How to avert disaster
We are in a very dangerous moment. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is requesting that American-gifted missiles are granted permission to be fired into Russian territory. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday championed the same. Lord Cameron, British Foreign Secretary (at least for the next six weeks), lifted any such restriction from British missiles several weeks ago. And it’s reported there are French Foreign Legion troops in Ukraine. The lone holdout for further escalation appears to be President Biden.
The past four months, seeking input on plans for a new diplomatic-journalistic publication, I’ve had conversations with all manner of national security figure/academic/journalist/serving ambassador/political advisor. I’ve observed a pattern.
When discussing Ukraine, if you say “peace talks with Russia”, people tend to look at you as if you are soliciting membership for the British National Party/League of the South. But if you say “Korean-style armistice”, most begrudgingly nod along. “It’s not great, but you’re probably right this is the least-bad outcome.”
Even though most people cannot name a single figure who was involved in negotiating the Korean Armistice (I’m working on a practical history), it seems to be one of those magic phrases (equivalent to “Australian-style points system” regarding border policy) that speaks to people at large, and has cut-through regardless of one’s political view. Mainstream establishment figures are also willing publicly to get behind it.
I’ve researched and written more about March/April 2022 diplomatic attempts than just about anyone (all corroborated seven months later by Foreign Affairs). But bringing this up now seems to be counterproductive. It incites an internal Western blame game (hardening a stance of militarism) whereas, right now, efforts need to be squarely on averting a perilous and increasingly likely path of escalation.
US weapons being launched into Soviet territory never happened during the Cold War. This would break a convention that has existed since WWII and has been considered sacrosanct.
The way to avert this outcome is the phrase “Korean-style armistice”.
My outlet has published the following two-page Recommendation – our best attempt at offering a face-saving golden bridge:
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To: President Biden, Prime Minister Sunak, President Macron
“Win the Peace”
In the 27 months since Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine, in spite of the tragedy for Ukraine, there are a number of triumphs the West can recognize – best captured by Professor Graham Allison of Harvard.
Finland and Sweden, two of the most militarily capable European nations, have joined NATO.
Germany has greatly reduced its dependence on Russia for cheap energy, and begun building up its own military forces.
European NATO partners have been awakened to the reality of 21st century combat – motivating them to invest hundreds of billions in their own defense capabilities.
China’s Xi Jinping has warned Putin, both privately and publicly, against any threat or use of nuclear weapons – thus reinforcing the “nuclear taboo” that has emerged over the past 78 years.
The adversary whom the US threat matrix had ranked as the second most capable military power in the world has been fought to a draw.
Public sentiment today in Ukraine is more Western than ever. All this without the loss of a single American soldier.
In asking what to do next in Ukraine, we have studied all manner of advice and counsel. The wisest words of all come from Professor Stephen Kotkin of Stanford. They are sufficiently wise, I will quote them without further comment:
All wars are about winning the peace. Wars are generally a miscalculation. They generally don’t turn out the way people hope or expect. They rarely deliver the advantages that the people who start them think. But it’s not the war, per se; it’s the peace you should focus on.
The US in Afghanistan won the war. But then we lost the peace. In Vietnam, the US lost the war and it won the peace. Vietnam is a remarkably pro-American country, despite the atrocities the Americans committed there. The people there today are incredibly warm to Americans.
This is really interesting. You can not only win a war and lose the peace; you can lose a war and win the peace.
How do you win the peace in Ukraine? How should we define victory in the war if our goal is to win the peace?
This is a criminal aggression under international law – what Russia has done.
But we can talk about victory as: Ukraine getting into the European Union, and Ukraine getting some sort of security guarantee.
Ukraine needs the mechanism of European Union accession to transform its domestic institutions. To go from a weakly institutionalized, corrupt state, to more like a European state – with rule of law, an open society, free and open media, and prosperity. And security guarantees so that a rebuilt Ukraine isn’t destroyed again.
What might that EU accession process and security guarantees look like? Those are worthy of debate, and are being debated – and that’s very positive. But to get to that road, you need an armistice.
You don’t need to get all of your territory back in order to start the process of European Union accession, transformation of institutions, and rebuilding the country in a new economy with some security arrangements.
It would, of course, be better if you got your territory. But it would be much better if you started the process with an armistice of gaining a Ukraine that the Ukrainians need. Getting however much of Ukraine you can control, and transforming it into a European country. “Joining the West” is how we would put it.
How do you get an armistice? How do you get to the point where you can start that process? That’s a better definition of victory, and that’s how you win the peace.
If you look at the Korean peninsula, of course it’s a very unsatisfactory outcome. It’s only an armistice. It’s not a peace treaty. They’re technically still at war. But there’s not large-scale fighting. On the other side of that demilitarized zone, with the American security umbrella, in the absence of a peace treaty, they’ve rebuilt one of the most successful societies on the planet. It’s unbelievably impressive what they did.
Again: it’s not perfect. It would have been much better to get a peace treaty. But hey, look what they’ve achieved. An outcome like that for Ukraine would be a miracle. It would be a gift. And it would not necessarily involve Ukraine acknowledging loss of territory. South Korea doesn’t acknowledge that the Korean peninsula is divided forever. Quite the contrary. But in the meantime, they’ve rebuilt.
Some type of security guarantee with the United States would have to be sold to the American people. The same way as the one with South Korea. That hasn’t happened yet. And this could be joined by other countries.
We would have to prepare the US public, the US Congress, and Senate especially, to ratify a treaty like that. We’re far away from that now. But at least let’s discuss these terms publicly, so people understand how Ukraine could win the peace.
The New York Times, 12 days ago:
There is a growing sense inside the Biden administration that the next few months could prove critical, because at some moment the two sides may finally move to a negotiated cease-fire, an armistice similar to the one that ended the active fighting in Korea in 1953 – or simply a frozen conflict.
It is beginning to cut through?
If you want to help diminish the chance of WWIII, I encourage you to start championing “Korean-style armistice” and send this page (X thread version here) around to people.
Reckless as our political class today are, it was the simultaneous threat of military escalation and certain concessions that allowed Eisenhower in 1953 to secure a peace. My forthcoming practical history will show that there is much more to the analogy than a slogan. But in brief:
That Zelensky is against an armistice only emulates the analogy. (So was South Korean President Rhee, who never signed the agreement and had his military General do so for him.)
There was an enlightened clause in the Armistice Agreement (13d) that simultaneously offered South Korea a security guarantee while preventing an infusion of weaponry into the country (that the North did not want on its border, and the US made a concession towards).
Putin on Friday signalled his openness to a ceasefire.
Many have grown weary of the war in Ukraine and have long ago tuned out. But we are at a treacherous fork in the road. This is potentially our most dangerous moment yet in the conflict. We would be wise to champion the Korean example to get out of it.
Sunak announcing a return to National Service intimates that the West will get more provocative with the missiles into Russia, over the next weeks, and the Tories can ride any wave of retaliation back to power.