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(Crosspost from CredibleDefense)
Absent a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, and assuming Putin or his appointed successor remain in power in Russia in the medium-long term, it seems unlikely that sanctions on Russia will be lifted any time soon, not least because Europe's transition to LNG over piped gas will be well underway by then and economic pressure for a relations-reset will be relatively muted. Under this "North Korea" scenario, Russia is envisaged to remain a hostile actor to the West and to Europe especially, in the domains such as nuclear sabre-rattling, cyberwarfare, political influence, funding of terrorism, and so on.
What should the West's response be to this new threat on its doorstep? One obvious possibility would be to accelerate and strengthen the NATO missile defense program. While the kinetics of a 99%+ intercept rate remain extremely challenging, a limited missile defense shield capable of reliably intercepting a small number of targets is vastly more technologically viable now than in Reagan's era. Indeed, the fundamentals of such capabilities are arguably already in place, with Aegis Ashore batteries in Romania and Poland (soon to become operational), THAAD batteries are active in Turkey, and Patriot systems in Germany, Spain, Greece, Poland, Romania, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Slovakia. While there has been persistent concern among NATO powers that a missile defense system would risk antagonising Russia, the changing geopolitical environment means that many European governments may be politically and financially willing to commit to accelerating the shield.
What of developments in hypersonics and decoy tech? While these do pose challenges, in the case of Russia at least, the Ukraine war suggests that many of their vaunted capabilities may be mere vaporware, or at least perform well below claimed performance measures. Moreover, other technological developments in fields like AI have the potential to make reliable interception more feasible.
What would the point of all this be? In addition to providing NATO with a better way to prevent nuclear bullying by Russia of its neighbours, and to defend against rogue international actors, we might reasonably hope to present Russia with a painful dilemma much like that faced by the Soviet Union in the light of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative: either commit to an arms race that it can ill afford, or risk its nuclear capabilities being de-fanged by a more technologically-advanced West. If anything, Russia's current position is worse than that of the Soviet Union in this regard, given its relatively weaker scientific and industrial base and etiolated conventional forces. And whereas Reagan's SDI was mostly pie-in-the-sky thinking in the 1980s, contemporary missile defense boasts impressive and growing capabilities.
Of course, absent any miracle breakthroughs, it remains unlikely that any missile defense shield in the near- or medium-term would be able to withstand a massed nuclear strike involving hundreds or even thousands of warheads. However, the old principles of mutually assured destruction mean that this is not the most pressing nuclear threat that is faced by the West today. Instead, we face the risk of an increasingly isolated, weakened, and aggressive Russia using nuclear weapons in a more restricted capacity to gain battlefield advantages or to coerce its neighbours. Even a limited shield would be useful in combating these threats, and may help contribute in the longer-term to the downfall of Russia's current regime.
I'm not a Ukrainian so I don't really have attachments to Crimea or Eastern Ukraine, so I'm perfectly fine to let Putin keep Crimea and 2014-era Donbas for the war to end, but it's not a realistic compromise for any of the parties here.
Putin just annexed Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in addition to Donbas, so to Russia, they are officially Russian territory. The annexation of non-separatist oblasts is the Caesar crossing the Rubicon moment for Putin. He's staking the Russian future and legitimacy on this, and there's no going back.
Same thing for the Ukrainians. Before the annexation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, maybe Ukraine can still believe Russian war aims were limited, and that they were only interested in securing the separatists regions, but no longer. It's very clear to the Ukrainians that Russia is going for the shameless land grab, and there's no stopping Russia from annexing Odessa, Kharkiv or Dnipropetrovsk next. If they settle for a ceasefire now, there's always the looming future invasion, suppressing any foreign reconstruction investments. After all, why help Ukraine rebuild when it can all be torn down in the next Russian invasion? Therefore, if Ukraine settles for a ceasefire now, its long term prospects are bleak and they'll only be inviting Russia to take another bite out of their territory later. So, the Ukrainians must get a decisive result for their national sovereignty and their future. Either they win, or they die as a nation.
With these two factors combined, I don't see an end to the war any time soon without some miracle, and it's very depressing.
If there was a world where letting Putin keep Crimea etc. would solve the problem, it could be something to discuss. But we're not living in such a world, and we know it for the fact since February 24, because Putin de-facto had all that already. Ukraine had neither capability nor will to retake any of the territories occupied by Russia in 2014, the West was not inclined to support it with anything substantially more than "blankets and helmets", and sanctions on Russia were feeble and inconsequential. Biden himself supported opening North Stream 2, for one!
To seriously consider that if we roll back to pre-Feb 24, and pretend nothing ever happened, that will be a stable situation acceptable to any side and a long term solution - it's just impossible for anybody seriously thinking about the situation.
Not quite. Also, the Dniepr-Crimea water canal was closed by Ukraine.
These are trifles. He didn't start the war to open the canal.
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