https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2023/die-probleme-bei-der-umsetzung-des-rand-papiers/
The problems with the implementation of the RAND paper
In this article, for once, I will largely dispense with the prehistory, which I usually precede my articles. I usually write this prehistory to make the current developments understandable to readers who are not familiar with a topic and to show the overall contexts. Here I make an exception, so this is virtually an article for the regular readers of the Anti-Spiegel. For more information on understanding, I refer to my last article about the RAND paper.
The core statements of the RAND paper
The RAND paper, which I have been dealing with here for months, was published in January, so it was written about eight months ago. A lot has happened in these eight months and it is possible that the developments of the last eight months have changed the situation so much that the RAND paper can no longer be implemented as the author thought at the time. To understand this, we need to take another look at the situation described in the paper, the goals of the USA mentioned in the paper and the solutions proposed by RAND.
RAND came to the following conclusion in January: The goals of the USA in Ukraine were to smashing Russia's economy with the sanctions, to isolate Russia internationally and, if possible, to inflict a military defeat on Russia in Ukraine. RAND stated in January that all these goals were not achieved and could not be achieved in the foreseeable future.
Instead, the USA was in a proxy war against Russia, which had become far too expensive, especially since the USA cannot achieve its set goals with it. RAND said quite openly that the USA does not care where the Ukrainian border runs and that a fight for Ukrainian territories is not a priority for the USA and does not justify the high cost of support for Ukraine.
Therefore, RAND recommended looking for a way out of the Ukraine adventure.
The four options for negotiations
RAND has therefore proposed four "options" that should on the one hand reassure Kiev and on the other hand allow an end to the fighting under conditions acceptable to Russia. Let's look at them again.
FIRST: "CLARIFICATION OF THEIR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE SUPPORT OF UKRAINE"
This meant that Kiev would reduce support if necessary, should it not be willing to negotiate with Moscow if the USA wants it. This was said quite clearly in the section and in connection with the statement from the RAND paper that it is quite unimportant for the USA where the borders of Ukraine run, this should also have meant that Kiev has to accept territorial assignments to Russia if the USA considers it necessary.
We saw the first step in this direction a few days ago, when it was declared in NATO that Kiev could be rewarded with joining NATO in return for territorial assignments to Russia. The statement was then only very half-heartedly denied.
SECONDLY: "COMMITMENTS FOR THE SECURITY OF UKRAINE"
In the section, RAND no longer spoke of Ukraine joining NATO in January, but instead of security guarantees that the USA and other Western states could give Ukraine instead of joining NATO. And this is exactly what has been implemented in the meantime, because NATO has rejected the admission of Ukraine at its last summit, much to the annoyance of Selensky, until St. Instead, Kiev should now receive security guarantees from the USA and other Western states, which are currently being negotiated.
This was primarily intended to appease Russia, because the impending NATO accession of Ukraine was one of the most important reasons why Russia began its military operation.
THIRDLY: "ASSURANCE OF THE NEUTRALITY OF THE COUNTRY"
This is also one of Russia's core demands, which Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Galusin repeated only a few days ago in an interview: Ukraine should permanently retain the status of a neutral, alliance-free and nuclear-free state. This Russian demand has been known for a long time and RAND already proposed in January to offer it to Russia. Rand emphasized boldly in January that Ukraine's accession to NATO must be off the table if there is to be a negotiated solution with Russia, which has also happened in the meantime.
FOURTH: "DETERMINATION OF CONDITIONS FOR THE ABOLITION OF SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA"
Rand even proposed in January to partially lift or at least relax the Russia sanctions. This should also be a lure for Russia, and because RAND knows that Moscow has zero confidence in the promises of the USA, one could even read in the paper that the USA could already relax the sanctions "as part of the negotiation process", which would de facto mean that the USA would go in advance to show Russia that they are serious about the negotiations.
The situation in January and today
In January, these proposals from RAND, if they had been made by the US government at the time, might have been interesting for Russia, because Russia never wanted a long conflict in Ukraine. Since the RAND proposal de facto addressed the most important Russian demands, such a proposal could perhaps have been an end to the fighting and the beginning of a promising negotiation process at the time.
But the Russian government has repeatedly said that Russian demands would grow the longer the fighting lasts. And there are reasons for that.
In January, no one knew how the announced Ukrainian offensive would go. Today we know it, because it has failed, although the West has supplied pretty much everything in weapons that was possible in the time span. Because even this massive Western support has not brought Kiev any significant success on the battlefield, the Ukrainian counter-offensive has shifted the balance of power in favor of Russia.
