A Russia-Ukraine Exit StrategyBy Tom Pickering - March 2, 2022
Negotiations will be admittedly hard, but the alternative is truly too dangerous and difficult to contemplate.
Russia
has entered a war of choice in Ukraine. It was not unexpected but badly
under-anticipated in scope, brutality, and impact. It hazards the
continent and planet with the specter of a nuclear exchange and has been
the generator of immediate global condemnation and pressure.
President
Biden has made it clear that the United States has no national interest
in a direct war with Moscow. Any escalatory actions risk broadening and
spreading the conflict, as President Putin has already demonstrated.
Furthermore, an extended war will be disastrous for the economy and
civil society of Ukraine, put European stability at risk, and raise the
prospect of a nuclear exchange, which — once begun — no one knows how to
stop.
Thus far, we have resorted to economic sanctions and
claimed that they are more potent than they actually have been. So far.
But they are badly needed to support the only acceptable end game to the
crisis — a forward and diplomatic solution. For should diplomacy fail,
that would leave only surrender by one side, or continued expansion of
conflict.
Energy sanctions might work. Putin in the past has
shown himself attentive to energy issues, especially price declines. The
war allows him to double down with threats to cut Europe off and drive
up prices at the same time. NATO and its global friends must take this
seriously. Commitments from the United States and others to increase LNG
and oil supplies to Europe are essential to counter and corner Putin.
Prices are tricky factors to deal with. Large quantities of oil and LNG
with at least temporarily subsidized prices by suppliers can face Putin
with the choice of continuing a conflict where his economy is in growing
jeopardy, or coming to the table to work out a solution.
Further
steps on energy are important. Major producers, in addition to
providing more oil and gas and reducing prices, should band together for
a long-term effort to increase investment in research and development
on renewables. It fits their strategy of reserving hydrocarbons for hard
to replace uses. It meets 21st century needs for survival and can build
technology and use science to assure progress and reduce damage to the
globe.
The choice for Putin has to be made apparent and stark:
Negotiate, or risk your regime. Facing the prospect of a balanced
diplomatic answer, or war, leaves little room for maneuver. To assure
that he gets the message, economic pressure should be complemented with
careful military reinforcement and positioning. NATO is protected by
Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty, which says an attack against one
is an attack against all. But credible support for Article V requires
fielding a force in NATO countries to make the commitment more than a
billboard slogan. The United States so far has moved less than 10,000
troops; Russia is engaged with 200,000.
Negotiations must
involve both Ukrainians and Russians. You don’t make peace with your
friends but your enemies, as Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s former Prime
Minister, once famously said. The objective must be an end to the
conflict and the damage it is wreaking. And there can be no full
solution without Russian withdrawal, which makes the task for diplomacy
harder. But a future sovereign and independent Ukraine can become as
Henry Kissinger has described it — a “bridge” country, both politically
and economically.
It could begin with a parallel, balanced
relationship for Ukraine with President Putin’s economic sphere and the
European Union. There are competent international economists who could
fit the pieces of that puzzle together without compromising Ukraine with
either body. For many years Ukraine’s own economy was integrated
closely in the Soviet Union with that of Russia. Much of the original
dispute arose because of a contest for affiliation between the EU and
Russia. Politically, Ukraine should continue to enjoy an open door to
NATO even if reservations among NATO member states will for the
foreseeable future assure there is no universal support for Ukraine to
join. It would also be important for the United States and like-minded
NATO states not to seek to change the views of those who oppose
Ukraine’s membership.
Those now advocating to escalate, expand or
extend this conflict to press the West’s perceived advantage over
Russia and ultimately affect regime change will do so over an
ever-growing number of dead Ukrainians in whose interests they presume
to act.
While there are signs that the Russian military has moved
or is moving more slowly than expected in Ukraine, Russian tradition is
best exemplified in the Chechen wars’ radical use of overwhelming force
against civilians and enemy troops alike. The first casualty in war is
the truth. Already stories are circulating of heavy Russian losses. We
should not count on either under or overreporting as a solace or
indicator.
Conflict without diplomacy is gasoline exposed to
ignition. Unconditional surrender is not unknown, but Iraq, Afghanistan
twice, and Vietnam have proven its evanescence. While it will require
painful give and take on both sides, long term neutrality for Ukraine as
a bridge country, built on the model of Finland or Austria, is a
concept worth generating and implementing.
Crimea is a further
challenge. Putin missed an opportunity when he did not sponsor a
UN-conducted free and fair referendum there in 2008. It can still be
done and should give the right of choice to its inhabitants as we have
in so many former colonies which transformed into independent states in
the 1960s and 1970s. If the choice, as seems likely, is for Russian
speakers to dominate and stay in the Russian Federation, Crimea will
settle with an arrangement which could and should be widely accepted.
The
alternative to this admittedly hard course of negotiating is too
dangerous and difficult to contemplate — a growing war; increasing
devastation; a needless, endless and catastrophic risk of nuclear
exchanges. The options are clear, and wise leadership will take the hard
diplomatic road less traveled for what it can offer and avoid.