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A Resolution to the Ukraine Problem
Have you ever seen a freight train fly? That is the image that keeps coming into my head when I consider the situation Russia is in. Russia is weighed down by alcoholism, a lack of development, out-of-date infrastructure, an economy on the brink and a rapidly aging population. That was before the war. Today, with the exodus of the young professionals who had the sense to escape early on and the deaths of so many who did not, everything is worse. In exchange for a slice of Ukrainian territory, they have sacrificed even more of their future.
As a sort of twisted insight into this reality, a recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the economic benefits poor regions have seen — due to cash payments for those who have been killed in battle. A 35-year-old man can be expected to earn more for his family, dead on the battlefield, than he would have over 25 years of working, assuming he had a full-time job. In reading the article, I detected a tone of near-celebration among the women left behind. They are buying apartments and cars — and commemorative plaques to the men who paid for it all with their lives. There’s a problem with this zoomed-in economic perspective. On the battlefield that 35-year-old man added nothing to the Russian economy. Because of those losses, the net present value of the Russian state is plummeting.
They are like a train rushing along a track that heads straight into a mountain. They are getting heavier and heavier as they go. And they are hoping, somehow, to gain enough speed to take off.
It isn’t going to happen.
None of this means Russia can’t “win the war.” Ukraine is also suffering. Ukraine has nowhere near the manpower and the Ukrainians, after the history of the early 1990s promises, can’t trust any security guarantee offered by the United States or Europe. Of course, given the track record of Russia in Moldova, Georgia, Chechnya and elsewhere, the Ukrainians also have zero trust in any agreements signed by the Russian State. As Darth Putin puts it so succinctly: the Warsaw Pact is “the only modern mutual defense alliance in history to repeatedly attack itself.”
Given all the above, what kind of off-ramp can there possibly be? Do these states keep throwing lives at each other until their respective trains crash headlong into the mountain? Does Russia expand its campaign of sabotage against the West, hoping to draw NATO troops in so they have the honor of at least losing to what they consider a peer? Do they start a nuclear conflict, unwilling to face the prospect that everything has truly and irredeemably gone sideways? Do they invite the Chinese into their war, capturing Ukraine but surrendering their own independence in the process?
None of these possibilities seem the least bit hopeful. As much as Trump has talked about phone calls bringing an end to the war, it seems tremendously unlikely. Russia won’t surrender what they’ve captured, Ukraine won’t trust Russia, and NATO soldiers won’t stand at the front. What hope can there possibly be for a ceasefire, much less a lasting peace?
In reality, hope abounds so long as you know where to look for it.
Ukraine won’t agree to a ceasefire because they can’t trust Russia. But what if they don’t need to trust Russia? What if a ceasefire, even one that leaves Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory and cedes conquered territory in Kursk, is actually a path to Ukrainian security and long-term independence?
It is critical to remember that a ceasefire is not a ceasewar. A ceasefire is simply an opportunity for both sides in a conflict to regroup and redouble their capacity to fight the next round of war. Israel and Hezbollah had a ceasefire in 2006. Until recently, it looked as if Hezbollah ‘won the ceasefire’ by building up what seemed to be an overwhelming rocket capacity in the south of Lebanon. In fact, much more quietly, Israel was the winner of that round of non-fighting. In the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, if there is a ceasefire and Russia rebuilds its capacity faster than Ukraine does, then there will be another round of warfare within a year or two. Putin’s legitimacy rests on it. The ceasefire will have served Russian purposes and extended their warfighting capacity. On the other hand, if there is a ceasefire and Ukraine outgrows and outbuilds Russia then the ceasefire will be continually extended until the present Russian government and foreign policies are abandoned.
It is this concept that serves as the key to enabling Ukrainian security under the Trump administration and beyond.
NATO countries, given rising global threats, need to raise their defense expenditures, possibly by as much as 1% of GDP. Due to their provision to Ukraine, NATO members have severe shortages of critical armaments. Among the items they do have, many are outdated in the context of 21st-century warfare (the best in European and American equipment barely made a dent in the great offensive of the summer of 2023). Some of the needed defense spending will go to top-line weapons systems like fighter jets and ships. However, significant spending is needed in more mundane areas: ballistic missiles, artillery shells, mortars, drones, body armor, armored vehicles, howitzers, etc…
For its part, Ukraine has historically been a major manufacturer of weapons. Since the 2022 re-invasion, they have re-upped their capacity and are continuing to expand it. They are, in some areas, producing among the most advanced and battle-tested war-fighting technology in the world.
The result is a match made on Earth.
In order to help address NATO’s own issues, NATO members could commit to spending 0.1% of their GDP on purchasing Ukrainian arms. The combined GDP of NATO is 46 trillion dollars, so this is 46 billion dollars — or almost exactly 1/4 of the Ukrainian GDP. Just as the rest of the world can buy Ukrainian grain, vodka and software services, the Western world would be encouraged to buy Ukrainian arms.
