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The End of the War and the Beginning of the Peace [1]

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Date: 2022-07-26

It is not too early to consider the nature of the peace. I am writing from the perspective that Ukraine will win the war but that, importantly, the conduct of the war will influence the nature of the peace. I suggest that a gradual throttling of the Russian armed forces’ ability to fight, and incidentally it’s motivation for doing so, could produce beneficial political change in Russia. It could also minimise casualties on both sides.

There are at least 2 solid reasons apart from fundamental justice why a peace settlement should not allow Russia to hold on to any of the territorial gains from its invasion:

1. Any gain can be spun, however implausibly it would seem in the West, as the realisation of a war aim, enabling Putin to shore up his position.

2. Any gain can later be spun as a recognition of Russia’s right to annex territory it sees as its own and therefore of a right to seize more.

Neither Ukraine or the West can safely accept such gains. So the primary aim should be to ensure that Russia retains no part of the area it has recently occupied. It is therefore inevitable that the peace settlement will humiliate Russia, despite Macron. The question then is what type of humiliation and where it should be directed. The scale of humiliation inflicted on Germany after WW1 was exploited by Hitler to catastrophic effect, so is to be avoided. The humiliation should deservedly and beneficially fall on Putin and the Russian power structure.

The secondary aim is that the path to peace should allow the maximum chance of a transition to democracy in Russia. Though than can be no certainty here I believe that a democracy of people with ordinary preoccupations – the economy, drains – is less likely to fall into pan-Slavic nuttiness than a dictator so the risk of a repeat attack on Ukraine in 10 or 20 years’ time is reduced. However time has to be allowed for the Russian people to realise they have been lumbered with an immoral war whose aims have been thwarted by corruption within the very government which took them into it.

It’s preferable that humiliation should proceed by a series of small steps rather than a few big ones, to reduce the chance of triggering Putin into nuclear escalation. This fits with the aim expressed above that the process should be slow to allow time for the ferment of Russian public opinion to turn its focus on Putin and his system of government. In this task Ukraine has 2 unwitting allies:

1. Those critics of the Russian regime who are allowed freedom in the media because they support or would even go beyond Russia’s war aims. The more they point to the ineffectiveness of Russian tactics, strategy and logistics the more they are criticizing the top levels in the military and government. They will probably not criticize the ordinary troops and risk a backlash.

2. Russian troops who are prisoners of war or are stranded without hope of rescue or re-supply have ample incentive to make their humiliation known to those at home. They should be given every opportunity of doing so.

The effective encirclement of 1,000 or more Russian troops in Vysokopillya near Kherson is exactly the sort of small humiliation needed. The Russian troops cannot be re-supplied nor readily retreat so have ceased to exist as an effective fighting force. To have to ask for a green corridor to retreat through adds to the humiliation. Ukraine may succeed in isolating more troops in the Kherson area in the next few weeks and if it succeeds in cutting into the swathe of Russian held territory on the Sea of Azov it could isolate many more. And of course if it could use its new artillery and other equipment to interdict supplies coming over its eastern border it would have neutralised most of Russia’s troops. By treating them properly (whilst not neglecting to arrest war criminals where it can) Ukraine could at least deflect some of the Russian public’s hostility whilst completing the humiliation of the Russia’s rulers.

It is of course up to the Ukrainian Government to decide how to conduct the war. Its conduct so far is perhaps not inconsistent with the views expressed above.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/26/2112669/-The-End-of-the-War-and-the-Beginning-of-the-Peace

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