In the newest episode of a podcast in cooperation with the Journal of Democracy, Robert Person—Professor of International Relations at the United States Military Academy, West Point—discusses key issues that in his understanding pose nearly insurmountable obstacles to a negotiated ending of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine; dissects the Putin regime’s main aims regarding Ukraine over the past twenty years; and reflects on why arguments in favor of a ‘peace deal’ have gained in popularity—and what European supporters of Ukraine should be preparing for.
Ferenc Laczo
Thank you so much for joining us. Your new article “Why Ukraine Shouldn’t Negotiate with Putin” argues that it is misguided, misinformed, and downright dangerous to think that all wars end in negotiation, and that it is at best wishful thinking to propose such a negotiated end to Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine. In the current moment, you indeed speak of insurmountable obstacles or nearly insurmountable ones to such a mutually preferable and durable settlement, and you discuss three major issues that can prevent such an end to the war.
Robert Person
You are right, I am summarizing the issues of indivisibility, the unattainability of credible commitments, and disagreement over the likely outcome of future fighting.
Ferenc Laczo
Could you tell us a bit about what those three issues mean and why you think that they pose nearly insurmountable obstacles to a negotiated end to Russia’s ongoing war of aggression?
Robert Person
Certainly. Before I begin, I should mention that today, as with the original article, I am sharing my personal views. They are obviously not the official policy or position of the United States government or the Department of Defense. That is one of the unique things about West Point—we are both part of a government agency, but also an academic institution that enjoys robust academic freedom.
To get to your question, the argument is basically grounded in what is known as bargaining models of warfare. This is a body of theoretical scholarship in the discipline of political science that views the onset, conduct, and settlement of war as part of a bargaining process. Through that lens, we can understand aspects of warfare that might not otherwise be apparent. It starts with somewhat of a thought experiment, which is to say we know that war is costly, certainly in economic terms, but also in human and psychological terms. Using a rationalist perspective, it recognizes that states should prefer a negotiated settlement to get what they would have otherwise gotten through fighting. Again, it is a theory. It simplifies a lot of nuance, but it starts with that recognition that if you could know how the war was going to end and what the eventual settlement would be, rational states would prefer to achieve that settlement diplomatically rather than paying the cost of going to war. Obviously, we know that is imaginary. That is not how international politics and warfare work, so the model proposes that there are these three conditions that can often complicate or prevent the negotiated settlement or bargaining of a particular conflict.
The first is the issue of indivisibility. Some things that states fight over, we can obviously imagine different ways to divide them, as part of a diplomatic settlement. Often that is a territory: you can take a map, draw a line on a map, and say, okay, you get this portion, you get that portion. Resources that states fight over can be divided, whether that is a 70/30 division, 60/40, or some other mix. Even policy can be divided in the sense that two rational states could perhaps negotiate some package of policies, assurances, concessions, and whatnot, that they could both live with and that could form the basis of a negotiated settlement.
The problem is that oftentimes the things that states are fighting over or the things that wars evolve into defy easy, clear division. These tend to be conflicts that are centered more on abstract, but highly charged issues like sovereignty. How do you split sovereignty? 60/40, 70/30? It becomes quite tricky.
Wars over identity are obviously very difficult then to parse in a diplomatic fashion. To extend that, a people’s right to exist, the mere existence of a people, not to mention a free people, is something that is very difficult to split down the middle and say, okay, you get this, and you get that.
The second challenge is the commitment problem. Even if we could imagine some sort of treaty that both sides sign that agrees to settle all these really difficult issues, it is impossible or very difficult for both sides to guarantee that they will uphold that agreement in the long run. It is hard to guarantee that a settlement will not be revised or reneged on down the road. This leads to extraordinary difficulties, especially when two warring states have a long history of mistrust. Why would I sign an agreement today and perhaps undertake measures of demilitarization or withdrawal? Why would I sign that today, knowing that there is a high likelihood that within a few years my adversary might try to invade again or start a war? That is another significant barrier. Obviously, there are external peacekeepers or observers that can help with that, but we run very quickly into the issues of scale and credibility of the external peacekeepers.
