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Notes -
I have had an evolving set of view on the conflict in Ukraine that seems to annoy just about everyone. With the news today about Trump and Zelenskyy it's even more relevant.
I’m going to start with the present state of the conflict. This is, for this exercise, going to be called…
Option A - Stalemate and Attrition
Where we are now is an attritional battle with relatively static front lines. What I’ve observed is that there are many “red lines” that the supporters of Ukraine have. This leads to aid being sent simply to preserve the status quo. Ukraine, as much as it would want to win, is prohibited from actually winning because that might give Russia a sad and lead to world war 3.
This is a similar position we were in while in Vietnam. We were fighting for the same hills over and over again. There was no effort to actually win. Unlike Vietnam, where the U.S. faced a guerrilla insurgency, Ukraine’s conflict involves a nuclear-armed Russia, raising the stakes and complicating any path to outright victory.
In my mind, this is the worst option. Unless you get Russia to capitulate, Ukraine will not get enough concessions to maintain her previous borders. This war can go on as long as both sides have men to throw into the meat grinder. Simply because providing enough support for Ukraine to win is off the table.
Clearly both sides will continue to fight on mostly static lines indefinitely.
This isn’t just from a US perspective, all of the arms donations that were given to Ukraine up to this point by basically everyone includes clauses to not attack Russia. We, as a world, are telling the Ukrainian people to fight with one arm behind their proverbial backs. It’s a scenario that they can’t win with.
This option might eventually weaken Putin internally if Russia’s economy or morale crumbles, but banking on that is a gamble with long odds. They seem to have a deep bench of people who share the same values and motivations as Putin himself. Based on surveys and polls I’ve seen, this conflict still has much popular support from the people of Russia.
One has to ask, who is the winner in this scenario? The only plausible answer I have is only the military-industrial complex. Ukraine isn’t winning. Russia isn’t winning. Arms manufacturers are winning. With static front lines fueling endless demand for weapons, defense contractors profit while neither Ukraine nor Russia gains ground.
A prolonged stalemate, which is what this leads to, could erode NATO’s credibility, leave Ukraine a fractured state, and embolden other aggressors watching the West’s indecision.
This leads to…
Option B - Full Commitment
Here’s where we would treat Ukraine as the ally that they should be. This is where you own up to the Budapest Memorandum that was signed by Yeltsin and Clinton to provide security guarantees for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. (The 1994 Budapest Memorandum saw Ukraine give up nukes for security guarantees from Russia, the U.S., and others—guarantees now in tatters.)
To be clear, this has been my position since basically day 1 of the conflict. Day 1, for me, is Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, not just the 2022 escalation, per the Budapest Memorandum’s promises. A direct conflict between nuclear powers is historically unprecedented. Sometimes, the correct moral choice entails risks.
Russia’s 2022 invasion, unlike 2014, exposed Putin’s broader ambitions, forcing the West to rethink its hesitation.
This option would entail actual support from allied nations, not just good wishes and materiel, but boots on the ground. Short of that, Option B could include bolder support, like unrestricted use of Western weapons, though even this risks Russian retaliation.
Here’s the thing, you have two options, either Russia is an existential threat or it’s not. If they are a real threat, then the answer should always be to support the morally right answer. If that leads to a broader conflict, then so be it — it’s a just war based on the reality. If they are not an actual threat… and Ukraine isn’t really an ally, why are we even talking?
Winding back a bit to option A, to put things into perspective, what we’re presently doing is pretty much what led to WW2. Chamberlain and the rest of the west were in a stance of appeasement. By not actually fighting evil, we let it grow. Just as appeasement emboldened Hitler to push further, letting Russia keep gains now might signal to Putin—and others—that aggression pays.
The broad statement here is that you can’t simply spend your way to victory. No amount of donations of money or supplies will get Ukraine back without Russia losing the conflict they started.
This option is, for all intents and purposes, completely off the table.
So…
Option C - Negotiated Settlement
Here’s the unpopular one. Negotiated peace to end the conflict. Neither Ukraine nor Russia is happy with this. With this Ukraine will lose territory and some level of autonomy.
Given that we, as a world, can’t seem to stomach the concept of Russia losing, which takes Option B out as a solution, you’re left with Option A or C.
Since Option A does nothing but throw more men into the meat-grinder for no gains by either side, I think it’s the worst outcome. I don’t like Option C in any way, but it seems fare less bad than having the same outcome, but more death.
That said, a negotiated peace ceding territory might end the fighting but could set a precedent that territorial conquest pays off, weakening the global order.
Option C feels like a bitter pill; it’s pragmatic but forces Ukraine to sacrifice land and pride, a tough ask for a nation fighting for its survival. Some might say a negotiated peace stabilizes the region short-term, but history—like Munich in 1938—warns that rewarding conquest invites more.
…but wait, a surprise…
Option B’ - Two-Front War Risk
Ok, let’s pretend that we actually have the balls to go fight Russia and curb-stomp them out of Ukraine (including, of course, Crimea). Does the US and her allies really have the ability to fight a two-theater war? I would question this.
If the U.S. commits fully to fighting Russia in Ukraine, it might leave Taiwan exposed to China. This would be the ideal time for China to do what they’ve been threatening to do for decades — invade and annex Taiwan.