NATO members could purchase whatever they want from whichever Ukrainian manufacturers they want, including low-cost drones, discount howitzers… Due to Western regulations, Western quality and purchasing requirements would apply, raising the quality of the Ukrainian industry as a whole. If Ukrainian companies are successful in the competition for these arms dollars, they could expect to sell ever more into NATO stockpiles.
The result would be a rearming of NATO, massive growth in the Ukrainian arms industry, a strengthened bulwark against Russian aggression and the underwriting of the rebirth of the Ukrainian economy — all without the corrupting influence of aid dollars or the need to trust security guarantees that never stand up in the face of Realpolitik.
Ukraine is often referred to as Europe’s breadbasket. Perhaps it would benefit everybody (except Vladimir Putin himself) if Ukraine became the armory as well.
Published in Foreign Policy
This provides a good brief overview of the situation:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/ukraine-nuclear-weapons-newly-declassified-documents-russia-putin-war.html
What is relevant is not whether Ukraine should have done the deal, it is whether the west honored it’s guarantees of Ukrainian security having done the deal. By the way, the very desire for protection from Russia shows just how much those under the Russian thumb enjoy their position.
And what does the fact that Belarus and Kazakhstan let the Russians remove the nukes stationed there without any contingent requests for security assurances show?
EDITED TO ADD:
Any thoughts regarding the facts/stats I’ve shared so far in counterpoint to various assertions you made regarding Russia’s state of affairs in the first paragraph of your OP?
Additionally, the argument that Ukraine couldn’t maintain the 1,700 nuclear bombs is fallacious-it only needed to maintain a dozen or so to be a very credible deterrent. The article even states that Ukraine could fire the shorter range missiles-and Moscow & St Petersburg don’t require ICBMs to hit-not to mention what a short range nuke would have done to the 30 km long stalled convoy north of Kyiv in March 2020- or the staging bases located just over the border.
Some A-10s and C-130s could have done that without going nuclear. And they did, regarding the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Evidently we should have been selling A-10s and C-130s to Ukraine.
In a land war I would bet on Russia to take Monaco.
The West (US and UK) agreed not to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine, which is far short of a security guarantee. People always misremember the details of this handshake agreement between leaders.
Interesting and 100% on-brand for Ukraine to take a cash payment to give the nukes.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with what GPentelie was trying to demonstrate. He was defending Russia against the criticism that its economy has been weakened by the war (or that it is weak, generally).
What does “violate the sovereignty of Ukraine” mean? Does it mean that the US and UK are not allowed to send troops to Ukraine to help defend them against being annihilated by an invading army, even if they ask for help?
You forgot that a certain other country also agreed not to violet Ukraine’s sovereignty….it wasn’t a handshake-it was a signed agreement involving the USA, UK and … and oh yes, Russia. The major points- all violated by Russia:
-Respect the signatory’s (ie Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan) independence and sovereignty in the existing borders (ie 1994- including Crimea & the Donbas)
-Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum…
-Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty…
Now, even Bill Clinton thinks it was a mistake:
https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2023/0404/1374162-clinton-ukraine
while it was true the memorandum didn’t stipulate what violating the agreement would result in, it is obvious that Ukraine was led to believe the West would enforce the agreement- otherwise why would they agree to give up their trump card?
BTW Russia also signed the Russia-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty in 1997:
“recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, and respect for territorial integrity and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other. The treaty prevents Ukraine and Russia from invading one another’s country respectively, and declaring war”…HAHAHA!
I’m not an expert, but I think MiMac is right in #101.
I feel badly for Ukrainians, but that is a garbage country in terms of corruption and nobody thought any of this through enough.
I read an article about it that it had the highest corruption per GDP of any country in the world, for whatever that means.
Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are nothing but mafias with militaries.
Ukrainian corruption is constantly bandied about, particularly by pro-Russian sources, but:
1)Ukraine is ranked 104th in corruption out of 180 (better than Russia- it is 141st)
2)Ukraine has been consistently improving its score since there Maidan Revolution- many pro-Russian sources claim that was a corrupt coup- but it was quite the opposite. And the Zelensky administration & the war has furthered that trend.
NB-a higher number is less corruption
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023/index/nzl
Every time I have looked up Ukraine on lists of corruption indices, they always come out a little above average compared to the rest of the countries in the world (meaning a little more corrupt than average). If you think it is a garbage country, then so are about half of all countries. I think the whole corruption thing has been over-hyped by people looking for an excuse to let Ukraine die. Meanwhile, every single country bordering Ukraine comes out higher on the corruption indices, with Russia scoring the worst, often in the top dozen in the world.
Corruption per Gross Domestic Product – now that sounds like a novel way of measuring things. I can’t even imagine how that works. Kind of like “Socialism per Agricultural Exports.”
