What Are the Prospects for an End to the Ukraine Conflict?

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

The prospects are not good as it seems the negotiations have already failed.  Putin was excluded from participation in the agreement that Trump is threatening to shove down Putin’s throat with threats.

On March 13 Nima hosted on Dialogue Works a discussion between myself and Professor Geoffrey Roberts of the prospects for negotiations ending the conflict between Washington, NATO, and Ukraine on one side and Russia on the other.  https://www.youtube.com/live/VSnRCWBuF20

Geoffrey is optimistic about the prospects, whereas I emphasized the realism of the situation.  Whereas I sincerely hope Geoffrey’s optimism is justified, I introduced the many overlooked problems that might stand in the way. A major challenge to ending the conflict is the pretense that it is a conflict between Russia and Ukraine whereas in fact the conflict is Washington’s proxy war against Russia.  It is difficult to resolve a conflict when the reality of it is denied.  Essentially, I think Trump blundered by not first working out the terms of settlement with Putin and then taking them to Zelensky who would have had no alternative but to accept them.  I was also concerned that having coerced Zelensky into agreeing to a cease fire, Trump would get pushy with Putin, and Trump has.

Another major concern is that the Americans do not understand that they have much more to gain from ending the conflict than Russia and Ukraine together. An important result of ending the conflict would be the removal of sanctions.  Washington in its characteristic stupidity thinks the sanctions harm Russia, whereas the sanctions have severely impacted the European economies, denying them business deals and cheap energy, and could yet wreck the dollar as world reserve currency, which is the basis of American power.

By weaponizing the dollar with sanctions and by stealing Russia’s central bank reserves held in US Treasuries, Washington made central banks around the world aware that should their governments get on the wrong side of Washington in some way, they could lose their reserves.  This realization led to growing interest in BRICS and an alternative means of settling international balances.  BRICS is Putin’s response to the West’s hostility toward Russia. If central banks move away from dollar reserves, Washington’s ability to finance its budget and trade deficits diminishes.

Russia has won the conflict, and the West and Ukraine have lost.  It is not Russia that needs a cease fire.  It is not clear that Trump understands this. Trump enjoys being the player on the domestic and world scene.  It is possible that what I said was Trump’s blunder in working out a cease fire deal with Zelensky instead of with Putin was actually a calculated move to box Putin in. Trump can say only Putin’s agreement is needed for peace and put Putin on the spot for dragging his feet in reaching agreement.  

French President Macron has joined Washington in taking this line.  Putin must stop making “delaying statements,” commands Macron. “Russia must now accept the US-Ukrainian proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.”  The British foreign secretary adds “a ceasefire with no conditions.”  In other words, Putin must immediately accept a deal made by Trump and Zelensky.  Putin got himself in this situation because of all his stupid talk about his commitment to negotiations.  Putin should emphasize nothing but military victory, and he should have produced one long ago. Instead, Putin has set himself up for blame for blocking a negotiated peace.  The only way he can avoid this is by not capitalizing on Russia’s military victory.

Putin wants to know the details of the cease fire, such as:

How can the cease fire be prevented from being used as a recovery and rearmament opportunity for retreating Ukrainian forces?

How can the cease fire be made permanent when Ukraine is full of neo-Nazi elements antagonistic to Russia?

What are the guarantees and how are they enforced that keep Ukraine neutral and not another base for American missiles like Poland and Romania?

It is unclear at this time whether Trump is sympathetic with these and other questions or whether he sees them as foot-dragging on Putin’s part. On the morning of March 13 prior to the exchange of views between Geoffrey and myself, the London Times headline read: “Back peace or I’ll ruin you, Trump tells Putin.”  Twenty-four hours before our discussion the London Daily Mail reported “breaking news”:  “Trump threatens Putin with devastating punishment and sanctions if he does not accept the 30-day ceasefire deal agreed with Ukraine.” 

Of course, this could just be the Western whore media determined to ruin the settlement to Trump’s discomfort, but Trump himself actually said in response to a reporter’s question: “I can do things financially that would be devastating for Russia,” which sounds like a veiled threat. In another likely ill-fated statement, Trump’s Treasury Secretary said that the Trump administration, if necessary, will coerce Russia into a settlement with “the toughest sanctions.”  Putin must wonder about the origin of the settlement into which he is going to be forced.  Whose settlement?  Trump and Zelensky’s?

Trump and his advisors don’t seem to understand that Washington and Ukraine have lost the war.  Russia dominates the battlefield.  It is Russia’s prerogative to dictate the terms of the West’s surrender. As Putin doesn’t know what the settlement is, he doesn’t know what, if anything, Russia is getting out of it. As it is not Russia that needs a settlement, why should Putin give up anything in order to get one?  In place of acknowledging the reality of the situation, idiot questions such as this one are being asked:  “What does Putin want and will Trump give it to him?”  It seems that mindlessness in the West knows no limit.  The appropriate question is, “What does Trump want, and will Putin give it to him?”

It seems clear to me that Putin’s idea of what constitutes a settlement is entirely different from Zelensky and Trump’s.  Perhaps Trump will realize his blunder in making a cease fire deal with Zelensky before clearing it with Putin.  If not, Trump faces the failure of his boast that he will immediately end the conflict, and he will move into the coercive mode to force an agreement and thereby further erode any Russian faith in negotiations.

I think the danger remains of this ending in a bad way.  I have always thought that Putin’s decision to have a war without really fighting a war would end badly. As I said it would, it led to increasing Western involvement in the war which widened the conflict.  Putin and Lavrov’s sophomoric calls for negotiations have now led to the losing side taking control of the negotiations.  Putin and Lavrov now find themselves boxed in by their own unwillingness to win a conflict that they let drag on for three years, longer than it took the Red Army to clear the Wehrmacht out of Russia and Eastern Europe and arrive in Berlin.