How can the war in Ukraine be brought to an end?
This is the big question that analysts around the world are trying to answer in order to end the horror that has been caused since the Russian invasion on 24 February.
Head of Policy and Assistant Professor at NUI Galway's School of Political Science and Sociology, Dr. Brendan Flynn attempts to approach the most likely scenarios for the end of the war in an article based on previous wars.
Putin's second war
Initially, the university professor refers to the second war (the first was against Chechnya in 2000) waged by Vladimir Putin's Russia in Georgia in 2008. Then the war lasted a few days (7-12 August).
Unlike the current war in Ukraine, Russian forces could claim, at least to some extent, that they were responding to a Georgian offensive, the professor says.
Russian forces advanced quickly and were ready to besiege Tbilisi. Fearing the inevitable bloodbath, on August 12, French President Nicolas Sarkozy managed to secure a ceasefire after a phone call with Putin, and the broad outlines of a peace agreement were shaped in the following days.
The essence was that Russian forces agreed to return to their original positions, prisoners were exchanged and Georgia agreed that it would renounce the use of force to resolve the status of the Russian-backed breakaway regions in Georgia.
In fact, these Russian enclaves were further militarized by the presence of the Russian army. Georgia has lost them for the foreseeable future.
Unlikely outcome
Interestingly, Putin has not formally demanded that Georgia withdraw its application for NATO or EU membership as part of the ceasefire, Flynn notes. In practice, however, Georgia's application for full membership of both alliances was put on ice by Western states, particularly as it was felt that the country's leader Mikhail Saakashvili had acted so recklessly.
However, today Georgia is clearly a Western-oriented country and has a strong partnership with NATO, including joint military training, just like Ukraine.
There is also an Association Agreement with the EU and more relaxed visa rules. It seems very unlikely that the war in Ukraine will end with this outcome. Macron has spoken several times with Putin and has little to show for it, Flynn points out.
Putin's "nonsense" in Ukraine
Flynn describes Putin's choice to start the war in Ukraine as nonsense. Unlike the war in Georgia, the invasion of Ukraine is a more foolish and open military operation that went horribly wrong for Putin. No quick victory or withdrawal is obvious, the academic explains.
Putin, therefore, needs a tangible military victory before he can agree to any ceasefire, and he may also have few geographic objectives, notably the port of Odessa or seizing as much of the coast as possible, that would allow him to economically strangle Ukraine.
Some analysts believe Putin has therefore resigned himself to a slow bloody war of attrition that could last for months. The Russian siege of Grozny in 1999-2000 lasted four months, while the Russian-backed siege of Aleppo was extended from mid-summer to December 2016. Kiev, Kharkiv and Odessa may be battlegrounds for weeks, if not months yet.
Putin will not be "generous"
Moreover, why would Putin settle for a deal that would simply put him back in the position he was in before he invaded - annexing Crimea and "controlling" the Donbass puppet enclaves, asks Flynn? There is no way he will be as "generous" as he was with Georgia in 2008.
However, if the Ukrainians manage to hold out militarily, or possibly with greater Western support, if they cause significant reversals in Putin's forces, then whoever leads Russia by the fall may simply be forced to accept a Georgia-style ceasefire, which would mark a return to something like the pre-invasion status quo.
This is one reason why military aid to Ukraine is so important. Negotiating with Putin from a position of military weakness or strength will have a direct bearing on the kind of Ukraine that emerges. So what are the three most likely scenarios?
"Finlandization"
Flynn uses the example of Finland, which ended up signing treaties with Joseph Stalin in 1947 and 1948 after fighting two wars against the Soviet Union.
Among other things, the professor notes that the Finns fought heroically and the Red Army disastrously, but in the end they were forced to ask for peace. This war continued when Nazi Germany invaded Russia in 1941. By 1944 the Finns realized that they were on the losing side of World War II and negotiated a separate armistice.
This political and psychological context here is quite different from Ukraine today. Finland was on the losing side of a much wider war, not once but twice. Despite this, Stalin was willing to be relatively generous, probably because he was busy crushing freedom in Poland, East Germany and the rest of what became the Warsaw Pact, argues Flynn.
Thus, Finland was not reunited with the USSR (unlike the Baltic states) nor were the Finnish communists simply empowered to take power. Finland was allowed to retain its democratic institutions and free and fair elections. Finland was also allowed to continue trading with the West, although this was mitigated.
Finland did not become a full member of the European Free Trade Association until 1986, and membership of the EEC was impossible. In addition, Finland had to pay huge war reparations, turning a sector of the Finnish economy into a service to the Russians. It also had to accept a large Russian military base on its territory, which was only removed in 1956.
Neutral state, not by choice
Finland was therefore forced to be a neutral state, not by choice, but through a mixture of formal written guarantees and many informal "understandings" between Russian leaders and a number of high-ranking Finnish politicians, Flynn points out.
Flynn then points out the concessions Finland made over the years until the collapse of the USSR.
People who today advocate Finnish-style historical neutrality as a quick fix for the war in Ukraine would do well to understand that something so subtle or consensual is very unlikely to work today.
To begin with, Putin will want guarantees that he can control domestic Ukrainian politics with much greater certainty. If free and fair Ukrainian elections are allowed, they will likely create governments with independent thinking that sooner or later simply won't play ball with him.
If Ukraine is allowed to maintain trade and association agreements with the EU, this will further undermine Putin's attempt to control the country.
