I give a hearty “Amen!” to Mark Tooley’s strident assertion that Just War teaching does not “require Ukraine to submit to terms favorable to Russia,” and I further reaffirm that agreement when Mr. Tooley extends his idea of submission to include “surrender” and “highly unfavorable terms.” Imagine my bemusement, then, to discover that Mr. Tooley apparently thought I had suggested such a thing!
Surrender? Submit to terms highly unfavorable? One can read and reread my essay and see that the words “surrender” and “submit” are never used, much less implied. It could be Mr. Tooley has just inaccurately, albeit flatteringly, lumped me in with Dr. Reno and the good folks at First Things, but in the interest of clarity and discourse, I’ll take Mr. Tooley at his word and respond to his article as though he really does believe that I’m arguing for an American-enforced Ukrainian capitulation as a valid application of Just Statecraft.
History is indeed replete with examples of smaller countries fighting off more powerful aggressors, and Mr. Tooley is right to point out that Ukraine’s self-defense has been not only courageous but also highly effective. He asserts that I do not consider variables like geography, relative strengths of alliances, Russian losses, or Russian domestic support for the war effort. The truth is I don’t consider those variables because they’re irrelevant and nonresponsive to my argument, not to mention lacking any meaningful backing (“almost certainly less motivated”?).
My argument rests on two normative claims. First, that “President Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table [are] within the bounds of Christian realism and just war theory.” Second, just cause as such ought not commit the United States “to an open ended, uncritical support of Ukraine with total victory as the only acceptable outcome.”
These two claims are grounded on a few empirical facts:
- It has been the standing policy of the United States under Obama, Trump 45, Biden, and now Trump 47 to not commit US or NATO forces to the war in Ukraine.
- President Zelensky has repeatedly defined victory in the war as recapturing all lost territory.
- Despite the massive amounts of military aid from the US and European countries, the conflict remains a stalemate.
- President Zelensky has set security guarantees from the US and NATO membership as functional preconditions for any peace talks despite both the Biden and Trump administrations ruling out the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine.
- President Zelensky has refused to commit to a plan of general mobilization of military-aged persons in Ukraine, while the Ukrainian military has opted to use new troops to organize brand new units rather than replace losses in combat tested units. These constitute two unforced errors of strategic planning that place stress on Ukraine’s manpower reserves and lowers combat effectiveness of units in the field.
I fully grant that none of the above facts, even under the considerations of Just War teaching “require” Ukraine to capitulate to Russia, but, again, that’s not my argument. Rather, they are highly relevant facts in considering whether or not the United States should recalibrate its policy on the war and its strategic posture towards the two main belligerents. Zelensky’s conditions for peace talks are either militarily unfeasible, as with recapturing territory, or contrary to longstanding bipartisan consensus of Ukraine not joining NATO.
Given that Zelensky’s stated aims are unrealistic and Putin’s goal of an Eastern Europe dominated by Russia is highly undesirable, how should America proceed? Should the United States continue maintaining a war effort more or less locked in stalemate or should it explore possible options for a peace agreement? I maintain that under the principle of probability of success, now’s the time to explore possible peace options.
But what kind of peace should that be? Mr. Tooley seems to allow that a “truce that freezes current forces in place, without legally recognizing Russia’s occupied territory, while allowing Ukraine to recover and further solidify its national strength” would be such a “reasonable and sustainable” peace.
Essentially, Mr. Tooley is calling for an armistice like the Korean Armistice Agreement that froze the Korean War. Funny thing about that agreement, the Truman administration started seeking a pathway to end the war as early as 1950 when both North and South Korea wanted to keep fighting to achieve their respective war aims. The circumstances surrounding the Korean Armistice are a more illuminating comparison for Ukraine than the overwrought references to WWII that have come to characterize much of the historical analogizing on the Ukraine war.
Despite what Mr. Tooley says, I don’t believe that “Ukraine will lose,” but I do believe that “prolonging the agony [of the war will] cause needless suffering.” Given current conditions, the trick for the Trump administration is to convince Putin that Ukraine can’t lose while also persuading Ukraine that it can’t win, at least on Zelensky’s stated terms. Arriving at such an understanding could even be the first step on the long road back to a diplomatically achieved final settlement on Crimea and the Donbas.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The situation President Trump inherited has Ukraine incentivized to keep fighting with American-supplied arms and, at the same time, no way for Putin to save face at home after his three year campaign. For many, any acknowledgment that Russia will ultimately have achieved some of its war aims and that Ukrainian maximalist demands for territory and joining NATO won’t happen just seem like placating a brutal dictator, and on some level it is. However, I would challenge Mr. Tooley and those who share his view, to articulate how exactly one goes about bringing Russia to a table absent any compromises or concessions. If we’re not going to threaten Russia with full-on war, something Biden never did and Trump ran in opposition to, then we’ll need something else to make Putin end the war.
This brings me back to where my original piece ended. Criticize President Trump’s attempts at diplomacy all you want, and I’m certainly critical in some ways, but without facing real political realities and wrestling with the probability principle and its implications, all Mr. Tooley is doing is morally justifying bellum ad infinitum.