The final condition that makes it hard to resolve these conflicts diplomatically is the disagreement about the likely outcome of future fighting. It is an information problem. Both sides lack complete information about the other side’s capabilities. It fundamentally boils down to estimates about how long the other side can keep fighting. I should mention that uncertainty also exists on your own side. What is ultimately the resolve of my own population to continue fighting or seek terms of peace?
As long as this disagreement exists, as long as both sides think that they have some chance of winning, the model suggests that they will continue to fight until there is a convergence of expectations—one side recognizes that they are well on their way to defeat or have been defeated, and that is the point at which they will seek terms. Or conversely, let us imagine a scenario where mutual exhaustion sets in, and after a prolonged period, each side comes to recognize that while they have not been defeated, nor can they continue advancing their war aims. Until that convergence of expectation is reached, it will be very difficult to convince one side or the other that it is time to settle.
With that sort of model in mind, I argue in the article that all three of those conditions are not only present in Ukraine but really are fundamentally embedded in the essence of the conflict. I point to Putin’s maximalist war aims that he has held certainly since the beginning of the invasion of February 2022. In fact, long before that, the aim was to ultimately decapitate the democratically elected government of Ukraine, to neuter Ukrainian sovereignty, and to install a puppet government much like he has in Belarus. That ultimately will do his bidding. Again, those are pretty essential issues that ultimately are hard to divide.
To exacerbate the problem, when that initial quick invasion and attempt to remove Zelensky from power failed, the conflict began to evolve and escalate towards what I think are clearly genocidal measures, that Russian forces have been documented to have carried out in Ukraine. This is backed by clear genocidal rhetoric by key figures in the Russian political system.
In some respects, the war aims have evolved further to seek the outright elimination of the Ukrainian nation as a people. When we come back to this issue of, okay, how do you get an agreement over that, when it has become so existential? That to me suggests an extraordinarily difficult condition to divide and split.
We know from his long history that Putin not only mistrusts but downright hates democracy, democratic governments, and democratic people. He would never trust a democratic Ukraine or a democratic West to uphold its end of the bargain, and we know this, because he has been waging essentially a hybrid war against Ukrainian democracy for over 20 years.
It is hard to imagine him ever trusting the piece of paper that the Ukrainian government signs. Nor could Ukraine ever trust an agreement that Putin signs, given his long history, which includes the abrogation of previous commitments to respect Ukrainian sovereignty, including the Budapest Memorandum and the Bilateral Treaty on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
The fact is that as of today, neither side considers themself defeated yet. Neither side is really ready to seek the losers’ terms as it were. I think it is clear that Putin believes that time is on his side, and though the costs of the war, especially in the last year, have been absolutely staggering for Russian forces, he is making slow incremental progress, and I think believes that he has every reason to continue fighting. At the same time, even in the face of those staggering costs, Russia is not exhausted yet.
I think this points to an eventual policy prescription, which is that at a minimum, we need to help Ukraine generate a sustained battlefield stalemate that will eventually lead to Russian exhaustion. That is a very distant point in the future as well. Again, I emphasize that I think this is a very long fight that is going on.
Ferenc Laczo
It seems to me that a lot depends on how you understand the Putin regime and its war aims. In the article, you also write that it has now been 20 years since Russia has been trying to control Ukraine by any means necessary. I wanted to ask you a bit about how you view the Putin regime’s key aims regarding Ukraine and how those aims may have evolved over time, especially since the launch of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Robert Person
It is an excellent question, and I have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about Russian grand strategy as well. What is the big vision that Putin has been trying to achieve and pursue in the world? I think he has been remarkably consistent over the past quarter century of his rule in pursuing certain fundamental strategic aims. One of the most significant has been his desire to have an uncontested and privileged sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. This is tied to very deep traditions of Russia as an imperial power and its imperial identity.
