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November 20, 2024, 5:38 AM View Comments ()

Consider this scenario for the Russia-Ukraine war in the year 2030: As much as U.S. President Donald Trump or other third parties tried to force a final settlement and lasting peace, they only succeeded in getting the two sides to agree to a series of measures to manage their war. With neither Moscow nor Kyiv accepting each other’s war aims—and with neither side strong enough to decisively defeat the other—the two countries are mired in a low-intensity but continued conflict with occasional, limited skirmishes. A complete end to the fighting is nowhere in sight. In some ways, the situation is reminiscent of the period after the first Russian invasion in 2014, when the Europe-brokered Minsk agreements contained but did not end the war in Ukraine’s Donbas region during the eight years that preceded the much larger 2022 invasion.

In this scenario, Western support for Ukraine continues, but it has dwindled as the United States shifts focus to its strategic rivalry with China and as populist, pro-Russian parties gain ground in European countries. Russia continues to receive some support from North Korea and other partners, but this has not enabled a decisive breakthrough. As the United States seeks to peel Russia away from China, Europe sees a “managed” Russia-Ukraine conflict as less risky than an all-out war.

In this 2030 scenario, the Russia-Ukraine war has become less intense. Both sides and their supporters appear to have accepted the suboptimal outcome of a managed, low-intensity conflict. And the globe has become more unstable.

Looking back from this imagined 2030, how did we get there? And what are the likely consequences for Ukraine, Russia, and the world if this scenario comes to pass?

The scenario of a managed war requires Russia and Ukraine to agree to a series of concessions. These include agreements to designate specific areas—such as nuclear facilities, heavily populated civilian areas, and food storage sites—as permanent cease-fire zones; establish permanent humanitarian corridors for safe passage of civilians and aid workers; exchange prisoners; establish communication channels between military commanders to manage incidents and prevent escalation; and create protocols for de-escalating incidents.

These agreements aim to lower the conflict’s intensity, reduce its potential for escalation, limit spillover effects, and protect civilians.

This state of affairs—a low-intensity conflict and a patchwork of agreements—is a function of several factors. For one, neither side is powerful enough to defeat the other. Since mid-2024, Ukraine has not been able to reclaim significant land from Russian occupation, and Russia has only made incremental progress on the battlefield at an unsustainable cost in men and equipment.

Second, there is no Western appetite for going all in. Support for Ukraine has been dwindling, and there is uncertainty about its prospects for European Union membership due to the veto power of various EU states and the increasing influence of the pro-Russian far right. U.S. support for Ukraine has also diminished as Washington increasingly seeks to focus on its rivalry with Beijing in the Indo-Pacific theater.

And finally, neither side has strong incentives—even under outside pressure—to terminate the war or reach a final settlement, making a managed stalemate the least bad outcome. With the war taking a high toll on Ukrainian society, Kyiv has become more open to living with some territorial losses to Russia.

The scenario of managed conflict would be a partial victory for Ukraine, even if the country has lost close to 20 percent of its territory to Russia since 2014. It has, with the help of third parties, successfully checked the invasion of a great power armed with nuclear weapons and forced it to concede to several agreements, a notable achievement for a country with a smaller military. While Ukraine has lost a considerable amount of territory to Russia, it is a much more determined and cohesive nation with a far more consolidated non-Russian identity than ever before in its history. It has one of the strongest and most versatile militaries in Europe, battle-hardened and adept at using a range of weapon systems produced by a thriving modern defense industry. Having strengthened its relations with the EU and United States, Ukraine thinks of itself as a European country, not a peripheral state of Russia. There is an overwhelming desire to be an important geopolitical power in Europe.

The Russia of 2030, on the other hand, is battle-weakened and geopolitically isolated, staring at severe demographic challenges, debilitating sanctions, and declining energy prices. The war has made Russia a much-diminished power, with the economy in bad shape due to vast defense spending and severe Western sanctions. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been unable to achieve his goal of returning Ukraine to Moscow’s orbit, faces growing domestic pressure to end the war.

For many Europeans, the idea of a managed war appears desirable. For them, an imperfect stability in Ukraine is preferable to an all-out war between the two sides with no end in sight. Russia’s own war fatigue and diminution as a major power may restrict its ability and willingness to carry out further invasions and has further encouraged the feeling in Europe that Ukraine must strike a deal to manage its war with Russia. European countries are not ready yet to confront Russia directly by offering NATO membership to Ukraine, but EU membership remains a possibility.

