The Darkness Ahead: Where The Ukraine War Is Headed

– Is a meaningful peace agreement possible? No. Both sides see each other as an existential threat that must be defeated.

– The best possible outcome is a frozen conflict that could easily turn back into a hot war. The worst possible outcome is a nuclear war, which is unlikely but cannot be ruled out. –

– Which side is likely to win the war? Russia will ultimately win the war, although it will not decisively defeat Ukraine. It is not going to conquer all of Ukraine but it will end up annexing a large swath of Ukrainian territory, while turning Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state. Russia will win an ugly victory.

– It has been clear since April 2008 that Russian leaders across the board view the West’s efforts to bring Ukraine into NATO and make it a Western bulwark on Russia’s borders as an existential threat.

– Since the war began the West has added another layer to that existential threat by adopting a new set of goals that Russian leaders cannot help but view as extremely threatening.

– The West is determined to defeat Russia and knock it out of the ranks of the great powers, if not cause regime change or even trigger Russia to break apart like the Soviet Union did in 1991.

– Rhetoric about de-Nazifying and demilitarizing Ukraine aside, Russia’s concrete goals involve conquering and annexing a large portion of Ukrainian territory, while simultaneously turning Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state.

– Russia is likely to attempt to annex the four oblasts – Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Odessa – that are immediately to the west of the four oblasts it has already annexed – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporozhe.

– Losing the war would have hugely negative consequences for Washington and for NATO. America’s reputation for competence and reliability would be badly damaged, which would affect how its allies as well as its adversaries – especially China – deal with the United States.

– The Western aim is to defeat Russia’s army in Ukraine – erasing its territorial gains – and cripple its economy with lethal sanctions. If successful, Russia would be knocked out of the ranks of the great powers, weakening it to the point where it could not threaten to invade Ukraine again. Western leaders have additional goals, which include regime change in Moscow, putting Putin on trial as a war criminal, and possibly breaking up Russia into smaller states.

– There is no doubt that Ukraine faces an existential threat, given that Russia is bent on dismembering it and making sure that the surviving rump state is not only economically weak, but is neither a de facto nor a de jure member of NATO.

– In sum, the three key actors in the Ukraine war all believe they face an existential threat, which means each of them thinks it must win the war or else suffer terrible consequences.

– The war has evolved into war of attrition where each side is principally concerned with bleeding the other side white, causing it to surrender. Of course, both sides are also concerned with capturing territory, but that goal is of secondary importance to wearing down the other side.

– Mearsheimer believes Russia will win the war, which means it will end up conquering and annexing substantial Ukrainian territory, leaving Ukraine as a dysfunctional rump state. This will be a grievous defeat for Ukraine and the West.

– There is a silver lining in this outcome – a Russian victory markedly reduces the threat of nuclear war, as nuclear escalation is most likely to occur if Ukrainian forces are winning victories on the battlefield and threatening to take back all or most of the territories Kyiv has lost to Moscow.

– Why is Russia likely to win? Who wins an attrition war is largely a function of three factors: the balance of resolve between the two sides; the population balance between them; and the casualty-exchange ratio. The Russians have a decisive advantage in population size and a marked advantage in the casualty-exchange ratio; the two sides are evenly matched in terms of resolve.

– Kyiv’s only hope for winning the war is for Moscow’s resolve to collapse, but that is unlikely given that Russian leaders view the West as an existential danger.

– Peace is not possible because:

1) each side views the other as a mortal threat that must be defeated on the battlefield.
2) the unresolvable dispute over territories
3) Ukraine’s neutrality/NATO membership
4) Hypernationalism on both sides
5) Lack of trust on both sides, but particularly a lack of Russia’s trust in Western promises, caused by the recent revelations by Merkel and Hollande about the Minsk agreement.

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Consequences

– Relations between Russia and the West are likely to remain profoundly hostile and dangerous for the foreseeable future.

– Moscow will seek to exploit existing fissures between European countries, while also working to weaken the trans-Atlantic relationship

– The West will maintain sanctions on Moscow and keep economic intercourse between the two sides to a minimum, try to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, foster regime change in Moscow and put Putin on trial.

– Ukraine’s future looks bleak in the extreme. The war shows no signs of ending anytime soon, which means more destruction. According to the European Commission, “the war has set Ukraine on a path of irreversible demographic decline.”

– The Ukraine war is hindering the U.S. effort to contain China, which is of paramount importance for American security since China is a peer competitor while Russia is not.

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John Joseph Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.