The Dawning Ukrainian Reality

Can a long war be sustained? If not, what then?

UN delegate Lieut. Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr. (seated left), and Korean People’s Army and Chinese People’s Volunteers delegate Gen. Nam Il (seated right) signing the Korean War armistice agreement at P’anmunjŏm, Korea, July 27, 1953.

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There is a markedly more sober tone to the commentary around Ukraine these days. As the Ukrainian armed forces geared up for their counteroffensive, many focused on the possibility of new and dramatic gains. When that counteroffensive showed little success in terms of ground gained or improvement in the strategic situation, you started to see pieces lamenting that Kyiv was trying to husband its resources, even that it was overly casualty-averse. Now, the reality is starting to sink in that Ukraine may be in for a very long war. The editors of The Economist are saying a profound change of strategy is needed; David French is warning that Russia could win, and touting the 1953 armistice in Korea as the more hopeful end we should be aiming for. These are not critics but strong supporters of the war.

I appreciate the note of realism about the situation on the ground. But I’m worried nonetheless that there remains a lack of realism about the larger context within which that situation has unfolded.

Let’s take the suggestions of The Economist first. Ukraine, they acknowledge, can’t win a war of attrition because it is outgunned and outmanned; Russia has a far bigger economy and industrial base and a far larger population to draw on. So Ukraine should change its military strategy, reducing the focus on recapturing territory, bolstering its missile and air defenses with Western help, while at the same time expanding the war with more and deeper drone strikes into Russian territory. Meanwhile, on the economic front, Ukraine needs to curb its endemic corruption and, with the support of the EU, become a magnet for foreign investment that can make it economically (if not militarily) self-sustaining even as the war grinds on. A militarily powerful and economically integrated Ukraine will be in a position to make a better peace with Russia on more favorable terms than an Ukraine that goes for broke now.

French’s assessment is quite similar. The odds of a dramatic breakout by Ukrainian forces that blows past Russia’s lines of defense are low—possible, but low. And if Ukraine exhausts itself trying to achieve one, it could leave itself vulnerable to a renewed Russian offensive against them, and ultimately losing the war. So what should Ukraine do? With expanded Western aid and training, they can improve their prospects of grinding away at Russian positions, and, more importantly, stymie new Russian attacks. Meanwhile, behind the shelter of a stronger military and in the embrace of the West, they could rebuild and forge a strong economy and a free society like South Korea did in the decades after the armistice.

As I say, I appreciate the note of realism, and I’m glad that Ukraine’s supporters are starting to think seriously about how Ukraine will survive and thrive if they don’t win a complete victory, and not just reiterating the moral imperative of victory. I was arguing that we needed to be thinking this way eighteen months ago; indeed, from the beginning of the war I thought it was likely that this would become a long, grinding conflict. Consistent with my views all along, though, I see two huge obstacles to achieving the goal of a “good” stalemate.

The first is that Russia doesn’t want a good stalemate; they want Ukraine either under their thumb or in ruins. It is not in Russia’s interest to give Ukraine scope to build an economic and military power capable of resisting them and possibly restarting the war to recapture their lost territory. So to presume that Ukraine could achieve that aim as part of a “good stalemate” is to presume that Russia could either be prevented or deterred from doing the kind of damage they are clearly bent on doing. Would stronger Ukrainian air and missile defenses and a bigger fleet of attack drones suffice to achieve that goal? If not, then what happens to Ukraine’s ability to sustain a long war? (The Economist’s suggestion that Ukraine substantially expand its drone war against Russia is particularly hard to square with the idea that Ukraine will become an economic powerhouse, unless there’s some way for Ukraine to prevent Russia from responding in kind.)

The second is that not every country sheltering under the American Cold War umbrella turned out like South Korea. The Philippines didn't. Turkey didn’t. Not that they didn’t develop at all or accrue any benefits from their alliances with America; it’s just that South Korea is a very high bar. It’s very easy to say “Ukraine should become a major investment destination and an economic powerhouse” but if it were easy to become one then development economics wouldn’t be such a contested field. (Also, South Korea’s development model wasn’t driven by foreign direct investment; the successful models of development on that model are Poland and Malaysia, neither of which faced anything like Ukraine’s security situation as they strove to develop.) If we knew how to waive a wand and “fix” Ukraine’s corruption problem, we would surely have done it by now; it’s not like we haven’t been engaged in that effort. There’s real reason to hope that things have changed in important, starting with the impressive achievements by Ukraine on the battlefield, which far surpassed most informed observers’ expectations, and which are the fruit of real state-building efforts since the start of the Donbas war. But there’s a very long way to go yet.

