AVOID A NUCLEAR WAR — BY HELPING RUSSIA TO SAVE FACE!
In the end, it is true that:
– Russia has a ten times stronger military than Ukraine (at least on paper).
– The Russian government (and the apparatus it relies upon and shares interests with) will be very desperate to not back down.
– Other countries are unlikely to directly intervene.
– Putin is threatening us with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
Thus, a complete military victory by Ukraine is, after all, unlikely. Even with crowdsourced support around the world, even with a morale boost of the Ukrainians unparalleled in contemporary history (they know the whole world is watching them, and that they’re rocking our socks off; can you think of a better genesis of national cohesion and patriotic identity?), even with Russian logistical fiascos, even with collapsing public support for the government in Russia, it is a David’s fight against Goliath. In fairy tales, David always wins. In reality, this is less often the case.
It is probably true, as Yuval Noah Harari argues (also in The Guardian) that Putin has already lost the war in the larger scheme of things — politically speaking. But there is little comfort in that realization alone. It still means military defeat for Ukraine, a prolonged conflict, possibly bloody guerilla warfare, and an increasingly desperate Russian government — increasingly likely to “lose it” and start a nuclear war. When a house of cards collapses, when lies are exposed, when the posers accidentally reveal their underlying fear and weakness, it’s just never a pretty sight.
Where does this leave us? Well, we might, again, learn from history. When the Soviet Union attacked Finland in 1939–40, in the so-called Winter War, the USSR suffered massive and humiliating losses because of the sheer logistical catastrophe of the operation. Finnish soldiers, camouflaged, shot the Russians as they tumbled slowly through the thick snow in the dense Finnish forests. In my family, we remember Eifel, a Finnish neighbor in the 1980s who fought in that war. More than four decades later, he literally cried at the thought of how many men he had mowed down. David versus Goliath was not pretty, even when David won.
What happened with the Winter War then? In fact, the Russians signed a peace treaty and were handed some new territories. On paper, in theory, in their own narrative, “they had won”. They had conquered new territory.
It’s the basic thing that sociologists of everyday interaction teach us: We all need to save face. My take on this is, thus, to try to help Putin and his administration save face by conceding some territories to Russia. It’s not like Donetsk and Luhansk or Crimea will be nice places for Russians and Ukrainians to live together after all of this is over either way. So, make a compromise: Hand Crimea and perhaps Donbas (Donetsk, Luhansk) to Russia. And open the canal down to Crimea, so that Russia can keep Crimea under tolerable circumstances, rather than having a perpetually drought-stricken peninsula on their hands.
Even with such concessions, the Russian government will still have lost so much in power and position that their days will likely be numbered. We just have to prevent the “wounded beast” from lashing out — nuclearly or otherwise.
Ending the war as soon as possible with a compromise that could give Putin a chance to save face and proclaim at least a superficial victory would not only lead away from the prospect of nuclear war. It would also shorten the conflict itself, which reduces the risk of further fires in the nuclear power facilities of the war zone (as was reported a few days ago in Europe’s largest facility).
I know compromise is hard. And not necessarily just. But, in the long run, the free world will win this either way. What needs to be prevented is for the tragic-comical implosion of the Russian Imperium to cause a corresponding nuclear explosion that consumes all the rest of us.
Patience and pragmatism will lead to the victory of justice.
[For 9 other action points on the Ukraine-Russia war, click the link to Hanzi Freinacht’s article on Medium in the comments field]
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