Should Ukraine negotiate with Russia?
Too often, I hear wishes for “peace in Ukraine”, followed by suggestions that “diplomacy is always better than a war”. This sentiment, — often expressed by foreigners far removed from the situation on the ground, — is detrimental to bringing a truly lasting peace to Ukraine.
Negotiating with Russia is a highly flammable suggestion in Ukraine. There’s hardly a Ukrainian not touched by the war, and so negotiating with murderers and rapists is seen as morally absurd. On moral grounds, as well as politically — it would be a wildly bad decision for Ukrainian leaders to be pushed to the negotiating table without Ukrainians’ mandate.
My argument, however, is not about morality, emotion, politics, or even justice. Rather, it is about strategy.
Working out the strategy for peace is an important exercise. In fact, the common understanding by Ukraine and allies, — under which conditions the peace talks with Russia are strategically advantageous, — can make a difference between a lasting peace vs a crumbling one. And that is precisely why the timing of peace negotiations matters a great deal.
The timing and strategy of negotiations
For the last weeks, my Twitter feed has been filled with calls for peace talks in Ukraine. First — some facts, in a chronological order:
- Early Nov: insistent rumours that Western allies suggest Ukraine should show “a willingness to negotiate”
- Nov 9: Russia calling for peace talks with Ukraine
- Nov 10: Russian troops withdrawing from Kherson
- Nov 11: The Ukrainian Army entering Kherson.
Against the backdrop of a successful Ukrainian offensive, is it in the interests of Ukraine — to negotiate a peace deal now?
It doesn’t take a master strategist to see the obvious: negotiating now is to Russia’s, not Ukraine’s advantage. Right now, Russia is desperate to consolidate its forces and regroup. That is the reason behind both Russia’s negotiations talk, and the Russian withdrawal from Kherson.
In addition to losing on the ground, Russia is also likely running out of supplies of long-range missiles to shell Ukrainian civilians. Russian military options are looking bleak.
What’s Russia’s and Ukraine’s best alternative to negotiations?
The bread and butter of any negotiations strategy is understanding each party’s BATNA — best alternative to a negotiated agreement (i.e., What each party can afford to walk away with if negotiations fail?).
Let’s examine Russia’s BATNA — best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Suppose negotiators meet and fail to produce results. Then, Russia would gain some weeks (or months) to re-arm its forces and saw further havoc with strikes on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, destabilizing energy markets and halting grain shipments through the Black Sea.
Russia’s BATNA looks pretty good. It’s to Russia’s advantage to play for time.
Let’s turn to Ukraine. On the surface, it may appear irrational — that Ukrainians prefer to live with daily power outages, face the risk of being killed by missile strikes, and a very real prospect of no heating in the winter months. Still, 90% of Ukrainians would rather Ukraine continue fighting than negotiate.
Here’s a rational explanation. Ukraine’s BATNA is a very real prospect of a prolonged war. If negotiations fail (a likely outcome, given Russia’s record of breaking every deal it finds advantageous to break), Ukraine gets not heat, nor electricity, nor peaceful sky, — it gets more death, — of soldiers and civilians, — for a longer period of time.
In its extreme, Ukraine’s BATNA is a frozen conflict — the kind of war that kills plenty, and never really ends. Ukrainians have seen this before: since 2014, to be precise. There’s little appetite in Ukraine to have this scenario repeat.
The strategy for stable peace is necessarily informed by past mistakes. Which factors made pre-war peace fragile? I offer three answers to that question, — they should inform any attempt to make the post-war peace a lasting one.
Why did Russia invade Ukraine? Three answers
Here’s a simple answer: because Putin thought he could win easily. This answer, — despite its simplicity, — has an important implication: lasting peace depends on Ukraine being well-armed, and not at mercy of Russia’s promises.
There’s also a more complicated answer to Why Russia invaded Ukraine: because of Russia's imperial ideology (see, some ideologies take too long to die). The implication is, unless reigned in, Russia is likely to repeat (if not with Ukraine, then with Moldova, the Baltics, or any other neighbor). Ukraine being a shield of Europe, its strong military, a strong economy, and strong western security guarantees — a matter of peace in Europe, not in Ukraine alone.
And finally, there’s an answer that China would give: “Because the rules-based global order is a sham”. This argument — which Russia and China share — has two parts to it. One is that Western countries employ double standards when they criticize others for imperialism, of which they, too, reaped benefits as recently as 1900s. Another is that universal values such as human rights, equality and freedom are hardly universal, and should not be up to Western powers to decide on.
The implication of China’s answer is interesting: it underlines that Russia’s 2022 war is a test for whether the West can in fact stand by the rule-based order adopted after WWII. A further implication is that China, too, is watching — how far it can extend its own appetite for defying international law.
One may indeed question whether Western powers who dominated the 1945 rule-making should still dictate the rules in 2022. What’s problematic is not the questioning of the status quo, but the fact that the alternative world order — in which individual freedoms are overruled by the iron fist of dictatorial powers — is hardly an improvement on the existing one.
How the peace in Ukraine will look like — is a test of whether the rules-based order will survive, and whether liberal democracies will get another go in applying the values of equality and freedom equally to everyone.
P.S. Thanks for reading! I keep my posts free, but here’s a quick way to say thanks — donate to Return Alive Foundation, United24 or the KSE Foundation, and #StandWithUkraine! This is the best way to invest in freedom and ensure we live in a safe world.