So count me as pessimistic about Ukraine’s ability to pull off what these commentators are suggesting without something like an armistice, if not peace. That having been said, I think the commentators are right that for Ukraine to sue for peace under current conditions would be, in effect, to admit defeat. The conditions Putin would demand would be politically unacceptable inside Ukraine and, if accepted, could spark unrest within that country and renewed conflict; the main potential opposition to Zelenskyy is considerably more nationalistic and anti-Russian. (The main potential opposition to Putin is also considerably more nationalistic than Putin’s regime, something enthusiasts for state collapse in Russia seem to forget.) It would also shatter the unity that the West has forged in the current conflict, with unpredictable consequences for our position in Europe and in Asia. It is definitely better to back out of a losing war than to pour more blood and treasure into a hole, but how one backs out also matters a great deal, and I cannot see how a “good” settlement comes out of a Ukrainian suit.

Which means we’re probably in for in for a “bad” stalemate for quite some time. Ukraine will, likely, expand its drone attacks—and face similar attacks on themselves—with a view to increasing the cost to Russia for continuing to occupy their territory. The front may not move much, but the war will stay hot. Which, actually, was also the case in Korea; after the war stalemated in the summer of 1951, armistice negotiations there took two full years to come to fruition, and meanwhile the fighting continued. And remember: in Korea, the American-led forces had the decisive firepower advantage.

But there is another important difference between the Korean War and the Ukraine war that may point to a difference in how this conflict might end.

The Korean War ended in a stalemate between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China on the one hand and the United States on the other. Though the North’s invasion was initiated by Kim Il Sung for his own ideological and personal objectives—Stalin gave the go-ahead only because he believed that the United States would not intervene, and Mao only went along because Stalin did—the superpower rivalry defined and structured the conflict from the moment of America’s intervention.

The same is true of the war in Ukraine—but with an important difference. Like Kim, Vladimir Putin initiated the war for his own ideological and personal reasons, and as in Korea, where the Republic was defended not only by the United States but by a host of allies operating under the authority of the United Nations, the United States has draped itself in the mantle of multilateralism and world order. Russia, though, is not North Korea; it isn’t remotely a superpower like the USSR was in 1950, but it is a far more formidable rival for the United States than the Hermit Kingdom was, and it is fighting directly. There’s no Stalin or Mao in the background to structure the conflict as there was in Korea.

Inasmuch as there is a larger structure comparable to the U.S.-Soviet rivalry around the Korean War, it is the way in which the war in Ukraine can now be partly understood as a revolt against an American-dominated international order that many other states would like to see cut down to size. China is the most obvious of these, since they are actively supporting Russia in limited but important ways, but another is India, a country that America wishes to make allies of, though they are unlikely to comply. These are the countries that could, if they chose to deploy their prestige to the effort, make an actual suit for peace that would demand things of both Russia and Ukraine.

I’m not sure there’s a good reason why they would do so, but the clearest reason would be that it would put the United States in a difficult box, diplomatically, because any success they had would be the strongest evidence to date of the passing of the American-led international order, and the reduction of the West to the most powerful bloc in a multilateral world. But if enough time had passed that everyone understood the war was stalemated, and if the peace offer was credible, and if Putin saw the sense in making concessions to Beijing or New Delhi rather than to Washington . . . well, I can just imagine it as a plausible end-game. Indeed, I was imagining this possibility eighteen months ago as well.

It’s depressing to think that we may be arming and funding Ukraine to help it hold on until China, or India, or a BRICS-like consortium can negotiate a peace over our heads that leaves Russia in control of chunks of Ukrainian territory. But that would still be a better outcome than an Ukraine vanquished and subdued by Russia. I hope we can be satisfied with that if and when the time comes.