No Peace for Ukraine: History is filled with long wars: the Thirty Years War, the Hundred Years War, and a Cold War that lasted a half-century.
Wars they may be, but that doesn’t mean there was continuous warfare. The Napoleonic Wars saw sporadic wars between France and hostile coalitions, interspersed by periods of uneasy peace such as the Treaty of Amiens between Britain and France in 1802. Israel has fought multiple wars with Arab states since 1948, and still has no more than an armistice with Lebanon and Syria. Yet the battlefield phases of the Arab-Israeli conflict – where armies engage in battle — have tended to last no more than a few weeks.
The Real Ukraine Challenge: Peace Won’t Be Easy
So when leaders such as Trump and Putin speak of “peace” and “ceasefire” in Ukraine, are they really talking about peace?
The problem is that peace doesn’t always mean the violence has ended. In some cases, former enemies can indeed stop fighting even if they don’t become friends. For example, Israel and Egypt have had a frosty peace since the 1978 Camp David Accords, with limited trade and tourism.
But that’s still an improvement. The armed forces of the two nations have not engaged in combat, nor are Israel and Egypt sponsoring terrorist groups and other means to subvert the security of the other.
The road to Camp David required a seismic change in thinking for Egypt in particular, which for decades had refused to accept the existence of the Jewish state. For Israel, the peace treaty meant having sufficient trust – not an easy thing for Israelis — to relinquish the Sinai as a buffer against the former dominant power in the Arab coalition against Israel. Yet despite all the doubts, peace has endured between two once-bitter enemies.
History Says Be Warry
In that sense, a negotiated, lasting peace in Ukraine under current conditions is unlikely. Putin – or any like-minded successors – would have to accept the existence of an independent Ukraine. If Moscow’s goal in invading Ukraine was to ensure that Ukraine never joined NATO, or to forcibly incorporate Ukraine into a reborn Soviet empire, then a peace that would be acceptable to Ukraine and its Western allies would be unbearable.
In addition, even if Putin proclaims victory, questions will inevitably arise about whether annexing Crimea and a chunk of Eastern Europe was worth a million casualties. For its part, there are bound to revanchist sentiments in Ukraine to recover territories seized by Russia. Under those conditions, a peace along the lines of post-1945 Western Europe – where heavily fortified national borders have been erased – seems a distant dream.
Ceasefire Talk?
What about the permanent cease-fire demanded by Trump?
Such an arrangement could resemble the ceasefire between India and Pakistan over Kashmir since 1949. But Kashmir has been the scene of numerous border clashes, including air battles between Indian and Pakistani jets, that have brought . two nuclear-armed powers to the brink of war. On the Golan Heights, a UN-monitored ceasefire didn’t Israel from repeatedly launching air strikes into Syria to stop the flow of Iranian arms through Syrian territory to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
If Russia is still bent on the extinction of Ukraine as an independent nation, there are numerous ways that it can attack Ukraine short of abrogating a ceasefire. Moscow can sponsor insurgent and terrorist groups inside Ukraine, “accidentally” fire at Ukrainian troops, or strike Ukrainian cities in response to alleged border violations.
Russian Msta Artillery. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
By themselves, a peace treaty or ceasefire agreement are no more than scraps of paper. Nations may adhere to them from mutual exhaustion, as with Israel and Egypt. Or, because one side becomes exhausted, as America did in Vietnam. Yet while Ukraine is tired, its people are still determined to resist Russia, or some stronger power enforces the rules, as the U.S. did in Western Europe after World War II. In theory, a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine could accomplish this – if only Europe had the military resources and political will to potentially fight Russia.
For now, it appears that any cessation of hostilities between Ukraine and Russia would be no more than a truce while both sides rest and rearm for the next round.
Europe – and America, depending on the mood of the Trump administration – should be prepared to keep supplying Ukraine.
About the Author: Michael Peck
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Business Insider, Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
