Scenarios for Ukraine A Theory of Victory and Peace
By Andrés Pastrana, Greg Mills and Juan-Carlos Pinzon
At first glance, Vladimir Putin has the time advantage in his war with Ukraine: faster production, deeper manpower sources and pockets, no need for consultation and agreement from allies, and no meddlesome domestic opposition. From this point of view, he would prefer to keep the conflict going.
Currently three scenarios are imaginable in the conflict: A Continuation of Fighting; Division of Ukraine either along the lines of the peace in Korea or the division of Germany; or an Israeli option, by which Ukraine uses a temporary peace to rebuild its defensive and offensive military capacity, making itself an ‘indigestible porcupine’.
The diplomacy aspect is critical to the outcome. If the US priority is to achieve a strategic reset with Russia with the economic and geopolitical opportunities that presents, Ukraine risks being the cuckolded partner in three-way relationship with the US and Russia. For Russia, the priority remains victory in Ukraine. Until these divergent aims are reconciled, peace for Ukraine will be elusive.
Putin’s time advantage has limits. Diplomatically, he is never going to be in a better position than with the Trump administration in Washington. As time goes by, that advantage will erode. Plus, the European Union is slowly but surely gearing up. Conversely, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could and should move in the opposite direction to Putin, and sue for peace.
Putin’s position can be worsened by adroit Ukrainian positioning. Diplomatically, as much as Zelenskyy has managed to seize the moral high ground in being open to negotiations and to stage a recovery from the brink of (Oval Office) disaster, Putin increasingly looks the spoiler. Anything short of total victory is politically dangerous for Putin, as much as a united opposition is deadly to Russia’s fortunes on the battlefield. His position could be worsened if Ukraine ensures an asymmetric technological advantage on the battlefield through the development of their domestic industry, especially around drones, coupled with the delivery of long-range missiles.
The common narrative is that Ukraine’s security depends now on how Europe responds. In future, however, European security will increasingly be reliant on Ukraine, both as a shield and in creating a high-tech defence industrial capability, as much in software as hardware and the human interface that shifts the balance in warfare between hiding and finding.
On the wider narrative, outside of Europe, justice and courage ultimately have little truck with governments. As many Afghans and some Ukrainians will testify, people tire easily of supporting the weak. Power lies less in victimhood and perceptions of weakness than the creation of a strategic rationale for support.
Putin’s worst nightmare, and that of authoritarians elsewhere, is to see a vibrant, free economy and society thriving in Ukraine. His appeal to authoritarians rests precisely on undoing the rules-based order and the alternative that his regime represents to democracy and its commitment to transparency and accountability. Ukraine’s narrative for the Global South has in this light to be driven by empathy and agency: that it is fighting a war against colonialism, is a force for good over evil, is a global bell-weather for democracy and aims to put people first in politics.