One of the current stumbling blocks on the rocky road to peace between Russia and Ukraine is that Vladimir Putin doesn’t want a cease-fire as a condition of negotiating. That’s unfortunate on humanitarian grounds: If you think there might be peace soon, it’s pretty barbarous to send men to their deaths in the interim. We rightly see it now as shocking that more than a few generals and officers in the First World War kept ordering their men to fight all the way to the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, even when they knew an armistice had already been agreed upon that would end the war permanently. We find it a befuddling anachronism that the Battle of New Orleans was fought in a war that had already ended, but due to slow trans-oceanic communications, the combatants didn’t know that. Then again, wars that are fought to a lasting peace have rarely been concluded by first arranging a formal cease-fire. Even the de facto cease-fire that prevailed in the 23 months between Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris that concluded the American Revolution was a period of occasional, desultory combat — and the British didn’t abandon their occupation of New York City the whole time.
Expecting Putin to agree to a cease-fire as a show of goodwill is silly. Goodwill is not Putin’s strong suit, and peace is not a process, it’s an agreement. There are only two kinds of deal in this world: a final and complete deal, or no deal. If a deal can be reached with Putin, it’s not because he is a man who desires peace, but because the deal serves his interests more than does a continuation of war. There’s no second reason why he would make peace.
Our editorial notes that “it is hard to see what else [besides more Western sanctions] will persuade Putin to agree to serious peace negotiations, if there can be such a thing in the absence of a cease-fire. Without one, Putin is free to continue gnawing away at Ukraine, with no obvious incentive to stop.” While I agree with most of the editorial, I have to register a bit of an objection here. Demanding that Putin agree to a cease-fire, when he is opposing one, makes our side look weak. Yes, Putin can continue to make gains on the battlefield — but he can also continue to suffer losses. That’s how war is, unless one side is clearly winning. That’s why Israel, while willing on occasion to agree to cease-fires, has not always heeded demands for them: because the Israelis have been winning, and letting Hamas pause to entrench, catch its breath, or stave off further losses is against Israel’s interests. If Putin is refusing to agree to a cease-fire, it’s for one of three reasons: he’s winning, he thinks he’s winning, or he wants us to think he’s winning. In any of those situations, once we’ve broached the matter and his position is clear, Ukraine and its allies may as well drop the point and either find a deal that works for both sides, or accept that the war will continue.