Best way to end Ukraine war becomes an intellectual and ideological battlefield

Alongside the rhythm of the Ukraine war, with much talk of victory and defeat, the ebb and flow of peace talks is less prominent but increasingly necessary.

The latest news from fighting in southeast Ukraine provides a potential moment to reopen negotiations, as both the Russians and Ukrainians prepare for a longer war that looks increasingly like a bloody stalemate unless it escalates dangerously.

It is difficult to identify this moment because of conflicting views, values and interests among those involved. Alongside the direct fighting there is a proxy war between the United States and Russia now being fought with the huge $40 billion in funds agreed by the US Congress across partisan lines. The US along with a coalition of Baltic and eastern European states, plus the United Kingdom, supports a Ukrainian victory over Russia and deplores peace talks as appeasement. They present the war in existential terms of democracy versus authoritarianism.

An alternative group led by France, Germany and Italy supports talks with Russia and is exploring potential peace terms. The French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke to Russian president Vladimir Putin last weekend, while Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has prepared a four-stage talks process and sent it to the United Nations. It provides for a supervised ceasefire and demilitarisation of the front line, a conference on Ukrainian neutrality with international guarantees and a bilateral Ukraine-Russia treaty on border issues reminiscent of the 2015 Minsk accords. Its last stage would aim to resurrect a European security architecture including Russia. All three European leaders believe this is a necessary geopolitical condition for European stability. Putin has indicated he is willing to open besieged Ukrainian ports if sanctions are lifted, but this also flags his use of food as a weapon in the war. Further EU sanctions on oil flows are intended to increase the pressure on Putin.

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Unlike the US, the big European states have deep political, trading and investment links with Russia; they are willing to voice fears that a prolonged war would risk dangerous escalation. The missiles promised to Ukraine by the US this week will not be capable of attacking Russia, according to President Biden. This will also prolong the war. The US policy is ambiguous and its endgame uncertain. It has bid in to nationalist sentiment in Ukraine and risks being captured by it.

An intellectual and ideological battle rages in the US and Europe alongside the military and diplomatic ones. Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian of Ukraine and Poland’s deadly experience of Nazi aggression and occupation, says Putin is a fascist who must be defeated. Liberals such as Anne Applebaum support the US forward policy against Russia led by Biden’s hawkish team drawn from the neoconservative tradition within the State Department, who believe Russian power is a standing obstacle to US hegemony.

Against them Henry Kissinger, the New York Times and Noam Chomsky advocate peace talks based on the balance of forces and the need to avoid a wider war that could go nuclear. Their calls that consideration be given to Russia’s valid interests, despite Putin’s illegal imperial aggression, are demonised and abused by many in American media. As a result Ukraine’s corruption and far-right movements are under-reported and underestimated.

Similar points made about the remaining value of Germany’s commitment to dialogue and peace by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas are likewise attacked, and seen as a generational divide; while Scholz’s caution is seen as driven by mercantile interests, since natural gas from Russia, so far not sanctioned, fires so much of Germany’s industry.

The economic historian Adam Tooze notes how comprehensively Nato has been resurrected by the war, as transatlantic relations are revived and neutrals apply to join. But he asks pertinently how much of this new found unity of the West will survive: “If the war drags on, with the United States providing substantial aid, but Russia proving able to stop Ukraine’s counteroffensives, does Europe want the equivalent of another Afghanistan on its doorstep — a decades-long conflict with a devastating humanitarian fallout? That might suit Washington, but can Europe live with it?”

In this perspective the debate on the EU’s strategic autonomy initiated by Macron will intensify. It involves EU enlargement, energy, climate change and China as well as security and military capacity questions opened up by the war.

Notwithstanding its divisions on Ukraine, the EU has held together effectively through the crisis and is proving more resilient in its decision-making and capable of bringing citizens along. That is likely to require treaty change in the medium term.