I always disagree with those who believe that Putin has tried to reconstruct the Soviet Union or even a post-Soviet Union, if you will, whereby Russia rules the former Soviet lands, the former Russian imperial lands directly. I think he has been after more of a virtual empire where Moscow calls the shots and dictates the terms to satellite governments that do its bidding without the direct cost of actually governing and ruling over these lands. With regards to Ukraine, he has been trying for at least 20 years to achieve formal or informal veto power over Ukraine’s foreign and domestic policies. Again, this is very similar to what he achieved long ago in Belarus with his sort of loyal lapdog, Alexander Lukashenko. The problem with that is that vision is fundamentally incompatible with a democratic Ukraine.
Every time the democratic people of Ukraine have exercised their choice, they have chosen to turn westward towards Europe as part of their future. Fundamentally, this is something that Putin cannot accept, because he understands that in a fair fight, in a free choice, he will never win that popularity contest.
That is why he has been using all sorts of hybrid means to try to achieve that privileged influence in Ukraine. We know that they intervened directly to manipulate the outcome of the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine, trying to install Viktor Yanukovych as the president. That failed; it led to the Orange Revolution, in which the Ukrainian people stood up and said, no, this is our country, this is our future. We know that Putin essentially coerced Yanukovych eventually into vetoing Ukraine’s accession agreement in 2013 with the European Union, because that European future was unacceptable to Putin.
Of course, that gave rise to the Maidan Revolution or the Revolution of Dignity, where once again, the Ukrainian people stood up, asserted their sovereignty, and spoke up for their democratic future. That led to—I do not want to say provoked because the blame rightly sits on Putin’s shoulders—Russia’s hybrid invasion of Crimea and Donbas, which Russia used to try to destabilize the Kyiv government for several years. Thereafter, just to pile on part of this history, the Minsk II agreement, which was an attempted ceasefire of the conflict in the Donbas prior to the 2022 invasion, essentially had provisions which if Ukraine had implemented them, according to Russia’s demands, would have provided sort of a backdoor veto or a backdoor hack into Ukrainian sovereignty.
When all those measures failed for whatever reason by February 2022, Putin concluded that the only way he was going to achieve this vision in Ukraine and beyond was through the full-scale invasion and the use of military force. That is the background of the really deep and long sort of strategic aims behind this war. I argue that, fundamentally, those aims have not changed. In the last three years, Putin has not moderated those objectives or backed down from them.
What has changed are battlefield conditions and some of the tactics and strategies that Russia has used more within the domain of war. I would say, though, that the key way in which the broader objectives have evolved is the radicalization of the intent to “denazify Ukraine.” You may remember from the initial rhetoric at the beginning of the war, this idea that Ukraine had been occupied by a neo-fascist government and Russia was going into “denazify” the country and restore peace and order. Again, that failed to overthrow the democratic and most certainly not fascist Zelensky government.
When Russia faced such strong resistance from the entire Ukrainian nation, that is when the rhetoric and the intent shifted from “denazifying” not just the Ukrainian government, but “denazifying” the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian nation.
Again, this is a bizarre construction, where reality has turned on its head, because ultimately it is now Russian forces that are engaged in the very kind of genocidal acts that part of the world is painfully aware of, given their history in the Second World War. That is a long way of saying that, in many respects, the fundamental aims have not changed. I think that they are just as maximalist as they were on day one of the invasion. That points to the problem of how to negotiate with someone who still seeks to destroy you as a people.
Ferenc Laczo
Let us perhaps turn to the current situation: on the pages of the article, you warn that unless something changes, the current stalemate could actually gradually devolve to defeat for Ukraine. This is something that I think many people are really worried about these days. You plead in this context for the West to do what is needed to defeat Russia militarily. Could you tell me a bit more about what you have in mind when you speak of what is needed and what are the conditions, whether positive or negative, under which you would actually advise Ukraine and the Ukrainian leadership to enter into negotiations?