The United States is also satisfied with Russia’s diminished power status, reasoning that further weakening Russia is unnecessary. Instead, Washington prefers to concentrate on Beijing and the Indo-Pacific. Moreover, the United States hopes that backchannel conversations with Russia could help extract concessions regarding Moscow’s collaboration with Beijing. A no-win, no-loss situation in Ukraine has moderated Russia, enabling a modest thaw in U.S.-Russia relations with the potential for a step-by-step normalization of Russia’s role in great-power politics.

Both the United States and Europe have expressed willingness to provide sufficient assistance for Ukraine’s reconstruction, economic recovery, and access to advanced civilian technology, which many Ukrainians view as a reasonable bargain for territorial concessions.

While there is appetite in the United States to engage Russia, Europe is less enthusiastic about doing so because of misgivings about Russia’s potential future behavior. But there is also a strong feeling in some European quarters that a war-fatigued and much diminished Russia might not be in a position to wage a war against any NATO country. Rising right-wing parties in Europe also agitate for an accommodation with Russia. Washington, too, encourages Europe to accept the status quo in the region and move on.

The continuing but contained conflict in Ukraine has reduced Russia’s dependence on China. With Russia weakened but not defeated, strong voices in Moscow weigh the gains and losses from a close relationship with China as the latter encroaches into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, particularly in Central Asia. The China-Russia relationship persists but is less disruptive for the United States and its allies.

As a result, Russia has regained some geopolitical agency in its neighborhood. With Chinese influence on Moscow’s strategic decision-making less overbearing, countries like India can also engage more with Russia.

Meanwhile, U.S.-Chinese strategic competition has intensified. By 2030, China is rising as a global power with significant influence in the global south, especially Africa. For Washington, addressing the China challenge may require reducing the intensity of secondary rivalries. The United States has also made a distinction between Russian revisionism and Chinese revisionism. While the former is limited to its region, China’s brand of revisionism has global implications, considering that it seeks to create an alternative world order to the one dominated by the United States. By 2030, the long and debilitating war in Ukraine has somewhat halted or perhaps even stopped Russia’s regional revisionism.

For the world, a managed war scenario suggests that aggressors can get away with their actions and that international institutions are powerless in the face of such aggression. Smaller powers have little chance against invaders without strong backing, and international law and institutions fail to protect them. This will further erode the legitimacy of international law and multilateral institutions, thoroughly discrediting the United Nations. Regional security will increasingly rely on coalitions and minilateral groups of like-minded countries. A strong sense of self-reliance for security will prevail, leading to more militarization and even nuclear proliferation. Multiple world orders will emerge.

For rising powers, there will be increased space to maneuver. However, this will be accompanied by a further decline of democracy due to an emphasis on security above all other priorities, exacerbated by weakened global checks and balances. Addressing global challenges, such as the climate crisis, migration, and sustainable development will become more challenging. Moreover, Europe’s remilitarization will occur at the expense of development assistance to the global south. In sum, the world of 2030 is more unstable than today’s, even with the Russia-Ukraine war largely contained.

As in any such thought experiment, there are wild cards that could change this scenario by either escalating the war or ending it altogether. On the Russian side, the continued high death rate due to the country’s particularly casualty-intensive way of fighting could cause domestic unrest. Combined with Russian elites’ deep unhappiness with Western sanctions, this could force an end to the war. Putin’s death could also set off a major political shift in Russia, leading to the end of the war.

If Trump finds a way to force a settlement or is willing to abandon Ukraine altogether, there could also be a more decisive end to the war. A crisis over Taiwan could divert U.S. and NATO attention from Ukraine, reducing its ability to sustain the war until 2030. An abandonment of Western sanctions could also resuscitate Russian power and enable renewed aggression more quickly than this scenario envisions.

On the other hand, a clash between Russia and a European NATO country could expand the scope of the war. And even under a managed war scenario, Russia could withdraw from any agreement it has with Ukraine and restart the war when an opportunity arises.

This essay is adapted from a scenario exercise for the 2024 Yalta European Strategy annual meeting in Kyiv.