The United North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has
survived more than a hundred days of brutal fighting. But cracks have recently
emerged on both the diplomatic and domestic fronts, along with talk of a
negotiated settlement of the war on terms most Ukrainians now reject.
Rarely discussed in this new
phase, hidden among the cracks, looms a legitimate, realistic concern: what
happens when and if Ukraine and the United States differ on what constitutes an
acceptable outcome to the war? Now is not the time to talk of concessions
Ukraine may one day choose to make.
But is it not too early to
consider what the United States should do if, as now seems possible, Ukraine
demands total Russian withdrawal and the U.S. is willing to accept a partial
withdrawal?
Meanwhile, the war continues, with no end in sight. Among diplomats,
however, things have begun to stir, kicked off by a Jovian warning from
former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger that the war could widen if
negotiations between Ukraine and Russia do not begin “in the next two months,”
based, he said, “ideally” on a return to an undefined “status quo ante.”
Kissinger’s warning triggered
an angry rebuttal from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said Kissinger
had 1938 on his calendar. A Ukrainian parliamentarian added it was
“truly shameful” that Kissinger could recommend “giving up on part of the
sovereign territory” of Ukraine as a “way to peace.”
In the face of barbaric
Russian assaults and maximalist demands, the Ukrainian position on negotiations
seems to have hardened.
Now, many officials argue,
Russia would have to withdraw to its February 2014, pre-Crimea annexation
border with Ukraine, not the February 2022 de facto border from which Russia
launched its current attack. Is this Ukraine’s ultimate demand? Or a
negotiating position? Either way, it prompted a rush of Western concern. French
President Emmanuel Macron cautioned Kyiv that “we must not humiliate
Russia.”
While U.S. President Joe Biden
and other NATO leaders have repeatedly stressed they will not impose
negotiating terms on Ukraine, still Biden felt the need to insist on a “negotiated
end to the conflict,” hinting clearly the U.S. preference for a compromise
solution to the war. In addition, Italy laid out a four-point peace plan with
the underlying message that the war end not with victory over Vladimir Putin’s
Russia but with a negotiated solution acceptable to both sides.
