Do We Want Peace?
Are we acting like like we do?
“This is a time-sensitive issue, so there’s urgency to this—it won’t do much good to say after the fact that diplomacy was possible.”
See my previous pieces about the war in Ukraine:
“Is US Policy Killing Ukrainians?” (17 March 2022)
“Where’s the Diplomacy?” (26 March 2022)
“Are We in a Propaganda Bubble?” (31 March 2022)
“What Can WE Affect?” (4 April 2022)
“‘To the Last Ukrainian’?” (11 April 2022)
“Thinking About Atrocities” (17 April 2022)
It’s very frustrating that the discussion regarding the war in Ukraine is so constrained—it’s very depressing that pro-diplomacy voices aren’t able to break through.
This is a time-sensitive issue, so there’s urgency to this—it won’t do much good to say after the fact that diplomacy was possible.
Let me shine the spotlight on some important points about the war in Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs
I was happy to see this piece from Jeffrey Sachs:
See these notes that I took on Sachs’s piece, and keep in mind that I didn’t contribute the hyperlink:
“What is needed is a peace deal, which may be within reach.”
“Yet to reach a deal, the United States will have to compromise on NATO, something Washington has so far rejected.”
“before the war started, Putin presented the West with a list of demands including, most notably, a halt to NATO enlargement”
“The US, pointedly, was not willing to engage on that point. Now would be a good time to revisit that policy.”
“America’s arms-and-sanctions approach” actually “enjoys little support outside of the United States and Europe, and eventually may face a political backlash inside the US and Europe as well”
“much of the world has rejected isolating Moscow, especially to the degree Washington would like”
sanctions “are not likely to defeat Russia, but they are likely to impose high costs around the world”
sanctions “should be deployed in conjunction with an intensive push for a negotiated peace”
sanctions “are unlikely to change Russian politics or policies in any decisive way”
sanctions “are easy to evade at least in part, and more evasions are likely to emerge over time”
“most of the world does not believe in the sanctions” and most of the world “does not take sides in the Russia-Ukraine war”
sanctions “hurt not just Russia but the entire world economy, stoking supply-chain disruptions, inflation and food shortages”
due to the “inelastic (price-insensitive) demand for Russia’s energy and grain exports”, the sanctions might not even work, since “Russia can end up with lower export volumes but nearly the same or even higher export earnings”
“many countries, certainly including China, will not back global pressures on Russia that could lead to NATO expansion”—the US “likes to say that NATO is a purely defensive alliance, but Russia, China and others think otherwise”
“The rest of the world wants peace, not a victory by the United States or NATO in a proxy war with Russia.”
“The US would love to see Putin defeated militarily, and NATO armaments have dealt a huge and heavy blow to Russian forces. But it’s also true that Ukraine is being destroyed in the process.”
“Russia is unlikely to declare defeat and retreat. Russia is much more likely to escalate—even, potentially, by using nuclear weapons.”
“NATO arms can inflict huge costs on Russia but cannot save Ukraine”
“All of this is to say that the US strategy in Ukraine can bleed Russia but can’t save Ukraine. Only a peace deal can do that.”
“the current approach will undermine economic and political stability throughout the world and could divide the world into pro-NATO and anti-NATO camps to the deep long-term detriment of the United States”
“American diplomacy is therefore punishing Russia, but without much chance of real success for Ukraine or for US interests. Real success is that Russian troops return home and Ukraine’s safety and security are achieved. Those outcomes can be achieved at the negotiating table.”
“we should at least try, and indeed try very hard, to see whether peace can be achieved through Ukraine’s neutrality backed by international guarantees”
“All of Biden’s tough talk—about Putin leaving power, genocide and war crimes —will not save Ukraine.”
“The best chance to save Ukraine is through negotiations that bring the world onside.”
the US should prioritize “peace instead of NATO enlargement”—this would “help to bring peace to Ukraine and security and stability for the entire world”
You could definitely argue that sanctions will in fact inflict serious harm on the Russian economy, but Sachs’s crucial points are:
(1) that current US policy “can bleed Russia but can’t save Ukraine”
(2) that the US should prioritize “peace instead of NATO enlargement”—this would “help to bring peace to Ukraine and security and stability for the entire world”
Ben Burgis
Ben Burgis has an interesting piece about the war in Ukraine:
“Noam Chomsky Is Right, the U.S. Should Work to Negotiate an End to the War in Ukraine” (18 April 2022)
Burgis concludes:
Diplomacy can be messy and demoralizing. Peace negotiations rarely result in anything close to perfect justice. But the alternative is—at best—an enormous amount of avoidable human suffering and at worst the end of human civilization. Let’s give peace a chance.
