![]() It will include the integration of Ukraine into the European Union. The rebuilding of Ukraine will be a political matter as well as an economic one. An armistice would open the door for the needed reconstruction of Ukraine, a moral imperative that will cost hundreds of billions in aid. A Forever War in Ukraine that lasts as long as the American Forever Wars in the Middle East would leave Ukraine a wasteland for decades to come. 14Īgainst the demands of justice stands the grim reality of a bloody, ongoing war. In an ideal world, Putin would face justice in the Hague. The decision to stall the pursuit of justice can’t be made lightly. Invading another country without reason is the most serious transgression of international law imaginable. The fact is, Putin’s invasion is a war crime in and of itself, one that led to many other war crimes conducted by the Russian army. It would also be a bitter pill for Ukrainians to swallow. This is a much more concrete negotiating strategy than the path offered by editorialists at the Times or the Post. As an alternative to victory, there is the model of the Korean War of a long-standing truce with ultimate goals kept for a future date. The alternative is a scaled down set of war aims, although one that refrains from ceding Ukrainian claims to its territory. How else can you get reparations and war-crime tribunals? They’re not that close to regaining every inch of their own territory, let alone the other aims. “So how would Ukraine enact that definition of victory?” Kotkin asks. 8īuilding on this insight, Kotkin makes the provocative point that Ukraine’s war aims-“to regain every inch of territory, reparations, and war-crimes tribunals”-would require a much larger war than anyone now contemplates. ![]() But there are no plans to take the war to Russia, a prospect the Biden administration rightly shies away from because it could lead to nuclear war. Kotkin notes that a war of attrition can continue indefinitely unless Russia’s military production capability-its ability “to resupply and produce more weapons”-is damaged. In a wide-ranging and exceptionally thoughtful interview with The New Yorker, the historian Stephen Kotkin, best known as a biographer of Joseph Stalin, cast a cold eye on the notion that more of the same can lead to a negotiated peace. ![]()
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