Today, as Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov just announced in an interview, Russia wants more. The Russian government no longer wants to negotiate Ukrainian issues, facts have been created that are no longer negotiable from the Russian point of view. This could have been avoided if the West had relied on negotiations instead of the Ukrainian offensive. But the West has decided as it has decided and has thus created the new situation itself.
The Russian government sees itself at war with the collective West and now apparently wants to achieve a negotiated solution that results in a new European (or even worldwide) security architecture. Lavrov has accused the West of only freezing the conflict under the guise of what has so far been called possible negotiations in the West, which is supposed to give the West and Ukraine time to lick the wounds and continue the conflict at a later date. For Russia, this is not an option, as Lavrov clearly said:
"We consider the Western's hypocritical demands for negotiations to be a tactical trick to once again gain time to give the exhausted Ukrainian troops a breather and a chance to regroup, and to pump them with weapons and ammunition. But this is the way of war, not that of a peaceful solution. That is completely clear to us."
You can see that RAND's proposals in January may have been realistic, but the situation has changed in the meantime. By driving Kiev on the offensive, the West has pushed up the price that Russia would demand in negotiations.
The problem of the US government
The core demands from the RAND paper remain current: The USA wants to get out of the ruinous Ukraine conflict in order to spare its forces for the conflict with its main opponent China. In addition, the US government should not have a chance of an election victory next year if the challenger of the US Democrats advocates an end to the support of Ukraine. The ruinous support of Ukraine is far too unpopular among US citizens, whose economic problems are growing while the US government is sending billions to Kiev.
The US government now probably has four options.
First: Continue to accommodate Russia than before and even negotiate a new European security architecture. However, this should be quite unrealistic, because the goal of the USA to weaken Russia remains. This is true both because this is a general goal of the USA, but also because Russia would be on China's side in a conflict between the USA and China. Weakening Russia is therefore very important for the USA in any case.
Secondly: Drop Ukraine, which would not be a novelty in US history, see Vietnam or Afghanistan. If a war no longer benefits the USA, they drop their "allies" quickly. What will then become of Ukraine is completely open, but the USA in Afghanistan didn't care, where they fought for twenty years to expel the Taliban, only to leave Afghanistan to the Taliban in the end.
Third: The USA could push for a "division of tasks" in the collective West, in which Europeans continue to support Ukraine, while the USA turns to China. With this, the USA could cleverly pull itself out of the affair and blame the inevitable defeat on the Europeans. Ultimately, this would be a "subvariant" of point two, because the USA would drop Ukraine, but could prolong the bloodshed by letting the Europeans bear the costs. This could even include the deployment of European soldiers, as is discussed quite openly in Poland, but this would not be a NATO project and would therefore not affect the alliance case under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.
Fourth: The USA continues to support Ukraine, which would mean a departure from the RAND paper and what I think is unlikely. This would mean that the fighting would be significantly extended, but still without a chance of Kiev's victory. The ability of the West to supply Kiev with weapons and ammunition are declining and years are likely to pass before the Western arms industry could provide enough supplies. With less military support, however, Kiev has no chance of military success.
Conclusion
Of course, the US think tanks have experts who may still be able to come up with a fifth variant (or a combination of different variants) that I have not yet come up with. But in any case, the USA has a problem for which they have to look for a solution.
The developments of recent months show that the US government has moved to implementing the RAND paper. Ultimately, the USA proceeded as the author of the RAND paper recommended and described it in more detail in another article for Foreign Policy in the summer: They have rhetorically moved away from Ukraine's accession to NATO and from the goal of having to inflictify a "strategic defeat" on Russia. Instead, today there is talk about security guarantees for Ukraine and possible "peace formulas", which was still unthinkable for the US government in January.
If you thought in the USA that Russia, which always relied on negotiations until February 2022, even really asked for them (such as the mutual security guarantees of December 2021), would return to the negotiating table at all costs, then you were wrong. After Russia negotiated patiently from 2014 to 2022, but was cheated by the West, Russia now wants real solutions and is probably no longer satisfied with a freeze of the conflict.
The problem should therefore be that the framework conditions have changed, which is why the ideas originally described in the RAND paper could have become unrealistic. This was also just written by the Wall Street Journal when it reported that officials from Western countries were working on "great deals" to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, but their conditions were "neither in the interest of Moscow nor Kiev." The USA should not care that they are not in Kiev's interest, because Kiev is only the recipient of orders, but as long as the "great deals" are uninteresting for Moscow, they are worthless.
Therefore, it remains to be seen what the US government will do, because its problem remains and is likely to worsen if, for example, Russia itself goes on the offensive itself after the end of the Ukrainian offensive and pushes the bleeding Ukrainian troops back further.