Four scenarios for Ukraine
The scenarios for the end of the Ukrainian war can be divided into four groups: Ukrainian victory, Russian victory, amicable settlement and Korean-style frozen conflict.
In assessing the outcome of a conflict, one can rely on a range of proven methods. Based on these methods, it is concluded which of the conflicting parties has a greater chance of degrading the opponent’s physical capacities. Also, to destroy the moral readiness of the opponent in the given time frame. One must accurately assess which side in the conflict will project more sustained lethal pressure. The deadly pressure must continue until the adversary agrees to behave in accordance with the political goals of the victor.
This model generally works when there are not many “unknown unknowns”. This is an allusion to the famous phrase of former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It indicates that some security threats are impossible to assume.
It was clear to an unbiased analyst that Hitler was doomed when he invaded Russia in June 1941. Hitler had not previously defeated the British Empire. In doing so, he repeated Napoleon’s mistake of 1812. Even the Central Powers could not win after the USA entered the war in April 1917, despite the simultaneous collapse of Russia and a desperate all-or-nothing offensive. That offensive failed in spring of 1918.
“Fog of war” is a term of Western military theory. It indicates uncertainty in the situational awareness of participants in military operations. The “fog of war” sometimes destroys the quantitative calculation.
The Persian Empire — the global hegemon of the 5th century BC — failed to subdue the Greeks.
The Greek world was politically fragmented and constituted barely two percent of the demographic, territorial and financial strength of Persia. A century later, Alexander would conquer the Achaemenid Empire with the numerically negligible force of Macedonian phalanxes. The explosive and brutally violent expansion of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries AD belied the modest demographic and resource base that the Arabian deserts provided for the new faith. Japan’s rise as an aggressive great power after the reforms under the Meiji Emperor at the end of the 19th century was incredibly rapid and surprising to all outside actors.
After a year of heavy fighting, the war in Ukraine shows no signs of abating. There are numerous predictions about the future course of this war and its ending, however, they differ drastically, often depending on the personal prejudices and ideological visions of the authors.
The scenarios can be divided into four groups:
• Ukrainian victory,
• Russian victory,
• consensual settlement, and
• Korean-style frozen conflict.
A prominent proponent of the prevailing view in Washington is retired General Ben Hodges. It is believed that Russia will suffer a catastrophic defeat if the West continues to supply Ukraine with the most modern types of weapons. Ben Hodges was once the commander-in-chief of the US military in Europe. “Ukraine has all the initiative and I have no doubts that they will win this war, probably during 2023,” Hodges said in an interview with the BBC in December 2022. Hodges expressed his belief that by the end of this year, Ukraine “will be in a position to start the final phase of operations”.
The American neoconservative-neoliberal duopoly rules the Washington scene. They are currently sticking to a variant of this optimistic scenario. The majority of representatives on the public stage treat the removal of Vladimir Putin from power as a prerequisite for any variant of the solution.
Some wish:
• The disintegration of the Russian Federation into pieces,
• Establishment of a Western-controlled Hague tribunal to try Russian leaders accused of war crimes,
• The imposition of drastic war reparations on the remnants of Russia, and
• Maintaining sanctions indefinitely.
They are preparing for Russia an incomparably more brutal outcome than the harsh peace imposed on Germany by the victorious Allied Powers at Versailles.
The fixed idea is that Russia will be not only defeated, but also humiliated, and perhaps destroyed as a sovereign state. This fixed idea reflects the emotional longing of its proponents. Their aspirations are not based on any sober assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the warring parties. Instead, like Hodges, they resort to phrases grounded in irrational faith. Let’s say, “I have no doubts”, “I don’t see any other outcome” and “I personally believe”.
Ukraine’s military did not disintegrate as Putin might have expected early in the war. It carried out successful local counterattacks near Kharkiv and Kherson. However, its impressive resilience does not automatically imply the ability to carry out an all-out counter-offensive towards Crimea.
Also, not inflicting a strategic defeat on the Russian Federation — a state approximately:
• 30 times larger than Ukraine,
• Three times the number of inhabitants, and
• Nine times higher gross national product.
In addition, Russia has at its disposal incomparably greater natural resources.
Quantitative parametrics can prove deceiving. Davids have occasionally defeated Goliaths throughout history. Such outcomes are rare. They happen as a rule when the stronger side is fighting an optional war. During that time, the weaker one leads a struggle that she considers existential.
