Ukraine’s fate is in the hands of the world’s three superpowers: China, Russia, and the United States. To glimpse Ukraine’s future, we should look at how past superpower conflicts ended.
Throughout the 45-year Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, superpower conflicts were generally indirect, usually covert proxy wars waged by guerrilla groups and freedom fighters. Low-intensity conflicts raged in Latin America, Africa, and Asia without directly involving superpower militaries. Before Ukraine, only two superpower conflicts turned hot: Korea and Vietnam. In each case, direct military involvement by superpowers was eventually resolved through negotiations. Neither conflict ended quickly or cleanly.
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Like Europe, Korea was divided between the USSR and the West at the end of World War II. Russia occupied the North, and the Allies occupied the South. In 1950, North Korean forces, supplied and aided by the Soviets, attacked the South. The U.S. and the United Nations responded with troops, and a three-year-long war began.
As U.S. forces pushed into North Korea, China responded by directly attacking our military. A standoff ensued. Negotiations for a ceasefire began in 1951 among the military leaders of the U.S., China, and North and South Korea. It took two years for an armistice to be declared. The U.N. formally recognized the agreement in 1953. It suspended the fighting but didn’t end the war and called for the eventual voluntary reunification of Korea. Peace talks were held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1954, but went nowhere.
Legally, North and South Korea are still at war. During the 72 years the armistice has held, democratic South Korea has prospered. Its exports, from Hyundais and K-pop to Samsung smartphones, are known worldwide. A vibrant economy allows the country to spend 2.8% of its GDP on defense. U.S. forces still keep the peace, bolstered by a strong South Korean military and backed up by our nuclear deterrent.
Then there is Vietnam.
At WWII’s end, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were French colonies called the Indochinese Union. Hồ Chí Minh, a North Vietnamese Marxist, declared independence from France in 1945. War followed, with China and Russia backing Hồ. After a demoralizing military defeat, France entered peace talks in Switzerland with Russia, China, the U.S., Great Britain, North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
The 1954 Geneva Accords ended French rule and divided North and South Vietnam. Picking up the baton from France, the U.S. sent military advisers to help South Vietnam remain independent. From a handful of advisers, the U.S. military presence grew to more than 500,000 troops in the country. Eventually, 2.7 million U.S. military personnel served in the Vietnam War.
Talks to end that war began secretly in Paris in 1968. Henry Kissinger, then-President Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, negotiated directly with China and North Vietnam’s Lê Đức Thọ to end the war. Negotiations were difficult, and it took until 1973 to reach a peace agreement. Progress was only possible after Kissinger’s secret opening to China, which concluded with Nixon’s groundbreaking visit to Beijing in 1972.
The agreement was fatally flawed. It required the withdrawal of U.S. troops and dismantling of military bases, leaving South Vietnam dependent on U.S. promises of military aid and supplies. America had guaranteed South Vietnam that it would respond with a bombing campaign if the North attacked in violation of the agreement.
Kissinger and Thọ shared the Nobel Peace Prize (Thọ refused the award), but Congress refused to appropriate the pledged aid and barred further U.S. military action. With no public support for further engagement with Vietnam, South Vietnam was left defenseless. Hanoi invaded in 1975 despite its treaty pledge to pursue reunification of North and South “through peaceful means.” Saigon swiftly fell.
Those two scenarios are potential outcomes for Ukraine’s future. But there is a third scenario: the Afghanistan model.
In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan to prop up an unpopular Marxist government in Kabul. Afghan resistance movements were already fighting the Kabul regime, so Soviet occupation forces became the new target. With covert aid from the U.S., Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States, the Afghan resistance became formidable. China, having split from its alliance with the Soviets in the mid-1960s, supplied many weapons.
A succession of Soviet leaders became bogged down in Afghanistan. By 1989, Moscow’s communist party elite were as frustrated as the public with the war. USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev pulled out Russia’s troops in 1989. I was in Pakistan when the Russians withdrew. A critical ingredient in forcing the Soviets out was the U.S. providing advanced anti-aircraft shoulder-fired missiles to the Afghans.
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President Donald Trump is wise to try carrots and sticks to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to lay down arms. His initial approach has been mainly carrots. But the opening round of talks is just that: a beginning. The road ahead will require patience, a rare commodity at a time when we have all become conditioned by technology to expect instantaneous results.
Trump should temper expectations for quick results. If Putin refuses to negotiate acceptable terms, he should also be ready to help Kyiv continue the fight until Russia’s leadership and elites tire of the cost and withdraw to the pre-2014 borders. Dogged resistance drove two superpowers from Afghanistan. Why not Ukraine, too?
John B. Roberts II served in President Ronald Reagan’s White House and was an international political strategist and executive producer of The McLaughlin Group. He worked extensively in Ukraine and the former USSR and coauthored Freeing Tibet: 50 Years of Struggle, Resilience, and Hope. His website is www.jbrobertsauthor.com.