Thoughts on a Ukraine-Russia Peace Treaty
There is a lot of talk now about what a Ukraine-Russia peace deal should look like. While, I suspect there is still plenty of fighting ahead, Ukraine and NATO need a clear vision of what a peace treaty will entail to guide conditions on the ground to support it. Some voices say we need to give Putin and Russia a face-saving exit from this debacle, while others say we cannot appease Russia.
The peace treaties from WWI and WWII can and should inform any thoughts on a peace treaty. The Treaty of Versailles, ending WWI was extremely punitive and set the conditions for Hitler’s rise to power and WWII. In WWII, while the Allies demanded and received unconditional surrender, they then engaged the Marshall Plan and helped to rebuild their former foes. Our leaders’ foresight and practicality reconstructed Germany and Japan and turned the former adversaries into allies.
While there are many factors to consider in a peace treaty, three stand out large.
Where will we draw the borders? The original pre-2014 borders? The borders before this war started on the borders demarcated by the line of contact when the peace treaty is enacted? The answer to this question should guide operations.
What will the World Court or some other body do to prosecute war criminals? In WWII, senior members of the Japanese and German military and government were tried and executed for war crimes. Since Germany and Japan surrendered unconditionally and the Allied occupied them, the trials were easy conduct. Now, before getting into the weeds on how to handle war crimes, let me state categorically that starting the war was a war crime. I covered this concept in Thoughts on Ukraine Part 4: Hold the Kleptocrats Responsible. By justum bellum, Russian started a War of Aggression which is a war crime. By jus ad bellum, their attacks on civilians are also war crimes. These crimes are documented by video and eye witness accounts. There is little doubt about them.
Finally, what reparations, if any, should Russia be forced to pay? How would the World Court or NATO even enforce any judgments for reparations? In theory, at least, the seizure of kleptocrat assets, such as the recent yacht seizure, could at least start on reparations. As I discussed in Hold the Kleptocrats Responsible, this was heavily based on kleptocracy and enriching Putin and his cronies.
If Ukraine seeks the maximum case in these three areas, plenty of long, hard fighting is a head. The odds of restoring pre-2014 borders are remote without some compelling changes in the current line of contact.
The other factor to consider is what happens outside of Ukraine if Russia as a result of a peace treaty? If the Russian army continues to lose manpower, equipment, and ammunition in a fruitless assault on Ukraine, what happens in Siberia? Can Russian hold on to Siberia in the face of aggressive Chinese movement into the region?
Most of Russia’s resources are in Siberia, but the Russian population there is dwindling and the Chinese are moving in. The Chinese own 99% of a water facility on Lake Baikal and are even setting up a tourism enterprise near it. China also has considerable operations in Novosibirsk and Irkutsk. Asia news reported, “China imports the energy resources it increasingly needs from Russia. In some way, Beijing extends its systems of control and management of the economy and public life to its Russian neighbor.” Perhaps the Chinese will not be satisfied with merely controlling key assets in Siberia.
What do we want the world to look like post-conflict? I hope that American and European strategists are considering this question and working to shape the current operations in Ukraine to achieve this vision. If they are, they seem keep their concept close to the belt. With a $40 billion investment package just approved by Congress, how will we invest it? I think that is a key consideration. It is an investment in a post-conflict future.
Some thoughts for consideration to shape the peace:
- A peace treaty needs to be firm, but fair. On the lines of WWII rather than WWI.
- What do we want US/NATO-Russia relations to look like? China is far more of a threat to Russia and the west. How do we work with Russia to understand that?
- Should Russia keep the territory they took from Ukraine in 2014? If so, how much is the west willing to risk and invest to force Russia out of Ukrainian territory.
- This war is against the Russian kleptocrats and not the Russian people and state.
Truth Social: @AFNN_USA
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/afnnusa
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/2_-GAzcXmIRjODNh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AfnnUsa
GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/AFNN_USA
CloutHub: AFNN_USA
Peace treaties are worthless unless they can be enforced. Who is going to enforce one between Russia and Ukraine, without having to go to proxy wars for the next several decades?
