refused to negotiate with Russia on NATO’s promise to bring Ukraine in. Washington has insisted that pledge remains intact as the transatlantic alliance moves ever closer to Kiev militarily.
Leaving Ukraine territorially intact but politically unaligned was too high a price for peace in the view of the Biden administration. So the US launched an expensive and increasingly bitter proxy war against Russia with total victory as its goal.
It’s been almost two years. Ukraine is devastated. The territory is lost. Cities are bombed. Millions of people are displaced. Many Ukrainians fled abroad.
The highly touted Wunderwaffe in the West failed to achieve victory. The Ukrainian army suffered huge, although officially unrecognized, losses.
After the flow of volunteers dwindled, Kiev revived the ancient British practice of impressment, plucking young and old men off the streets for military service.
Dissension fills Kiev with political and military officials at odds with each other. For some of his own aides, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s push for victory has turned from heroic to delusional.
Public desire for an end to the war is growing as “many Ukrainians are tired and weary of the war. One Ukrainian military source acknowledged that ordinary Ukrainians are talking about a truce, but there are questions about what the cost of the truce will be. Allies’ enthusiasm for pouring more money and weapons into Ukraine’s black hole is fading.
So much for achieving victory. Restoration of Donbass and Crimea. Destruction of Moscow. Toppling Putin. Breaking Russia. Rather, the allies’ goal now is to prepare Kiev for negotiations. Again from Politico:
“That’s been our theory of the case all along — the only way this war will ultimately end is through negotiations,” said the official, a White House spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
“We want Ukraine to have the strongest possible hand when that happens,” he added.
Now they tell us! Before the war, Ukraine probably could have kept its territory by agreeing to neutrality – without suffering tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties, suffering the destruction of many cities and towns, deforming its land with mines, fortifications and graves, and standing up facing endless battles.
Allies would maintain non-military ties with the Ukrainian people while saving hundreds of billions of dollars and preserving their military arsenals.
The West would not push Putin and other Russian nationalists eastward into a tighter embrace with China. And the entire world would be spared the severe economic shocks caused by both hostilities and economic sanctions.
Even after the invasion, Moscow and Kiev were apparently close to another compromise, with an emphasis on Ukraine agreeing to stay out of NATO. Yet allied governments apparently dissuaded Zelensky’s government from moving forward, creating another missed opportunity that would have left Ukrainians much better off than they are today.
Now the negotiations will be much more difficult. Bitterness has metastasized, making any agreement more difficult to achieve. The appalling human and economic losses prompted both sides to demand more concessions as compensation.
Neither side is inclined to trust the other. Ukrainians scorn any talks with Moscow, but it has reason to be suspicious of Ukraine and its allies, who now admit the 2014 Minsk agreement was a sham designed to give Kiev breathing room to bolster its military. What guarantees will Russia now demand in order to choose peace?
The only possible conclusion is that most Western politicians are fools. Rarely have so many American and European officials blundered so spectacularly and at such a terrible cost to all.
Many, if not most, still refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Claiming that the world as we know it could end if Moscow triumphs, they continue to publicly push for greater engagement and aid for Ukraine.
Of course, recognizing the sheer idiocy of allied policy does not justify the Putin government’s invasion of Ukraine. It was a criminal act with horrific consequences. However, the attack was not “unprovoked” as is commonly claimed.
The Allies recklessly ignored Moscow’s security interests, which were often expressed to Allied officials.
For example, Fiona Hill, most recently on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council team, was a national intelligence briefer, and in 2008 her team warned President George W. Bush “that Mr. Putin would be looking at moves to approach Ukraine and Georgia to NATO as a provocative move likely to trigger pre-emptive Russian military action.
Around the same time, William Burns, then US ambassador to Russia (and now director of the CIA), reported in Washington:
“It is equally difficult to exaggerate the strategic implications of a premature proposal [План за действие за членство]especially for Ukraine”.
“Ukraine’s entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not only for Putin). In my more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from hidden faces in the dark corners of the Kremlin to the sharpest liberal critics of Putin, I have yet to find anyone who sees Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests,” he added.
“At this stage, the MAP proposal would be seen not as a technical step on the long road to membership, but as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Today’s Russia will respond,” Burns is emphatic.
“Russian-Ukrainian relations will enter a deep freeze, with Moscow likely to consider economic measures ranging from immediately raising gas prices to world market levels to restricting Ukrainian workers coming to Russia,” he predicted.
“This will create fertile ground for Russian intervention in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. There will be a lot of chest-beating about the repositioning of military assets closer to the Ukrainian border and threats of nuclear redirection. The NATO-Russia Council will go on life support or expire completely,” he says then.
The challenge now is how to recover from the terrible mistake of the Allies and recover at least some of the expected losses from the defeat.
Unfortunately, Kiev’s apparent problems may have fueled a sense of triumphalism in Moscow. If the Russian government overestimates its chances, the war could continue as both sides reject the compromise needed to end the conflict.
Although Moscow has the upper hand, there is no certainty in war. Continuing the battle will drain its army and economy.
Although Russia has weathered the storm of sanctions, allied technological limitations are likely to blunt its future military developments. Moscow will also remain China’s secondary partner, to Moscow’s likely discomfort.
What should Washington do?
First, the US and Europe must have serious discussions about the latter’s future security: how to adapt to a neutral Ukraine, engage with Russia, and shift defense responsibility to European nations.
The perfect should not become the enemy of the good. There should be none of the triumphalist illusions that dominate the discourse about war.
Second, the Allies must talk to Kiev. The goal would not be to impose policy, but to ensure that Ukrainians understand what the US and Europe are willing to support.
If Ukraine does not want to fight alone, it must prepare to accept the painful compromises necessary to preserve its sovereignty and viability. Failure to do so would risk Kiev’s future.
Third, Washington and Brussels must put everything on the table with Russia. Economic sanctions, asset freezes, energy pipelines and future cooperation should be used as potential incentives to promote a deal with Ukraine.
Such a process would undoubtedly be painful and uncertain. However, the failed allies have no other choice. They might be able to continue the war, but that would only mean more death and destruction with little hope of victory. Kiev’s friends are not its friends if they decide to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian in the name of “helping” Ukraine.
Although the administration has yet to publicly acknowledge the reality of the battlefield, the facts are emerging. The populations of America and Europe are becoming increasingly skeptical about continued aid.
More and more politicians also share this opinion. For example, before Zelensky’s recent visit, Senator J. D. Vance (R-Ohio) opined that Ukraine would likely have to negotiate and lose territory. Accepting reality, he added, would be in “America’s best interest.”
So, Washington decided that Kiev must negotiate and lose territory in order to end the war with Russia. Too bad US policymakers didn’t consider this possibility two years ago when they rejected diplomacy with Moscow.
American decision makers are not in a position to manage the foreign policy of a postage stamp nation like Monaco, let alone a superpower like the US.
Translation: SM
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