Robert Person
Certainly. I will repeat the disclaimer that these are my personal views and certainly not those of either the outgoing or the incoming administrations in the United States. I will also provide the disclaimer that I am a political scientist and not a military strategist, and I work with extraordinary colleagues who know military operations at both the strategic and operational levels better than I do. With all of that said, I do think that we can see some conditions that would be necessary in order to prevent what I would see as a calamitous outcome in Ukraine. As I mentioned earlier, I think the first necessary step is to at least engineer that battlefield stalemate because we are actually not there. Both sides certainly are making advances here and there, and most concerning for me, obviously, is the slow advance that Russia continues to make towards Pokrovsk. What we need to do, broadly speaking, is to ensure that Russia is incapable of continuing successful offensive operations, as they grind slowly towards the West. This requires keeping Ukraine in the fight as long as possible. I think they need a significant infusion of military and economic aid. Again, speaking from the American perspective, they need that badly from the United States. I would emphasize especially air defense capabilities, weaponry that can allow them to protect both their military resources on the front line, but just as importantly, they need to be able to protect their critical civilian infrastructure, starting first and foremost with energy infrastructure. The relentless Russian missile and drone attacks on military and civilian targets alike are obviously taking a toll on Ukraine’s ability to continue and the ability of Ukraine’s people to see that there is a hopeful future.
The other thing that I will mention is that I do think that we need to deploy a significant training and advisory mission to Ukraine, or at least on the country’s bordering Ukraine, to reduce the time and distance that Ukrainian forces have to go to get training on Western weaponry and to increase the throughput of that training. It is much harder when they have to travel to Western Europe or even the United States for that kind of training. The other side of the coin is to significantly raise the cost of continued fighting for Russia.
Again, personally, I believe that Ukraine should have the authority to strike long-range military targets with Western weapons deeper inside Russia than they are currently allowed. That has obviously been a contentious issue among NATO allies over the last several months, and I think we do need to step up and produce or provide much greater offensive weapons for Ukraine, so that they can continue to degrade Russia’s ability to attack.
On the economic side, sanctions are a constantly evolving target of enforcement. It is not that we just pass sanctions one day, wipe our hands, and pat ourselves on the back. The adversary is always adapting, always looking for workarounds, and we need to be able to continue to maintain the economic pressure on Russia, especially in the energy sector, in the financial sector, and in targeting the dual-use technologies that we know are continuing to get into Russia. The Russian economy is increasingly fragile and imperiled, but it does not mean that they are on the brink of collapse. This means that the costs are mounting, and we need to continue to put maximum economic pressure on them.
If we do not, if we maintain even the current approach and the current pace and level of Western support for Ukraine, I think we are allowing them to slowly bleed to death. Now, of course, withdrawing aid or failing to authorize and deliver more aid will certainly kill them more quickly. That is the fastest way to end this war. The more that Russia gains in the interim, while we delay, while we wait, and the longer that we wait, the worse the terms will be that Putin will eventually dictate to Ukraine. I do sometimes make what I know is a provocative claim, which is to say that if Russia wins in Ukraine, it will be because the West chose to let that happen.
Ferenc Laczo
These are strong words. Indeed, I read your article as a sort of sharply phrased intervention in contemporary debates and discussions around the future of this war and possible outcomes. It seems to me you are trying to refute the arguments that have become increasingly popular in recent months. There has been a lot of talk about negotiations and a peace deal. How would you position your own perspective within this larger debate? Was there a specific argument or position you were trying to contradict?
Robert Person
I want to emphasize that the desire for a negotiated settlement is absolutely understandable. Again, there is so much suffering, so much loss, so much tragedy that has come about as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that I absolutely understand why many observers in Europe and the United States would like to find a way to bring the war to an end. This is one of those cases where I absolutely hope that I am wrong, and I do hope that the incoming Trump administration is somehow successful in solving this puzzle. Obviously, Trump has spoken repeatedly about his desire to find a negotiated settlement to the war and his confidence that he will be able to do so, given his background as a dealmaker. I certainly hope that, for the sake of Ukraine, the United States, our NATO allies, and our allies around the world, he will be successful in proving me wrong. My skepticism then comes from the fact that I have spent my entire professional career studying Russian and post-Soviet history and politics, and is based on what I consider to be fairly deep knowledge of the region. As I said, I think that the fundamental conditions do not favor a settlement, certainly not at this time, and not as far as I can see.
The problem that we are facing is that, though we would like to bring the war to an end, responsibility for this conflict still lies squarely with Putin. He does not show any interest in ending the war, while he is making forward progress, however costly that may be.