In Ukraine, people can speak out against corruption when they see it and raise a public fuss that results in action. It may not be easy for everyone to do so; in fact, some people hint that it is difficult. It can be difficult here in the U.S., too. But in Russia, speaking out against corruption in any effective way gets you multiple prison sentences and/or assassination.
I suggest you revisit my many comments, in which I counter specific assertions regarding various socio-economic aspects of Russia that Mr. Knox made in the first paragraph of the OP by providing illuminating comparisons to, for instance, other countries’ per capita alcohol consumption, median age trajectories, fertility rates, percent of GDP devoted to education, secondary school level education performance, etc., etc., etc.. That way, you will substantially improve your chances of NO LONGER misrepresenting/mischaracterizing my argument.
You guys are all smart smarter than me. I would prefer to save Ukraine.
You said it right there – “per capita.” But in your comment and others I referenced, you switched to “absolute numbers” rather than per capita to make Russia look way better than it really is.
Let me make it easier for you to correct the error of your ways:
See my comments #13, #34, and # 49.
#49- where you think Russia having the 2nd highest suicide rate (in the graphic you choose) is a good thing-since it is “half way between South Korea and Japan” ? BTW the more recent data on that website has Russia with a higher suicide rate than South Korea. It appears that Russia has the highest suicide rate for any non-3rd world country in the wikipedia 2019 list and the world in data website (Lithuania is debatable-it depends on the methodology).
A further sign of a sick society- aggravated by a absolutely evil regime running it…
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-death-rates?tab=chart&country=RUS~USA~LTU~KOR
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-death-rates?tab=chart&country=RUS~USA~LTU~KOR
Yes, and I noticed you omitted comment #33, the main one I was talking about.
My pointing out, in that particular comment, Russia’s rise in the world GDP rankings from #9 to #5 is a counterpoint to the argument that the country is hurtling (like a “freight train”, as the OP put it) toward impending economic doom, not an argument that its average citizen is better off than the average resident of Monaco.
Clear now?
Russia is economically backwards compared to most Western countries. No amount of spin is going to change that. Your demeaning sarcasm toward others and playing the victim card by being offended when someone suggests that certain people on the right support Putin is not going to change that, either.
Or how many Ukranians were a member of the Soviet army and have knowledge of how to disarm those protections?
Now that’s an assessment that at least resembles reality. As opposed to the one expressed in the very first paragraph of this thread’s OP, which doesn’t:
“Have you ever seen a freight train fly? That is the image that keeps coming into my head when I consider the situation Russia is in. Russia is weighed down by alcoholism, a lack of development, out-of-date infrastructure, an economy on the brink and a rapidly aging population. That was before the war. …“
I think many other commentators have done a fine job refuting your points.
Also, you misconstrued the importance of Russia’s internal illnesses to the rest of the article. Those illnesses are critical in illustrating why Russia can’t stop. They only seem able to burn more and more in pursuit of their imperialist fantasies. It is those fantasies, engaged in by a damaged society, that makes the strengthening of Ukraine critical. But whatever the reasons, Russia is constantly trying to undermine its neighbors in the name of some sort of buffering. Everybody from Hungary to numerous conquered minorities in the Far East have suffered from the “Russian Bear Hug.” They all, including Ukraine, need protection from this from this hug. Making Ukraine into a major source of arms is a way to provide that protection to Ukraine, and probably every member of the NATO block.
Of course, as various stats suggest, Russia isn’t the world’s only damaged society. There are damaged societies in the West and Africa and Asia. But Russia is in a special class of really dangerous damaged societies.
Russia is a rabid bear and it has to be either trained (which seems impossible) or caged.
The question was about “the west” or I would have mentioned Russia. Any agreement signed and not ratified as a treaty is a hand-shake agreement.
We should assume the knowledge was compartmentalized, which might prevent direct use of the weapon. However, Ukraine could surely have repurposed or parted it the weapons. It is hard to guess what Ukraine might have done in 20 years.
The West spent 20 years trying to “cage” feather-weights Afghanistan and Iraq. How did that work out?
”Caging” Russia??? That’s veritable Norma Desmond level fantasy. It’s like some sort of virus that inflames the West’s imagination roughly every handful of generations over the past 200 years or so. First France in the early 1800s, then Germany in the 1940s. And here we are again, almost on the brink of WWIII.
Ugh.
Thank goodness Trump, the tough but pragmatic negotiator, takes office in 51 days.
Most estimated it would take less than 2 years for Ukraine to circumvent Russian control systems on the weapons. Some sources believed that the initial Ukrainian nuclear disarmament steps in the early 90s were structured so as make it easier to gain control of remaining weapons ( ie they chose to disarm missiles they had less ability to remove the control systems from). Furthermore, some disarmament sources think Ukraine may have attempted to remove the control devices on two nuclear warheads in 1993.
Ukraine also had 33 heavy Soviet bombers and the nuclear bombs for them. The control devices on gravity bombs are much easier to circumvent and the bombs could be dropped from many aircraft in the Ukrainian inventory.
https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/pikaye13.pdf