What If Russia Makes a Deal?

[David Morris]

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-03-23/what-if-russia-makes-deal

How to End a War That No One Is Likely to Win

In this war, there will be no Munich, no Nuremberg, and no Versailles.

The question now is what kind of ending Europe’s first major
twenty-first-century war will feature. The Roman statesman and scholar
Cicero argued that an unjust peace is better than a just war. Ongoing
negotiations between Ukraine and Russia will put that proposition to the
test.


The Ukrainians’ brave resistance has halted the Russian advance. In
ordering an invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin acted
impulsively. Were he now to think strategically, he would cut his losses
and look for a way to finish the war. His larger political aims are already
out of reach. He cannot control Ukraine and will struggle to partition a
country opposed to Russian occupation. Moscow has only an expensive and
forbidding military path ahead of it, which together with sanctions will
place sizable burdens on Putin’s regime. But whatever happens in Ukraine,
Russia will still be a nuclear power, and it will retain Europe’s largest
conventional military.