Ukraine as a vassal state like Belarus
So while what Putin wants may be called "Finlandization" to sound more acceptable to Western audiences, what will likely result will be far more unfavorable and closer to making Ukraine a vassal state like Belarus, argues Flynn.
In this scenario, it is likely that NATO membership will be taken off the table by the Ukrainians themselves to appease Russian demands. In fact, many NATO states would be relieved by this outcome and could put pressure on the Ukrainians to accept such a condition.
Flynn then stresses that NATO has not accepted Ukraine as a full member.
The academic then stresses that Ukraine's neutrality will not solve Putin's current political problems. Ukrainians want it to be a free and democratic pro-Western state with little influence from what is revealed to be a despotic Russian regime, Flynn stresses. Everyone hates Putin and many hate Russia. They will resist in any way they can, he predicts.
Putin can't afford to give them a real Finland-style deal and the Ukrainians don't seem psychologically close to accepting the defeat that would require them to accept it.
If their cities fall, a large-scale insurgency will continue and that's a serious military threat to the Russians who can't control a country the size of Ukraine. Unlike the Finns in 1946, the Ukrainians do not yet accept that they have been defeated and know they are not on the wrong side of history, Flynn says.
Partition of Ukraine a la Kashmir?
Another way to end the war in Ukraine is a de facto military partition that would create two different Ukrainias: a western, democratic entity and an eastern entity supported and controlled by Russia, Flynn notes.
This has similarities to how the tragic Kashmir affair unfolded after 1947. Pakistan retains control of a large part and India a much larger part of the region (China is also involved, but we can ignore that detail for the sake of brevity, Flynn notes). Both India and Pakistan have never agreed on a formal demarcation line, and the border is a line of control established by the UN after the 1965 war, he recalls.
He then points out that if this is Ukraine's future, it means that conflict, fighting and instability will remain there for many years and possibly decades. This violence will forge long-lasting patterns of hostility between Europe and the Russian Federation.
If this scenario becomes reality there will be no return to the relationship before February 2022. Indeed, for decades to come, Russia may never return to the wider Western economy as anything other than an increasingly marginal supplier of energy products, which in the long run will lose its position in preference to other suppliers and energy sources.
A new Cold War
A Cold War just as intense and with heavily armed camps is as likely as the one that prevailed between 1948 and 1990, Flynn notes.
Importantly, NATO may well consider Putin's nuclear threats as a bluff, weaponizing a large and long-lasting insurgency inside Ukraine.
Or NATO and the EU can offer full membership to a "truncated" western Ukraine and provide them with the military means to balance the Russian-backed occupied zone. This would somewhat resemble the confrontation between South and North Korea and could be just as long-term, Flynn points out.
Such an outcome might actually be preferable for many Ukrainians compared to the much-touted "Finlandization," which is another reason why this solution might not work.
However, it would hardly make sense for Putin to agree to such a partition. A western Ukraine would forever be a thorn in the side of the part occupied or annexed by Russia, in the same way that the rivalry between East and West Germany has been intense and sometimes pathological. It was the cornerstone of the Cold War. Equally, the possibility of insurgencies following the Kashmir playbook would be entirely predictable, meaning that it would be unlikely to be perceived as a stable outcome for Russia.
However, it may be what the military situation on the ground produces: a bloody stalemate where Russia can take some cities in eastern and southern Ukraine, but only after they are reduced to rubble, but the Russian military cannot take or hold the entire country. Thus, a "free" Western Ukraine will emerge by military default and a Kashmir-style conflict will have been established.
There is no perfect model
None of these analogies is a perfect model for understanding where the conflict in Ukraine might end up. It is very likely that what will emerge will be a mixture of all three scenarios with entirely new elements. However, together they all reveal certain issues that will be central whenever the fighting subsides, whether due to stalemate, exhaustion, or defeat of one or both sides, Flynn stresses.
In particular, the analyses here suggest that the fighting is more likely to continue and be long-term rather than simply end within days and weeks. Most of the scenarios involve the continued existence of a semi-autonomous and possibly independent Ukraine, although "Finlandization" may be a catchphrase for a much harsher and enforced subordination.
However, a truly autonomous but possibly divided Ukrainian state could easily continue to be associated with NATO and the EU, and possibly even join.
What Putin thinks now
Putin may be deluded enough to believe that his military can crush all opposition and simply impose a solution, but this seems unlikely, at least for now. Indeed, the more he opts for a war of attrition, the more likely he is to end up with a Kashmir-style partition and insurgency. And if he tries to impose a Finland-style neutralization, his dilemma is that this will literally leave Ukraine free of his influence and the Ukrainians are unlikely to cooperate with him as the Finns did.
To settle for a return to the status quo, Georgia-style, would be the best humanitarian outcome and the best for Ukraine right now, but for both of these reasons, Putin is unlikely to agree to that.
What worries Ukrainians
What worries Ukrainians is that, given the apparent failure of Polish efforts to transfer fighter jets or the German Chancellor's recent comments that there is no military solution, Putin may be right in assuming that Western countries will not step in with enough military assistance to make any Ukrainian military resistance credible enough to force him to negotiate.
However, one of the ironies of choosing the path of war is that leaders who do so are at the mercy of whatever victories their generals can bring them and what the opposition is willing to endure.
For the Ukrainians, this was already too much, but one of the lessons of modern conflicts has been the longevity and intractability of wars. So there will not be a clean, easy or clear-cut finale. The best we can hope for is that all parties to the conflict will stumble around the least worst options, concludes Flynn.
Source: in.gr
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