We have to be really careful with how we’re throwing around our might.
A decisive victory could reshape Europe’s security landscape, but a two-theater war might strain U.S. and allied resources, leaving vulnerabilities elsewhere. If the U.S. goes all-in on Ukraine, China might see a green light to hit Taiwan, stretching allied forces thin across two continents.
Some historical context for a moment. When Russia attacked and annexed Crimea in 2014, the world’s reaction was an annoyed “tut tut.” Nothing happened. Russia shot down a commercial airliners and the sentiment was echoed again.
Nothing happened. Russia’s takeover was internationally condemned — tut tut — but met with limited Western response at the time.
Why is that?
Well, Obama was coming off a victory two years prior against Mitt Romney. All of the rhetoric was that Russia was not a threat.
“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back” in response to Romney saying that Russia is the biggest existent threat to the US and the world.
It would come off as almost comical to have the Obama administration immediately walk that back.
In Europe, Russia was also the supplier of natural gas to power the industrial nations there. Germany was committed to the absurd tactic of closing down their nuclear generation facilities so they were also against any action against Russia.
Tut tut.
Beyond these options, could intensified sanctions, diplomatic isolation, or mediation by neutral parties shift the dynamic? These might pressure Russia without the risks of Option B. Personally, I doubt it. Putin is in too deep to risk pulling out without something that can be claimed as a victory — and any victory would invariably put the scenario into Option C.
There are no good answers.
A continuation of the status quo, Option A, is, in my mind the worst outcome of all. It maximizes human suffering while having the same outcome as Option C.
Option B, my simple-minded “best” option, isn’t on the table because Russia has nukes. By the way, this shows that simply having nuclear weapons makes you unable to lose in the eyes of the world. It’s a non-ideal precedent in my mind.
Option B could also easily lead to B’ as well. That would also be a very not good outcome.
The one that disgusts me the least is Option C.
There are no good answers. Option A drags out the suffering with no end, Option B courts global chaos, and Option C trades Ukraine’s dreams for peace. I lean toward C as the least awful. It sucks. Royally.
Honestly, I would still lean towards B as the correct and moral choice, but I'm very much not in control of any of this.
It seems like you and the rest of the world are coming around to Mearsheimer's point of view, 11 years late and with everyone in a much worse off position.
This dynamic could have been predicted! It was predicted! He predicted it! Mearsheimer predicted that if there was no sustained and sincere effort to keep Ukraine neutral post-2014 Russia would attack and wreck the country. He said that if we kept on with the 'Ukraine is totally going to be in NATO one day, let's arm and fund and encourage them' approach it was going to end very badly for Ukraine. He said that Russia would wreck Ukraine if NATO integration continued. He said they probably couldn't conquer the whole country but had the power to wreck it such that Ukraine was totally dysfunctional and bereft of the industrial centres in the East. He said that Russia wouldn't tolerate NATO expanding into Ukraine for geographical reasons, plus the large Russian minority that Ukrainian nationalists would feel emboldened to harass.
And based on his analysis of the situation, he proposed building Ukraine up economically as a neutral country without NATO or anything. Now it seems like that's what we're coming around to, after Ukraine has been wrecked, after the Russians have gotten very angry with the West, after trillions in economic damage to Europe, after hundreds of thousands of deaths, after arms stockpiles being depleted, after a message being sent 'if your invasion fails double down and try harder, fight on to victory'. This was predictable in advance!
Imagine if people just listened to the expert as opposed to the 'experts'!
Mearsheimer was right about Ukraine in 2014. He was right in 2023 when he said 'the counteroffensive is not going to work, Ukraine is still doomed'. He was right about not invading Iraq back in 2003. He was right about China becoming a major power with opposing ambitions to the US back in the 2000s.
In the past I had some very snooty, arrogant responses about how Mearsheimer was senile or retarded or some unsophisticated undergraduate-tier theorist. I would like to see how the predictive track record of these people compares with Mearsheimer.
International relations is like economics in that there are many schools of thought. Some are better than others, some actually work and others are popular and sound great but don't work. Realism works. Realists like Mearsheimer actually predict things correctly. There are distinctions within realism, different models of thought that can be applied in different circumstances but realism as a whole is generally superior. This liberal/constructivist 'we have to do the right thing' interventionist camp doesn't work and it's not even moral, it gets lots of people killed at great expense and usually makes the situation worse. If you want to read more about this, check out The Great Delusion by Mearsheimer.
We need to embrace realism just like how a chess player needs to think several moves ahead if he wants to win. You highlight how Option B, the 'most moral' option is unacceptable due to the potential for global catastrophe. It's the least moral option. Once you see that you start to understand why we need realism to achieve realistic goals in the most efficient and least costly way.
I have suffered wounds in online debates defending realism (and Mearsheimer's offensive realism) by liberal idealists seemingly oblivious to the failures of GWOT, confident that the Ukrainian proxies would succeed where the Iraqi ones failed. The world would have been much better off letting Russia quietly rot away in private, keeping its neighbors in post-Soviet dysfunction until it was too enervated to do anything. But the evil gremlins of the US State Department had their way, and the rest is history.
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