Both Ukraine and Russia see this conflict as existential. Defeat is not an option. Russia enjoys an advantage because it is a nuclear power. Nuclear weapons are useless as a tool for the fragile internal political order of the country that possesses them. That’s what happened to South Africa in the 1990s, it was threatened with collapse from within. The atomic bomb is a very convincing deterrent against external threats. This shows the tense but still stable regional balance of power between India and Pakistan. Therefore, the American dream of the triumph of the Ukrainian army parading through the streets of Donetsk has no basis in rational reasoning.
Continuous arguments about the advisability of sending advanced complex combat systems of Western production to Ukraine are meaningless without a coherent strategic vision. The sending includes tanks, missiles, and perhaps the latest generation fighter planes. There is currently no coherent strategic vision. As soon as a company of M1 “Abrams” tanks and two battalions of “Leopard-2” tanks were promised, Ukraine requested F-16 aircraft. Even more advanced devices were requested.
Such dilemmas are inevitably “resolved” in favor of escalation, with a fatalistic automatism reminiscent of the European crisis that led to the Great War of 1914. The political quasi-elite in Washington sleepwalks toward a catastrophic conflict. They take enormous risks that are impossible to connect with any rational defined uses.
The possibility that Russia will breach the Ukrainian defensive wall in the Donbass and win is a minority view in the US for now. However, not in Europe. Experienced realist professor John Joseph Mearsheimer. Joseph Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago hints at this possibility with commendable caution. He warns that after the Russian defeat, it is easier to imagine how Russia keeps the conquered territories. It even occupies additional territories of Ukraine.
If his point of view has any basis, then it is in the interest of the “Collective West” to seek the Korean model of ceasefire. That the ceasefire be along the existing front lines. For that model to come to life with the postponement of a political solution for a later age. This would reduce the main threat: an escalation between NATO and Russia, with the growing risk of nuclear war.
For over 300 years, Ukraine was an integral part of the Russian state. After the Bolshevik revolution, it became a “republic” of the new Soviet conglomerate. Then it was assigned the Russian-speaking industrial region of Donbass in the east. Ukraine declared its independence after the collapse of the USSR. However, at no time during these three and a half centuries was it treated as an a priori anti-Russian creation. And then the USA intervened. It does not matter if and when the disputes between Russia and Ukraine over territory, identity and past injustices will be resolved. It is very important that these disputes, which are otherwise infinitely irrelevant to the security and well-being of the rest of the world, do not cause nuclear cataclysm.
The frozen conflict model is not new and is preferable to the forced resolution of problems in a violent and unpredictable way. Even if we ignore the Palestinian-Israeli problem, which is sui generis, they are there
• Kashmir (unsettled since 1948),
• Cyprus (frozen since 1974), and
• a series of dormant post-Soviet disputes (Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia) due to fortunate circumstances.
Freezing the current lines would stop the bloodshed and slow down, and hopefully finally eliminate, the escalation between NATO and Russia. It could also prevent any of the parties from losing face in front of the domestic public.
The Korean model of ending the war in Ukraine has the advantage that it does not irritate the Russophobic fanatics in the West too much. At the same time, it gives realists a viable option for a long-term solution, without the pressure of media headlines and lobby groups.
Russia will not collapse, not now, not anytime soon. Putin may fall. However, his successor is likely to be more radically nationalistic than he. The “Collective West” is obsessed with the caricature of Putin that portrays him as the Russian Hitler. Absurd, for years, Putin has insisted on a partnership with the West. When Putin leaves power, it is very likely that Russia will get a Eurasian leader who will never use the phrase “our Western partners”.
The war in Ukraine was started by Russia, but it was wanted, deeply directed and choreographed by the West led by the USA. It is a mistake and a crime at the same time, and a zero-sum game, above all for the late remnants of old Europe.
The irony is that even if the “Washington team” succeeds, the West will be a less safe place to live. The West risks a global cataclysm. Even if he forces Russia to withdraw to its pre-2014 borders and Ukraine subsequently joins NATO, America and the entire “collective West” will be incomparably less safe than before the Maidan coup of 2014, let alone before Putin’s intervention. The Western alliance led by the US would then have to take responsibility. The reason for responsibility lies in the support and defense of a bankrupt state with the most corrupt political establishment in Europe. The USA would become the permanent guarantor of Ukraine’s borders that were arbitrarily drawn by Lenin’s Bolsheviks in 1922. Expanded by Nikita Khrushchev with a stroke of a pen in 1954. Those borders would certainly be permanently contested by an embittered, revanchist Russia. Those borders, just as Germany’s eastern borders were contested after Versailles. Those borders would likely bring similar long-term results.
It would be a Pyrrhic victory for the USA and the West. Also, a permanent diversion of attention from the only global challenge. That challenge is not found in Moscow. It is located 8,000 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