I’ve been saying that I expected China to just move on in, in Siberia, for some time. I didn’t know they already had done that, but that’s just me behind the curve. It is a sign of weakness inside the Kremlin, more so than anything else, and I expected China to take advantage. The question then becomes, how does a treaty fix that problem, when no one is really capable of projecting so much power to overcome that, without another world war?
I’m not very good on keeping up with geopolitics, but I have to question the validity of a treaty that has nothing to back it up and enforce. The ones we have entered into, as in WWII, we were the guarantors, and to a good degree, they held. I’m not so sure we live in that world, anymore, where the fences are still so far apart. I doubt the day will come that something could be entered into, with China or Russia, until they either fall together or one at a time.
We are already in the war between Ukraine and Russia, so we will be part of the ending of that mess, one way or the other. I just don’t know how we can enter into a treaty with anyone we should never trust.
It needs to be discussed, though, and you pose good questions.
Mark, you are right a peace treaty that cannot be enforced is worthless. Still, we need to try. We’ve invested a great deal in this conflict and the results will change the strategic environment. In a perfect world, there is a regime change in Russia and Russia comes to its senses and sees China as the real threat. Our strategy should be to set the conditions to make this possible…before Russia becomes a failed state with nuclear weapons.
I’ve been hearing rumblings that senior GRU are looking for the exits… the rumor is that if Vlad looks funny at the Easy Button, well, he may swiftly join a long line of Russian leaders broken only by Khrushchev, Gorby and Yeltsin that died in office, frequently under “rather dubious conditions.”
I suspect a lot of political managers are hoping for an internal regime change. But what happens if the new regime is the same as the current one with a few new faces? What happens if it is worse? I wonder whether we are shaping events or being shaped by them.
Excellent point, going back to the reason we were understandably reluctant to remove Saddam however justified. If the KGB or the GRU spearhead… well, like the Stones sang, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!”
Strategy & Tactics Quarterly had an interesting special a few years back about the Cold War NATO/WarPac playbooks for “Judgment Day,” and one of the articles’ authors made a very good case that Stalin was put down because the Politburo started to see him as a rabid dog whose eagerness to push the Big Red Button would bring blowback on them when he saw the cooked books in their kleptocracy of the day. So as much as the kleptocratic class are the problem, they’re an endemic part of Russian culture and may have to be worked with for a time, much as we worked with the strongman gov’s of Park and Chiang against the NoKos and ChiComs to buy time for Western representative-gov ideas to take root and build better.
I’m in favor of trying anything, but the first thing to consider is the last thing that will happen. With Biden in the White House, and that little appeaser for SecState Blinken, I would hope that, somehow, someone else tries to marshall in that new Marshall plan, because Biden and friends will make any treaty that gets signed the most useless document.
Putin has already demonstrated his belligerence towards NATO, and will continue to be that way, treaty or not. He will not sign something he thinks will bind him, and he would even toss it in the trash can, the next time he gets out of bed.
I’m all for a treaty, especially if it can end a useless war, but if the US is involved in the process, it won’t happen, or be good except for the other side. Look at that stupid Iran nuclear deal. Who in their right mind would do that, but a Democrat?
It’s the players I’m concerned with, not what you wrote. We should always strive for peace.
Mark, all good points. The war will not end without some form of peace agreement. Whether that agreement is effective or not; whether it enables US policy and objectives or not; whether it creates a more stable environment or not depends on the political managers and the military managers that enable them in situations such as this.
The track record over the last 70 years is not encouraging…
It also depends on what his motivations were, for this invasion.
Putin already took Crimea, a piece of ground that wasn’t his to take. I would like to see that problem rectified, if I was in the position to negotiate anything, but that will likely have to be fought to be regained, by Ukraine. Crimea wasn’t even adjacent to any Russian land, and it covers most of the sea ports.
