Can the United States bring Russia and Ukraine to a stable peace or at least to a ceasefire?
Negotiations to end the war are continuing in Saudi Arabia, with the possibility of a cease-fire appearing tantalizingly close.
Three weeks ago, we decided to mirror those negotiations by conducting a large-scale crisis simulation at the University of Kentucky. Wargaming is an imperfect tool for analyzing reality, but can prove useful for identifying roadblocks to a negotiated agreement.
In this case, our simulated diplomats reached a ceasefire that unfortunately could not hold, resulting in a resumption of the war after a short pause.
Simulation Structure for the Ukraine War
The simulation consisted of six teams, staffed mostly by foreign policy oriented graduate students: Russia, the United States, Ukraine, China, Turkey (in our simulation the host country) and a coalition team of European powers representing the United Kingdom and the European Union.
By luck we were conducting our simulation at the same time that Russia and the United States were having private talks in Riyadh, while all of the other partners conducted public negotiations on television and the internet.
We officially diverged from reality on Saturday, February 15, when instructions to teams were delivered, but of course, everyone associated with the simulation closely tracked developments in the real world.
Team advisors included University of Kentucky faculty, along with regional and issue-area experts such as Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, LTC Amy McGrath (USMC Ret.), and Matthew Duss of the Center for International Policy.
The simulation proceeded in five rounds. Rounds one, two, and four (Adjudication Rounds, so named because judges assessed the likely success of actions) asked the teams to act as national leadership, using all of the tools of international statecraft from diplomacy to intelligence to military action to economic activity.
This allowed teams to influence the terms of the negotiation by changing facts on the ground. Rounds three and five were Negotiation Rounds, notionally separated by two weeks of simulation time, in which the students portrayed members of high level diplomatic teams on site in Ankara.
A Simulated Ceasefire That Could Not Hold
The early hours of the simulation saw efforts by all of the teams to tip the scales in their direction. Russia caused a minor political crisis in North Korea by making excessive military demands upon Pyongyang, which distracted the Chinese. The United States maintained a more or less even-handed posture towards Moscow and Kyiv while at the same time trying to cut Europe and China out of the conversation.
By Friday, hostility between the Ukrainians and Europeans on the one side and the Americans on the other had become evident, as the US and Russia pushed hard to force Ukraine to accept an agreement. The United States placed significant pressure on Ukraine to accept the accord, threatening to withdraw military and financial assistance if the Ukrainian negotiators did not comply.
The European team offered troops for peacekeeping, but internal divisions and a lack of fungible military assets made it difficult for the Europeans to make up for the loss of American support.
Turkey and China largely remained on the sidelines, offering rhetorical support for Ukraine but little of tangible worth. Hard work by a UN mediator late on Friday night helped produce a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine that disengaged the combatants along the line of contact and ended both strategic bombing campaigns.
Unfortunately, that ceasefire broke down in the Saturday morning negotiating session. Reflecting divides in the Kyiv government, a bomb planted by Ukrainian intelligence operatives killed several members of Ukraine’s negotiation team and injured parts of the Russian and American teams.
The Russian team (with tacit cooperation from the Americans) used the attack as an excuse to abrogate the cease-fire and restart the war, with Ukraine largely isolated from everyone except the Europeans.
How Does the Ukraine War End?
A simulation like this can only imperfectly reflect reality. The concerns of graduate student team members are different than those of professional diplomats, and the information available to each varies radically.
Nevertheless, a simulation under sufficiently realistic conditions can illuminate some problems of even a complex peace negotiation. In this case, reality has mirrored the tensions that we saw developing between the American and Ukrainian teams, just as it has mirrored the European scramble for political and military relevance.
While it is true that wargames and simulations can go astray in weird and unexpected ways, the reality of late has shown a disturbing tendency to go off the rails. In particular, it’s unlikely that the Ukrainians will blow up members of their team to stop a deal (although such things have happened in the past).
But two weeks ago, I would have said it was unlikely that the Presidents of Ukraine and the United States would take to insulting each other in public, much less getting into a meltdown-style argument on live television.
Our key lessons learned are this: Russia and the United States can only push so far on their own with respect to reaching a peace agreement. The Europeans can make a contribution, but their influence is limited by political division and military weakness.
The core problem lays in the relationship between Ukraine and the United States, with Washington needing to use all of its tools of influence to push Kyiv to the table. Even after a ceasefire, any resolution to the conflict is fragile and susceptible to wrecking by both Russia and Ukraine. Negotiators in Saudi Arabia have their work cut out for them.
About the Author: Dr. Robert Farley
Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.