Doug Bandow
There’s also an interesting piece—from Doug Bandow—in The American Conservative:
“Washington Will Fight Russia To The Last Ukrainian” (14 April 2022)
Bandow observes:
Russia’s war against Ukraine rages on. The U.S. and Europe continue to support Kiev. But not, it seems, to make peace. Rather, the allies are prepared to back the Zelensky government as long as it fights Moscow to the last Ukrainian—which has always been the West’s approach to Kiev.…
Most disturbing is the apparent failure of the allies to support what the Ukrainian people need most, peace. Writer Ted Snider observed that “Next to starting a war, the most reprehensible act would be keeping one going when more people will die with little hope the outcome will improve,” yet evidence suggests “the U.S. is inhibiting a diplomatic solution in Ukraine.”
So Bandow invokes two points in what I just quoted:
(A) “evidence suggests” that we’re acting to inhibit diplomacy
(B) it’s morally terrible to keep a war going under these circumstances
Chomsky’s New Interview
Noam Chomsky has an interesting new interview:
See these notes that I took on the new interview, and keep in mind I added a couple hyperlinks to the ones that Chomsky contributed:
our “prime concern should be to think through carefully what we can do to bring the criminal Russian invasion to a quick end and to save the Ukrainian victims from more horrors”
we “should keep the prime issue clearly in mind, and act accordingly”
the war basically must end with either (1) a “negotiated diplomatic settlement” or (2) “destruction of one or the other side, either quickly or in prolonged agony”
Russia won’t be destroyed—Russia “has the capacity to obliterate Ukraine”
“no one who has the slightest concern for Ukrainians” wants to conduct the “experiment” of seeing how far “Putin and his cohort” will go if they’re “driven to the wall”
there are unfortunately “respected voices in the mainstream” who “care so little about the fate of Ukrainians that they are willing to try an experiment to see whether the ‘deranged madman’ will slink away in defeat or will use the overwhelming force at his command to obliterate Ukraine”
“It is of no little interest that such willingness to play games with the lives and fate of Ukrainians receives high praise, and is even considered a noble and courageous stance. Perhaps other words might come to mind.”
we should “engage in serious diplomatic efforts to end the conflict”—people “whose prime goal is to punish Russia” don’t want to do that
the “basic framework for a diplomatic settlement has long been understood”
Zelensky has reiterated the basic idea
the first element is “neutralization of Ukraine, providing it with a status rather like Mexico or Austria”
the second element is “putting off the matter of Crimea”
the third element is “arrangements for a high level of autonomy for Donbass, perhaps within a federal arrangement, preferably to be settled in terms of an internationally run referendum”
Washington “continues to reject all of this”
US officials concede that “‘prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States made no effort to address one of Vladimir Putin’s most often stated top security concerns—the possibility of Ukraine’s membership into NATO’”
US officials “praise themselves for having taken this position, which may well have been a factor in impelling Putin to criminal aggression”
the US “continues to maintain this position now, thus standing in the way of a negotiated settlement along the lines Zelenskyy outlined, whatever the cost to Ukrainians”
“Can a settlement along those general lines still be achieved, as seemed likely before the Russian invasion? There is only one way to find out: to try.”
various “respected analysts” like Chas Freeman and Anatol Lieven have criticized the US government for doing nothing on the diplomatic front
“Regrettably, rational voices, however respected, are at the margins of discussion, leaving the floor to those who want to punish Russia—to the last Ukrainian.”
we can’t find out whether peace is possible if we carry forward the “official policy announced last September and reinforced in November”
the media doesn’t tell people about this policy, but anybody who has “access to the White House website” can look at this policy, so “Russian intelligence” has “surely studied” this policy “very carefully”
“we should be doing what we can to bring the criminal aggression to an end and doing so in a way that will save Ukrainians from further suffering and even possible obliteration if Putin and his circle are driven to the wall with no way out”
“Punitive measures (sanctions, military support for Ukraine) might be justified if they contribute to this end, not if designed to punish Russians while prolonging the agony and threatening Ukraine with destruction, with unspeakable ramifications beyond.”
we need a “popular movement that will press the U.S. to reverse its official policy and to join in diplomacy and statecraft”
Hopefully pro-diplomacy voices will break through before it’s too late—it’s a terrible feeling when something is time-sensitive and the discussion is constrained and you can’t break through.