February 21: How does one make peace in Ukraine?

In which, Europe scrambles for a plan as the US moves ahead on peace talks with Russia, Hamas makes a surprising offer, and the narrative around Musk and DOGE goes off the rails.

How does one make peace in Ukraine?

America’s European allies are reeling this week from the one-two punch of a “come to Jesus” talking to from VP Vance at the Munich Security Conference and the start of US-Russia talks on getting to some kind of settlement on Ukraine.

I’ll cover Vance’s (masterful) speech and the European response below so I can focus on the Ukraine scenario here.

How do you make peace between warring nations? We actually don’t really know how to. The so-called “peace studies” literature has not really produced a definitive general theory or framework for ending a war. Generally, international relations scholars agree that there’s only two starting points for ending a war: 1) One side is completely defeated and cries “Uncle!” or 2) both sides recognize they can’t sustain the fighting and/or won’t be in a better position than the one they’re in now. As I’ve noted in previous newsletters, the problem in Ukraine is that neither side is acknowledging the second of those conditions, so that only leaves the first option.

Therein lies the problem, though. Defeating and subjugating Ukraine has been a Russian war aim from the beginning, so Russia is cool with condition 1 so long as it’s Ukraine that’s the loser. Ukraine, for its part, has deployed the rhetoric of completely defeating Russia, but it’s not only generally acknowledged that Ukraine doesn’t have the capacity to achieve that, it’s also a fact that Zelensky’s strategic planning and US-European military production haven’t set Ukraine up to achieve that end either.

So, the world has been stuck with a status quo of stalemate to which the Trump administration appears to have decided to pull off the band aid, call a spade a spade, and choose ending the war over prolonging the suffering.

That rather straightforward calculus took some rather strange turns this week after Secretary Rubio met with Foreign Minister Lavrov in Saudi Arabia to lay the groundwork for future negotiations.

First, French President Macron decided that Europe needed some kind of backstop to a US-Russia deal and hastily called for a meeting of European leaders to discuss plans to ensure Ukraine’s security.

Second, Presidents Trump and Zelensky got into a war of words with Trump calling Zelensky a “dictator” while Zelensky insisted Ukraine wouldn’t accept a deal Kyiv wasn’t a part of.

The hot takes in the US media are all about Putin playing Trump like a fiddle, Trump getting ready to give away the farm in Europe, etc. etc.

Quick recap:

What have both the Biden and Trump administrations (and administrations before them) pushed Europe on for the last decade plus? Shouldering more of the burden for European security. What does that French initiative and an early UK commitment to ensure Ukrainian security look like?

What did I just say are known facts about the situation in Ukraine? That Zelensky has made strategic errors and Ukraine is not positioned to win what it has lost. Complete defeat of Russia is not on the table, but Zelensky continues to insist that’s what must happen. If you have a partner refusing to admit their mistakes and deal with reality, do you make them a central party in a high stakes negotiation? Do you keep accommodating them? No, of course not.

My point here is not that Russia deserves its winnings or that Zelesnky should cave to Trump (though that may be what he’s about to do). I’m trying to highlight two things that just aren’t clear in the US press:

1. No one, and I mean no one, will be satisfied with the outcome of this war, but that’s not a good reason not to try to end it.

2. Given what I’ve outlined above, the Trump administration is actually playing this pretty rationally all things considered. You don’t have to like Trump’s rhetoric or method, but at least recognize that he’s attempting a pretty heavy lift: He’s trying to convince both sides that condition 2 (both sides won’t get a better deal by fighting) applies here rather than condition 1 (complete defeat of the opponent is possible).

OK, that was a bit long, but international diplomacy can get complicated. There’s always more going on than what the headlines indicate. Onwards!