Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player...

The most important piece of history of the ongoing war in Ukraine was perhaps written by Barry Posen in February 2025, exactly three years from the start of the conflict. In “Putin's Preventive War: The 2022 Invasion of Ukraine”, Posen articulates the structural causes of the conflict and cautions against undue optimism. It is worthy advice, and one that I second. In the recent podcast episode, I mentioned why I am not very optimistic about the ongoing peace process, and why I think this might only lead to disappointment. 

Consider that there need to be three things for a peace process to succeed. First, both sides must feel that they are incapable of reversing the gains of the other side. Second, both sides must make a compromise, and the best compromise would leave both sides furious and disappointed. Third, the external agents and parties must appeal to their best instincts and try to stop the ongoing carnage. The current peace talks show that none of those three conditions are satisfied. 

None of the variables currently match. There is no evidence that either Russian or Ukrainian strategists believe that they want a negotiated settlement, contrary to public polls in Ukraine. (The much-ballyhooed polls are practically meaningless in a country where normal political processes have been suspended.) Both sides are under the impression that they can prevail in a conflict and attrition of arms. On top of that, President Volodymyr Zelensky thinks he can outlast Trump and the Republicans, at least two more years. While the Russians are technically winning in a battlefield, it’s not in a scale or scope fast enough to coerce a rapid collapse of Ukrainian arms.

Consider that the Russian Pokrovsk campaign started in July last year: not a pace of advancement one can consider decisive. Russia is also fighting the combined GDP of Europe and America, and to prevail over that is a tall order. Second, both the Ukrainians and the Russians have a grudge, and it appears the Europeans want to continue the conflict or at least guide the Trump admin towards a war aim where the conflict is continued in some form. 

At the time of writing, the Russians have already vetoed the idea of peacekeepers from any NATO country, which includes the major powers such as Germany, Turkey, France, and Britain. I am unsure if anyone is proposing “neutral” peacekeepers but from countries which have heft, such as India and China, but if President Donald Trump’s peace overtures bank on a contingent of troops from the two countries he is currently in a trade war with, it would be one of history’s ironies indeed.

Consider the worst-case scenario. The war aim of the U.S. is extracting itself from this conflict. Forget public opinion—it’s incoherent anyway. The strategic concern is that we are spending too much in foreign aid, and emptying the stockpiles needed for the time when the real hammer blow lands in the Far East. The war aim of Ukraine is reconquest. The war aim of Russia is conquest and permanent neutering of the central state in Ukraine. The war aims of Europe, while not united, are generally to punish Vladimir Putin. These are not compatible. 

The only way out of this, from the American vantage, is to either double down in this war of attrition or walk away. Coerce Ukraine as we did Armenia to accept a genuine hegemonic peace—a Yalta 2.0, if you will. Regardless of whether we would actually do it, we should at least mention to Ukraine that this is their last chance to agree to this equilibrium or risk losing all American support. The tested alternative, coercing Russia for over three years, failed due to Russian heft and size and our (very justified) unwillingness to risk a Third World War over the Donbas. My advice to the Trump administration would be to lawyer up, draft an agreement, bring the parties to the table, and give an ultimatum that this is it. Remember what the Norwegians did to the Sri Lankan peace process, when the Tamils proved too intransigent? They walked away (by Sri Lanka’s request), letting Sri Lanka essentially destroy the Tamil enclave without any adherence to the laws of war. 

I also think, with my colleague Jude Russo, that that is unlikely simply because we have seen no such realism from the administration so far, despite the principal’s interest in earning a Nobel prize. We are also not completely amoral. And this isn’t 1815, with only a handful of monarchs deciding the fate of a continent. Most importantly, neither side wants peace or compromise, and it will be futile for Trump to spend his political capital to try to prop up an unsteady scaffolding.