Since it is mainly a proxy war, between us and the Russians, and we are feeding the Ukraine military, with the current administration in charge in the US, the best option, I think, is just to keep feeding the beast, and help Zelensky kick them out of Ukraine, and take back Crimea. Zelensky has made attempts at cease fires, with no response from Russia. Ukraine’s history has been bloody, since before Catherine the Great, so, if anything, and our opportunities are very limited, let them fight it out, deplete Russia’s military reserves, and let Russia self destruct. If Putin is that stupid, knowing China will take all of Eastern Russia in a heart beat, well tough.
Any agreement struck by the hands of the Biden administration will be disastrous, for Ukraine, and the US, one way or another.
The example I rely on, for that statement, is look at how the Biden administration has wrecked what domestic policy Trump had. I expect no better for his foreign policy. NATO needs to be in charge of any peacekeeping ventures, or treaties. The problem with NATO is that they as likely to cut off their own noses despite their faces, like a Biden would.
That leaves who, to negotiate any treaty, and for what?
My attitude is really skewed against doing anything, because of one), the fool we currently have as a president, two), kinda along the same lines as the first, what was Biden thinking by trying to start this war(They knew this was going to happen, Trump knew it would)? I think Biden would actually love to see Ukraine lose and be another flattened piece of ground conquered, once again, by Russia, because of all the skeletons Ukraine has hidden for the Biden family, so I sure wouldn’t want that fool Biden negotiating anything on my behalf.
The only fair way to settle this dispute is to let the two parties keep fighting until one or the other wins. Aid Ukraine with military armament to give Ukraine an edge. They are fighters.
If Biden drops the ball, that will be time for the overdue civil war we are facing, because nothing can go forward for our own country until that fool and his administration is out of power. I think we have been trapped, because of the stolen election, with some real bad options, so whoever is really in charge, right here, at home, can deplete everything we enjoy, take us down a few notches, meaning kill our country, and this Ukraine mess is the perfect opportunity to do just that. It takes an evil ideology to use another country as pawns in his war to destroy the US, but I think that is exactly what this is. You just can’t un-start a war that you started. Biden is behind the entire mess, and our only option is to fund that damned dog of war in Ukraine, until Biden is dealt with, and I don’t care how that foll gets removed.
I’ll bet that bastard Biden, when he pardoned the Thanksgiving turkeys, had them killed the next day. Is he the kind of person anyone would want making a treaty?
I agree with your article, Jeffrey. The problem is that fool of an ideologue we have who stole the White House. Imagine having thew Enemy of the state running the state. That’s our problem, and it is in the way of anything good happening in Ukraine.
Mark, some good points.
Regarding Siberia, while I understand you on emotional basis, I’d hate to see what China will do if they control all of those resources. Historically, though not now, American policy was guided by pragmatism. We need to get some of that back into both our domestic and foreign policy. Not now, I’m not even sure we have policies–just a horrid desire to fundamentally change America and bring down. I suspect Chinese influence has more than a little to do with this attitude and agenda. The last thing we need is to see China grow stronger from this war. We need some clear, pragmatice, clear leaders right now. I certainly hope we don’t need a civil war to get them.
I’d hate to see China take that land and its resources, also, but practically speaking, and the way China has acted in the South China Sea, it is the only thing China can successfully take by force, and it would be easier to do than try to take, and get beat by Taiwan. Their military is primarily geared for a regional land invasion, and if anything is an incentive, it is oil.
I don’t want a civil war, but what happens when two political parties start out as fighting each other, then form a kind of alliance and go against the wishes of the people who put them there. I think it is inevitable. That, or like what happened in several post Soviet countries did, during the break up of the Warsaw Pact. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and others adopted a peaceful, and sometimes not sop peaceful adaptation of ignoring the soviet powers and went their own way, as underground societies. I’m not sure I’m using the right descriptor, but they decided they were going to survive, no matter what, until the established powers failed of their own weight.
This is something that might point better to what I refer.
https://rumble.com/vvybmz-the-parallel-society-vs-totalitarianism-how-to-create-a-free-world.html
That might be one way we survive the totalitarians. One way or another, something is going to have to give. The same applies with the mess Putin made.
I’m enjoying this, Jeffrey. We’re both seeking solutions.