The first thing we have learned after a year of war in Ukraine is that there is no evidence that Vladimir Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet Union, the Russian empire or the Warsaw Pact. His current post-imperial concern is to recover and consolidate the borders of the Russian Federation. Despite its huge losses of territory, Russia remains by far the largest country in the world. To prevent further disintegration, which is always a latent danger due to its ethnic diversity and territorial dispersion, control of its borders is a national security priority.
On the eastern side, the Russian rulers are very interested in maintaining control over Siberia, which gives the country an outlet to the Pacific; hence its geopolitical priority of maintaining friendly relations with China. On the western side, Russia retains an outlet to the Baltic Sea at Saint Petersburg and managed to maintain the Kaliningrad enclave despite the independence of the three Baltic republics. The third border, to the south, which affects Crimea, implies having access to the Black Sea, which is the gateway to the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.
If Putin were a new Peter the Great or a new Stalin, a great power deal could be viable: a sort of Yalta-Potsdam sharing of spheres of influence. But as a country in decline and with repeated territorial bankruptcies, Russia's rulers feel the hostility of its neighbors as an existential threat, to which they respond with exasperated despair.
It is clear that the invasion has worked worse for Russia than Putin expected. We have learned that in war it is more difficult to conquer than to defend. Some experts in history and military strategy estimate that for an attack to conquer an adverse territory, the attacker may need three times more resources, in terms of troops and weapons, than the defender. This alone can already explain why, so far, the Russians have not conquered Kyiv or Kharkiv, while the Ukrainians have not entered the Crimea or most of the Donbass.
The attacker's disadvantage is compounded by mismanagement, typical of authoritarian governments. As strategist Lawrence Freedman states, “A large part of autocracies' most catastrophic decisions is the lack of overt and often critical feedback. They entrench themselves believing that their advantage is making firm decisions.
Furthermore, some crucial potential allies, such as China and India, have not joined the Russian adventure. Xi Jinping has kept his distance, and Narendra Modi publicly told Putin that this is not an era of wars.
With the current tie blocked, without a winner, the conflict has a difficult way out. In a conference at Georgetown University a couple of weeks ago, CIA Director William Burns said that the next six months will be decisive. He suggested that the alternatives are a quick military turnaround followed by negotiation and peace, or an escalation into protracted war.
A negotiated peace would require that neither side win outright defeat, and therefore not outright victory. Joe Biden said in Warsaw that “Ukraine will never be a win for Russia”, which is different from saying it will be a win for Ukraine. But so far, the two governments remain in the rhetorical phase of maximalist demands to find themselves in a strong position if a real negotiation ever starts. A few months ago, Volodimir Zelenski accepted cessions in the Crimea and the Donbass, which were the original targets of the Russian "special military operation". But he now he proclaims his determination to return to the borders of 2014 and insists on the improbable accession of the country to the EU and NATO. Russia, in turn, verbally rejects any concession to back down.
For an escalation, the Kremlin would need risky internal decisions, including new replacements and mobilizations, making Russian policy the continuation of the war by other means – which is what Clausewitz meant even if he phrased it backwards. It is out of impatience and desperation that Putin toyed with using tactical nuclear weapons, as if he were in a defiant game of chicken in which the United States would not retaliate lest it risk a third world war.
For its part, Ukraine will be able to maintain its belligerence as long as the United States and NATO continue to provide increasingly effective and lethal weapons, such as drones, tanks, etc. But political calculations and concerns about the huge financial costs may move the US Congress and several European countries to restrict deliveries. The conflict has already lasted longer than many regional wars and could degenerate into a protracted war of attrition.
The end could come from changes away from the war scenarios. Within twelve months it is time to call elections in Russia and Ukraine. There is not only uncertainty about their results, including whether Putin will remain in power, but also whether the elections will actually take place. There will also be elections in the United States, Great Britain and the European Parliament in 2024, when nobody may be interested in running an electoral campaign in the middle of a war.
The only thing we can be sure of is that war is the worst human activity, the only guaranteed consequence of which is death and destruction. We have a wealth of information and images about the disasters in Ukraine, but if you want a compelling additional sample, check out All Quiet on the Front, probably the best war film ever made, an impressive portrayal of horror.
