Attempts to cram the unpredictability and chaos of war into neat, manageable timelines is reaching a new level of absurdity. This much is evident as the Biden administration, both U.S. presidential candidates, and several major European leaders begin to make new statements about a shared desire to see the war in Ukraine end. Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance, long opposed to U.S. support for Ukraine, has revealed some of Trump’s peace plan: forcing Kyiv and Moscow to the table by coupling arms supplies to negotiation efforts. The Biden Administration is slowly going public with its desire for a more immediate truce, and the Harris campaign isn’t differing on the issue. In Europe, the ever cautious German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has invited Russia to the next round of peace talks. President Macron of France made statements about a “new European order” that “rethinks” Europe-Russian relations and these can be open as a long-term olive branch to Moscow or entrenching hostility as Paris seeks to reassert its influence. Even Poland, one of the strongest European militaries, has brainstormed peace offerings that officially cede Ukrainian territory to Russia.
Rapidly ending the war is an understandable goal for transatlantic leaders. Even so, it is the Ukrainians as those most endangered by a hastily-negotiated peace deal, whose views and concerns should be paramount. From the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, the Ukrainian government and people have set out to survive the Russian onslaught and defeat it. There’s no point in adding “at any costs” because the cost of defeat is oblivion. Russian occupation of Ukraine entails the perpetration of the most horrendous crimes. To know Ukrainian history is to know that subjugation to Moscow is the peace of the imprisoned and the murdered, as in the Holodomor.
There are obviously short- and long-term trends that would ensure any Russia-friendly settlement would fail: giving Russia time to recuperate its losses, leaving it safely in control of strategic Ukrainian territory, and allowing it to reassert itself in the Black Sea would all weaken the foundations of European security. The trifle expenditure of U.S. government resources that has so bloodied the military of one of our greatest and most enduring threats would be wasted.
The Russo-Ukrainian War has pressed strategists, military commanders, and policy makers to reconsider their understanding of the global order and war at the tactical, operational, and strategic-industrial level. One undeniable conclusion is that the U.S.-led world order is only as strong as American fortitude. Early on in the conflict, America threw its weight behind Ukraine with echoes of the “arsenal of democracy” from the Second World War. Yet, the limitations of our military-industrial output have not measured up to FDR’s soaring rhetoric. Some foreign policy analysts see this as a reason to argue for less support and more restraint as the Department of Defense must literally save its ammunition for conflict with China.
Would peace in Ukraine, at the expense of Ukrainians, achieve that? Recent economic forecasts show that the defense industry is growing—not at the rate we need, but certainly better than pre-2022. But these gains won’t be sustained without consistent, predictable future demand and so planning for a reinvigorated defense-industrial base for present and future conflicts is essential. Proponents of ditching Ukraine so as to better confront China would do well to consider why China is giving Moscow “very substantial” support, in the words of Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, for its war effort in exchange for advanced military technology related to submarines and missiles. The truth is that we are in a multi-front war against a new anti-West axis including Russia, China, and Iran. Even if some Americans are too myopic to see the connection between Russian victory and Chinese aggression, the Chinese aren’t. And Iran is not supplying Russia with drones out of love for Russia but because the Ayatollahs also see an opportunity to weaken the Western alliance.
There’s also the consideration of whether America has the tenacity to win a protracted conflict against state actors. The term “forever war” has seeped into the American policy conscious. On some level it’s an understandable phrase: it’s true that, for more than two decades, the United States has been carrying out military actions against jihadi groups in the Middle East. The Afghan war ended in a flashy debacle, putting a period of 20 years of occupation that lacked a serious victory plan. U.S. efforts in Iraq saw some grievous failures, as well as poorly-remembered successes like the 2007 Surge, but in general, counterinsurgency executed without mind to grand strategy has soured public opinion on long wars.
And yet, Ukraine’s war against Russia is fundamentally different because is not an expeditionary effort to build a Western democratic state out of the rubble of Islamist Pashtun or quasi-national-socialist Arab regimes. There’s plenty to say about Ukrainian political aspirations and issues, but fundamentally, this is a war between two conventional armies, and the Ukrainians are just trying to drive the Russians out. They know it will take time, and it will cost them a generation of heroes. Ukraine has been fighting this war since 2014; Kyiv does not expect it to end perfectly tomorrow. They’re just asking for the ammunition. The accusation that it’s another “forever war” spawned by Washington hawks also fails to acknowledge that American service members are not in Ukraine and not dying for Ukraine.
Who’s dying for Ukraine? Ukrainians. And to be sure, a lot more Russians are dying than Ukrainians because the Russian state is happy to grind away its future so the biggest country on Earth can have more land. That Moscow does not share the regard for human life we have in the West is something that must be considered in any negotiations. Putin is not out to save Russian lives or improve the material wellbeing of his nation. He cares only about the preservation and enlargement of his own powerful state-apparatus.
This is not a victory or a peace plan for Ukraine; it’s simply kicking the can down the road so we can have another conflict in a few years after Russia has regrouped. Shoring up the American-led global order will require more weapons for Ukraine and permission to strike Russian targets as well as more effective sanctions on Moscow and allies. While it may not be cheap to give Ukraine the tools it needs today, it will be far more cost effective than dealing with an even further emboldened Russia tomorrow.