Dr. Muhammad Fahim Khan
The visit of Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelensky to the United States capital a few weeks ago marked a turning point in the conflict in his nation. The conflict’s most crucial struggle may be taking place in the United States Congress, as fighting has stalled on the battlefield and Western backing for Kyiv is dwindling. The line of contact between Ukrainian and Russian forces can be held. Whether the president of Ukraine can swiftly and effectively move the political front line in Western capitals to oust Russia from Ukrainian territory remains unclear.
The only three possible outcomes of the conflict in Ukraine are becoming more apparent as the political and diplomatic drama plays out. In the first scenario, Russia would come out on top if Ukraine permanently ceded land to Moscow as part of a lasting settlement. The second possibility is that Ukraine emerges victorious. To do this, the country would have to reclaim Crimea, which has been the focal point of the conflict since Russia’s 2014 occupation. Third, and most likely, a political settlement will be reached a year from now when the combat has ceased.
It has been over 600 days since February 2022, and over 3,600 days since Ukrainians started dying to fight against the armies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Russia’s effort to seize Ukraine as its whole has been thwarted by Kyiv’s military. At this point, it appears that Russia will emerge victorious if Kyiv makes final concessions in negotiations, such as requesting peace in the face of blocked Western backing and formally relinquishing its claims to the Donbas, Crimea, and other regions captured by Russia.
The Ukrainian people would find that very repulsive. The Ukrainian people are strongly committed to keeping battling Russia, according to a Gallup survey conducted in the summer. Those who are in favour of the fighting almost unanimously stated that reclaiming all the areas lost since 2014 is necessary to declare success. Negotiations become extremely challenging for Zelensky due to such public opinion. Even though Western leaders may not understand the intensity of the Ukrainian people’s feelings on the matter, the majority of Ukrainians do not want their leaders to permanently give up the land that has been so hard-won by Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike after two years of Russian invasion, city-level devastation, and missile attacks.
Putting aside the difficult and disheartening idea of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, there are two viable options for Kyiv to achieve victory. After the political impasse between Washington and Brussels is broken, Ukraine might ask for more aid—and maybe even more sophisticated weaponry—which it can employ in a last-ditch effort to seize Crimea. On the other hand, the more prudent and time-consuming option is for Kyiv to seek a truce that stops the fighting while protecting Ukraine’s legal rights to its territory, with the eventual goal of reclaiming them. This would be preferable to a war-ending deal that would involve the loss of land.
For one reason alone, those are the sole options: In the end, the streets of Moscow will determine whether Kyiv wins or loses this battle.
The reason behind this is that the fundamental character of conflict remains unchanged, even if the Ukrainian and Western nations have made tremendous strides in countering Putin’s fantastical vision of a larger “Russian world” and have invested much in both high-tech and low-tech weaponry. Ultimately, the goal of resorting to deadly force in a conflict is to settle a political dispute. “Dead Carl” von Clausewitz, as my military students affectionately referred to him, once said that war is all about using “other means” to achieve political goals. For battles to alter the trajectory of a war, events on the field must eventually influence the politics of the opposing capital.
Apologies for the academic tangent, but it’s important to grasp how Clausewitz’s fundamental view of war impacts the way Western military leaders see the effectiveness of military power. It is essential to understand Dead Carl’s perspective on politics and war to comprehend how these officers see the current situation in Ukraine and its potential outcomes in the pivotal year of 2024.
The only method to defend against an enemy determined by Putin’s sort of aim—the imposition of political authority on a target country—was to employ military force, according to Clausewitz, a Prussian commander and philosopher of early modern warfare from the 19th century. Competitors in this deadly force wrestling contest needed not just expert knowledge and cutting-edge equipment, but also guts and resolve. The political will to continue fighting despite defeats, the will of the men (and, nowadays, women) fighting, and the will of the populace to support or at least accede to the endeavour were, in Clausewitz’s view, the crucial components of success. The major idea of Clausewitz’s writings was this tripartite of the state, the army, and the populace. All wars, from those in ancient Rome to those in the bloodlands of Ukraine, have these characteristics, according to professional military instruction.
One side needs to influence the other’s political will and alter its fighting strategy or decision-making altogether to emerge victorious. For economic sanctions and lethal force to be effective, the enemy must be driven to the brink of collapse, affecting their population or political and military leadership to the point where they consider surrender, a truce, or a negotiated settlement as preferable to escalating the conflict.
