JRL NEWSWATCH: “Redefining Success in Ukraine; A New Strategy Must Balance Means and Ends” – Foreign Affairs/ Richard Haass, Charles Kupchan
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“… One option for the West is to … continu[e] … provid[ing] … weaponry to Ukraine … hop[ing] [to] … enable its forces to eventually defeat Russia’s. … Ukraine’s military shows no signs of being able to break through Russia’s formidable defenses …. Defense tends to have the advantage … Russian forces are dug in behind miles of mine fields, trenches, traps, and fortifications. … Time will not be on Ukraine’s side if a high-intensity war drags on indefinitely. Russia’s economy and its defense industrial base are on a war footing. Moscow is also importing arms from North Korea and Iran and has access to consumer items [with] technology that it can repurpose for military uses. … Russia … has a large pool of manpower …. Russia has… found new markets for its energy … [S]anctions have had only a modest effect …. Putin appears politically secure and in control of the levers of power … and public narrative. … Persuading … Zelensky and the Ukrainian public to change course would be no easy task, given the justice of their cause and all that has already been sacrificed. … [W]hat began as a war of necessity for Ukraine — … for its very survival — has morphed into a war of choice … to recapture Crimea and much of the Donbas …. It is … an unwinnable war … that risks losing Western support over time. It makes far more sense for Ukraine to ensure that the bulk of the country under Kyiv’s control emerges as a prosperous and secure democracy …. The United States and select NATO members … should commit not just to long-term economic and military help but also to guaranteeing Ukraine’s independence. … The [EU] should accelerate the membership timetable … and offer [Ukraine] a special EU-lite [interim] arrangement …. The Western allies should also make clear that most sanctions against Russia would remain in place until Russian forces leave Ukraine, and that they would help Ukraine restore its territorial integrity at the negotiating table. …”