Research
The paper argues that war in Ukraine is primarily a result of a geopolitical confrontation which is best understood though a realist lens. However, factors associated with the liberal-normative approach complemented and deepened Western-Russian and Ukrainian-Russian tensions. A Western policy that would have been free of illusions and less based on ideological doctrines, more focused on economic cooperation and restrained on security issues, could have eased the Western-Russian tensions.
The problem wasn’t European engagement with Russia, but engagement from a position of weakness and excessive vulnerability to Russia and to the US. The real dilemma in Ukraine since February 2022 has been not between a Ukrainian victory with stronger Western military support or a Ukrainian collapse without it, but whether the West will risk a full-scale war with Russia - even a nuclear war – to pursue a Ukrainian victory with direct military involvement, or, albeit painful, whether it will move towards a compromise which takes into account the political realities.
The tenets of the Powell Doctrine, which sets out the conditions for a winning strategy, were lacking from the Western policy towards Ukraine in terms of NATO membership and in terms of the strategy pursued in war: the existence of adequate military capabilities and the willingness to employ them, the existence of vital national or allied interests and clearly achievable objectives with a clear willingness to bear the associated risks and costs.
Ending the war requires a combination of a willingness to compromise and the restoration of credible deterrence, the latter also implying the formulation of more credible and defensible political and military objectives that are more in tune with the political realities.