Thread by @BretDevereaux

People need to prepare themselves for what the end of hostilities in Ukraine might look like, though it doesn't seem imminent.

Because peace agreements are rarely clear, clean things AND also because folks need to be prepared for NATO and Ukrainian interests to diverge. 1/

Ending a conflict like this one - especially in a shorter time-scale - is likely to involve messy compromises. A truly protracted war might have a clearer, cleaner ending, but involve much more death and destruction, as we've discussed: acoup.blog/2022/03/03/col…
2/

I think regime change in Kyiv is, at this point, an unlikely outcome; I don't think Russia has the juice for it. Instead, negotiations seem to revolve around the Donbas, Crimea, and Ukraine's joining the EU and NATO.

There are lots of possible combinations in that space. 3/

It's in that context that NATO and Ukrainian interests may diverge. Some of this is for obvious reasons - NATO is not having their cities shelled. There is a fairly easy but brutal calculus whereby pushing forward to absolute victory is an easy call for NATO but not Ukraine. 4/

Part of that is that NATO has an interest in limiting Russia's ability to cause trouble and part of it is an exercise in message sending - the hope that the larger the Russian debacle, the more other powers (=China) will think twice before making the same gamble. 5/

But 'fight on for the sake of the liberal international order' is an easy choice to make when it isn't your schools and hospitals being bombed, 1.4m of your people living as refugees.

Ukraine may see it as a victory to Finlandize to stop the violence. 6/

(By Finlandize, we'd mean a situation where they were formally neutral but able to maintain a free and democratic society but at the same time had to studiously avoid antagonizing Russia. This result, would, I suspect, deeply disappoint Ukraine's supporters in the West) 7/

Where this gets complicated is sanctions - it's hard to see Russia accepting a termination to hostilities that doesn't also involve the end of sanctions, given the crippling effect they're having on the Russian economy. 8/

NATO doesn't really have a 'seat at the table' but at the same time, it can greatly complicate a peace process (or effectively force Ukraine to the table, given the importance of international support to their effort). 9/

I hope that NATO leaders are in discussion with Ukraine and Zelensky about what his acceptable war termination scenarios are. In the end, Ukrainian interests ought to drive this process, but international relations is rarely a world of 'oughts.' 10/

One thing I'm sensing from what I've seen of Zelensky's statements is that territorial integrity may matter to Ukraine more than it matters to NATO (it is, after all, their 'sacred soil'), whereas joining Ukraine into NATO/EU may matter more to NATO... 11/

...because of the statement it makes about the futility of Putin's effort to use force in this circumstance (and also because it effectively heads off a situation where Putin backs up and 'tries again' in a few years).

Of course this is all with limited information. 12/

In any event, folks need to prepare themselves for both 1) a messy peace, whenever it comes and 2) a situation where Ukraine makes a deal based on their interests which don't quite correspond with what Ukraine-flag-twitter might wish. end/