It’s Time to Prepare for Ukrainian Peace

Even as we continue to help Ukraine, Americans must begin thinking about what kind of peace they want. This is not yet a question of maps. We don’t know where the armies will stand when serious peace talks begin, and the military facts on the ground will drive haggling over territory. But boundaries aside, peacemaking is hard. As Polish friends struggling to rebuild their society after communism used to tell me, it is easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup than to turn fish soup back into an aquarium.

The U.S. wants several things from the peace. First, the war should end quickly. The longer the war drags on, the more destructive it will be.

Second, the war should end in true peace. That is, the fighting shouldn’t subside into a frozen conflict that could explode at any moment. We don’t want continuing sanctions gumming up the world economy. We don’t want half of Europe on a permanent war footing. We want this war to end in a treaty, not an armed truce.

Third, the war should end in a way that makes clear that Russia’s aggression did not go unpunished. Future Russian leaders, as well as potential aggressors elsewhere, need to see that wars of attempted conquest are costly.

Fourth, the end of this war shouldn’t set the stage for the next. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s partial expansion was a mistake. If you put up “No Fishing” signs on one side of the lake, the implication is that fishing is OK on what’s left. Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus weren’t brought into NATO, and Russia has invaded or subverted them all. This war needs to end with a clear security framework. NATO membership for countries that want it would be a simple solution, but others may be possible.

Finally, America does not want the war to end with the dismemberment of the Russian Federation. In a worst-case scenario, the collapse of authority across Russia would invite chaos and war across the Caucasus. It would unleash a nightmare: nuclear weapons and materials for sale to the highest bidder. It would empower China. Even if we don’t always like the way it governs itself, a stable Russia is hugely preferable to a zone of anarchy stretching from Ukraine to the Pacific and from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea.

Reaching any of these goals, much less all of them, won’t be easy. Barring a complete collapse of the Russian state, Moscow is unlikely to disgorge all the land Ukraine wants to reclaim, pay all the reparations Ukraine wants, or allow the kinds of war-crime investigations and trials Ukraine and its sympathizers feel are justified. But American and Western security and aid commitments can help make an inevitably imperfect peace treaty acceptable to the Ukrainians.

Preparing for peace does not mean appeasement. Making war painful and expensive for Russia can help persuade the Kremlin to change course. But Team Biden also needs to prepare for the next stage. Negotiating with Russia will be hard, but negotiating with our allies and Congress could be nearly as tough.

If the war ends with a weaker Russia and a stronger Ukraine, NATO will start to look less important to many Germans, and some in Berlin will focus more on building lucrative postwar business relationships with Russia rather than risk alienating the Kremlin by supporting tough peace terms. There are those in Eastern Europe who think the Russian Federation should be broken up. And there will be Americans in both parties who won’t want the U.S. to commit to the aid and engagement required to build order so far away.

During World War II, President

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s

administration spent a lot of time preparing for the post-war world. Team Biden must also think ahead if something more durable than a truce is to come out of the current conflict.