The choice to go to war can be altered by revolutions, coups, or elections. Every social group has some say in the outcome of a battle, or even who gets to call the shots. During the battle, combatants also try to remove the enemy’s decision-makers. Clausewitz’s remark on the link between politics and war is reflected in the claimed Russian attempts to murder Zelensky and in the Allied plots to eliminate Hitler during World War II. Even while tactics and weapons evolve, the battle itself remains static. What does the study of war from a Prussian philosopher who lived in the 19th century have to do with the situation in Europe’s largest war since 1945, which is currently underway?
Ukraine has not yet achieved ultimate achievement, and this illustrates how and why. Despite the remarkable results on the battlefield, it appears that the political climate in Moscow has remained largely unaffected. There has been no uprising in Russia even though Putin has killed or permanently injured more than 190,000 soldiers (not counting the mercenaries from the Wagner gang, many of whom were pulled from jails and fought in Bakhmut), according to an estimate made by the British defence ministry in late October. A veil separates the public’s impression of the conflict from its reality, thanks to the many years of nationalist propaganda.
Numerous factors contribute to this. By sending recruits to faraway regions, jails, and even other nations, Putin has effectively cut off the Russian middle class, which poses the greatest challenge to his reign. Russian government officials have resorted to using the security services to quell demonstrations in the past. It is also related to how well you fare on the battlefield: Despite the military leadership’s numerous blunders, their numerical superiority and the amount of artillery and missiles they have sent into Ukraine have prevented them from losing on the battlefield. (Zelensky personally requested assistance from Washington this month to maintain the shell flow). In the realm of men and weaponry alike, quantity may triumph over quality.
Despite Kyiv’s best efforts, the bear remains elusive. Even outside the Kremlin gates, it has failed to influence Moscow street politics. So yet, neither Putin nor his generals nor the general population have been swayed by the conflict.
That can only change if the West does three things to assist Ukraine. Before anything else, it must comply with the demands made by Ukraine’s top general, Valerie Zaluzhny, in a recent interview with The Economist that captured widespread attention. To solve the number vs. quality dilemma that had dogged his forces from the outset, Zaluzhny requested improved military technology. Republicans have been putting off a vote on that, which Biden has asked Congress to allow.
In this passage, Clausewitz elaborates on the difficulty of the situation confronting the president of Ukraine during the conflict. Zelensky must remove the political impasse in the West. Keeping American citizens and members of Congress engaged is an extra challenge for Kyiv, adding to Clausewitz’s three primary elements in war outcomes: the will of leaders, troops, and people. In 2024, Zelensky may not have a chance to expel the Russian troops from his country since he does not influence American politics during a presidential election year.
There is a low road and a high road to victory for Ukraine, depending on the amount of assistance it receives from the West both now and in the future.
Despite the difficulty, there is only one way to achieve a swift and final triumph. Considering Clausewitz’s points, retaking Crimea is the sole Ukrainian goal on the battlefield with the potential to influence Putin’s status in Russia and swiftly reverse the waning support from the US and Europe. The primary goal of Putin’s conflict, which was started by the Kremlin in 2014, was to seize Crimea, and the peninsula has great symbolic importance to the Russian president. The political balance in Moscow can be upset by a severe military setback. Given the fatigue of the Ukrainian army and the danger that Kyiv will not have the required weaponry in time, it is highly unlikely, but other experts and I still consider it a possibility.
The alternative, which does not rely on the rapid arrival of advanced weaponry and subsequent spectacular victories on the battlefield, is for Zelensky to halt hostilities and adopt a more strategic approach to reclaiming his area gradually. When everything else fails, this is a fallback strategy to fall back on. It might be referred to as the “Berlin option.” Opponents of Ukraine may advocate for a peace lawsuit, but this would necessitate a new approach to negotiations with the express purpose of prolonging the conflict. A strategy that Russia used following the 2014 start of the war would also be a part of it.
In the end, the occupied peoples of the Donbas and Crimea are just as vulnerable to this in the long run. The promise of a better life in a prosperous, secure, European Ukraine may motivate Ukrainians to battle Moscow for their right to cross the border in the future, likely after Putin has stepped down from office.
[The author is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations, MY University, Islamabad.]
