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I posted my own treatise a few days ago. But the short summary is:
My contention is that #1 is maximally bad for Ukraine, it's an attritional war, and Russia can easily out-grind Ukraine over time. #2 may be maximally bad for the world (if it triggers WW3), though it may be the morally correct answer (depends on your morals, of course). By the actions of the aid providers, #2 is off the table because Russia losing is a red line for most. #3 stinks, but given the remaining choices, seems to be better.
I also don't think that a negotiated peace is sucking Putin's/Russia's cock or anything. It's accepting the present reality, especially when considering that we're not letting Russia lose.
Another angle is that saying that one "supports Ukraine," while sending a generation of her men to die is, to me, repugnant. It's treating the Ukrainian people as a pawn to use against Russia to simply tie them down and deplete their resources. While at the same time effectively destroying Ukraine in the process. I don't count that as effective "support." I will concede it's a rational idea if one is solely against Russia at all costs, but I think it's disingenuous to call it supporting Ukraine.
The 'with or without guarantees' in 3 is the crux of the entire disagreement though, isn't it. To simplify, Europe and Ukraine want 3 with guarantees, the US wants 3 without guarantees.
The version without guarantees is the one that could be said to be fellating Putin since it asks literally nothing of him that he doesn't want.
We can examine the various scenarios here.
With a security guarantee -- the mere suggestion of having NATO (or even NATO adjacent) troops in Ukraine is one of the things that caused Putin to start this war. If we are trying to negotiate a peace, there's little chance that Russia would agree to this. Honestly, the only way that I think this could happen is if Russia were to actively lose this war and terms could be dictated, as was the case for Germany post WW2. The West doesn't seem to even want Russia to lose, so this is a non-starter, regardless of my opinions.
Without a security guarantee -- this splits into two possibilities. A lasting, if tenuous peace, or a pause followed by more fighting. If there is peace, hooray! If it devolves into more fighting, then you're no worse off than the status quo realistically. If Russia truly wants to destroy Ukraine, then unless the West actually steps up to defeat them, I don't think Ukraine could prevent this outcome. It's exactly the same as the first option of perpetual stalemate wherein Ukraine eventually runs out of men and has to concede.
The US-led proposal that was shot down was a middle ground, IMO. There are no troops on the front line (which is what Russia would never agree to), but there are Western civilians that would be there acting as a sort of trigger. It's far more palatable and could be presented to the Russian people as more of a victory. It would give them an offramp to peace.
The idea that the West can dictate and compel Russia what they must do with only a stern talking to is kind of pants-on-head crazy wishful thinking. The only way to achieve that outcome is to force a defeat. Forcing a defeat requires force, and all the good and bad that could potentially come from that.
That's not true -- you have reinforced Putin's notion that he can use foreign diplomatic pressure to pause and resume conflicts whenever it is convenient.
I mean, that is true it isn't a notion. He can stop and start fighting in Ukraine for whatever reason he wants. Just like Turkey in Northern Iraq and Syria. There is no regional power capable of checking such whims and the risks of effective responses from non-locals is too high.
Far too much of this Ukraine scenario, and international relations generally is people pointing at a state of being that never was and saying, "I want that thing I pretend I used to have."
Putin can order his troops to stop advancing and hunker down defensively but he cannot just halt the entire war unilaterally. Same for Zelensky. A ceasefire has to be mutual.
But even more relevantly -- the notion isn't about Putin's decisions on the battlefield, it's about whether he can induce the wider world to pressure Ukraine into adopting a ceasefire or treaty only to cynically renege on it and restart hostilities at a whim.
If Putin wants to stop fighting, he'll need to ask for peace on terms to which his enemy are willing to agree. Likewise Zelensky. They don't get to pause/unpause it like a video game.
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It's hard to know exactly what is tenable without knowing what's being discussed behind closed doors, all I have are questions:
-Did the US-led proposal even involve Western civilians on the border? It didn't specify that from what I can tell, just that the US would have a future investment stake in Ukraine (not that the mines would be operated by westerners, or that they would be built soon, or that they would be near to the front line).
-Is there not a wider possibility space where Russia's negotiated peace comes with official acceptance of its new borders and in exchange Ukraine gets NATO membership? I would think there is give and take to be had here (though I am just a guy on the internet).
-Isn't there also the possibility of peacekeeping troops from a selection of nations on the border without Ukraine having NATO membership?
Even having US interests close to the border would serve as quite a deterrent in my opinion. It also gives Putin an out because it wouldn't be troops on their border.
I'll start by saying I'm not being a mind reader of Putin, but I would be surprised if he went for this. My gut feel it there would have to be a lot more concessions in terms of a DMZ on the Ukrainian side for anything like this to even be considered, and I'm not sure if you could even have an ascension into NATO if you're in that type of agreement. It would be in Ukraine's interest in this case to goad Russia into a conflict so they could invoke Article 5. I think this would apply in the case of NATO or just unaffiliated troops.
...also just a guy on the internet...
How true is this, really? Off the dome, I can think of at least two cases where governments have nationalized American interests and gotten away with it (Cuba, Venezuela). Economic interests don't seem to guarantee immunity.
Sure, I'm not going to argue with that. I think the argument made elsewhere that I'm just repeating is that it gives at least a deterrent, as well as casus belli if they were literally attacked.
It feels rather different to be nationalized than to be taken by an armed force. In the hypothetical world where US companies were operating on the Ukrainian frontier, I would very much doubt that whoever is running Ukraine would nationalize those operations.
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It’s very unlikely Putin would agree to any deal that allows Ukraine to join NATO. That’s the whole reason he started the war in the first place, and he would be better served just continuing to grind on if that was the offer.
I think he might concede to a Kievan rump state being granted NATO admission if he was given maximalist territorial claims. For obvious reasons this probably is not a great deal for Kiev.
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We shouldn't self-own just because it means Putin gets what he wants.
The problem with guarantees is that Zelenskyy would be motivated to then antagonize the Russians to draw NATO troops into the fight. It's the only way he can ever win back back the lost territories.
The mineral deal was an elegant solution because it provided a sort of guarantee while giving the U.S. strategic ambiguity to cut Zelenskyy loose if he went rogue. That's why it's so concerning that Zelenskyy appeared to walk away from this deal (or have a spat with Trump, either way it's bad). Personally, I'm glad the deal didn't go through because I don't want to hear about how we stole their worthless minerals for the next 5 decades.
Going forward, we should promise Ukraine a massive transfer of weapons contingent on peace. But the US must maintain strategic ambiguity. A guarantee is untenable, both because it could draw NATO into the war, but also because Russia would never accept it.
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Why doesn't Europe give guarantees then?
I suspect that "Europe" (which could have given guarantees at any point since 2014, or 1991, or 2014) perhaps wants the United States to give guarantees. Or at least they don't want to give them unilaterally.
Indeed – they were obviously hoping/assuming the US would be part of any guarantee, but I would imagine European leaders are, right now in London, trying to figure out what guarantees if any they can plausibly offer by themselves.
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