I think the reality that Trump is probably going to find very quickly, when he does attempt negotiations, is that the United States has basically no leverage over Russia or certainly no significant leverage that could somehow induce him to moderate those objectives and ultimately call off his invading armies.
We do, however, have significant leverage over our Ukrainian allies, which is to say that one could imagine an approach that puts significant pressure on Ukraine to negotiate, and if they do not, the threat that we might withdraw support. What happens if you have this maximalist adversary, and you are putting pressure on your own partners and allies to cut a deal with Putin? This scenario only confirms Putin’s longstanding belief that time is on his side and that he simply needs to outlast the fickle West and keep at it. I think war exhaustion all around Europe, the United States, and even in Ukraine is giving rise to this increased discussion of finding a way to settle it diplomatically. I just do not see the underlying conditions that will make that possible or successful.
Ferenc Laczo
In closing, I also wanted to ask you about something that many people are avidly speculating about these days. What kind of changes would you expect under the incoming second administration of Donald Trump, and how might that impact US policy towards the Russo-Ukrainian War? Since I am also calling from the other side of the Atlantic, I wanted to ask you whether you would expect US-EU relations to evolve in this new context. Would you have some kind of special advice for European supporters of Ukraine? What should we be preparing for on our side of the Atlantic?
Robert Person
In a lot of respects, you have asked the million-dollar question or the million-hryvnia question—I do not know what the current exchange rates are. That is, of course, the question that is on everybody’s mind. What position will President Trump and his administration take towards the conflict? And I know that I am not telling you anything that you do not know already, which is to say that is still extraordinarily difficult to predict.
That is partly because Trump’s own views sometimes are a bit unorthodox and hard to predict. It is also because we know that in his circle of foreign policy advisors and the individuals that he has nominated to fill key cabinet positions, there is a range of views towards Ukraine. Some members of the administration have records that suggest they are much more hawkish on the war and might be advocating for stronger support of Ukraine. We know that there are other voices in the administration that have been very skeptical of American continued involvement in Ukraine. It is very difficult to know inside the cabinet and inside Trump’s own mind which set of views ultimately will take hold. We can imagine different scenarios. In some respects, I boil it down to the question of how Trump will react when his initiatives to seek peace in Ukraine fail.
Again, based on my academic argument, I do, unfortunately, think that the odds are stacked against him in getting the deal that he wants. What I do not know is what the reaction is and what position he will take thereafter. On the issue of the evolution of US-EU relations, I suspect that there are those who are probably better equipped to discuss and analyze that than I am. Although, of course, we know from Trump’s first term, he tends to be somewhat skeptical of alliances and sometimes the allies that are a part of that. He tends to view many foreign policy issues in more transactional terms than other administrations have.
Peering into the future in the crystal ball, it is certainly not out of the realm of possibilities that we will be in for a few years of rocky relations between the United States and the European Union, and with NATO, as an organization and alliance as well.
I am not saying anything profound there, but again, I do not necessarily see the likelihood of a great coming together and necessarily a meeting of the minds between Brussels and Washington for the next few years.
As far as your final question of how I would advise European supporters of Ukraine, and this even goes beyond Ukraine, to include European capitals in recognizing that the post-Cold War peace dividend is exhausted. It is gone. Continuing to believe that, whether individually, as sovereign countries that are responsible for their own national defense, or collectively as alliances, we cannot assume that the measures that kept us safe after 1991 are sufficient to keep us all safe in the current era. I would argue, and I know that this is not a popular position in many European capitals and among many European peoples, that regardless of what the United States does, Europe does need to increase its defense spending. That is to ensure their own protection and defense in an increasingly threatening world. In the event that further American aid to Ukraine is not forthcoming, Europe needs to be prepared to step in and fill the gap, if they believe, as I do, that what is happening in Ukraine is of fundamental interest to the security of Europe and indeed the whole world.
Ferenc Laczo
Thank you so much for that substantial response and the entire conversation today, Robert.
Robert Person
Thank you so much. It has been my pleasure.