The idea of a war without end is a common figure of speech, yet, as Fred Iklé’s renowned work states, “Every War Must End”[1]. War, as Carl von Clausewitz emphasised, is a means to achieve political objectives. For these objectives to be meaningful, they must be attainable within a finite timeframe and pursued at a cost proportional to the desired outcome. Wars may end through outright victory or defeat, with one side surrendering. Alternatively, combatants may come to the rational conclusion that, in the absence of a clear path to victory, it is better to end the conflict. Since his victory in the U.S. presidential elections, we’ve seen a lot of speculation about the future foreign policy of a Donald Trump 2.0 administration, particularly concerning his famous claim that he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine « in 24 hours ».

Some believe that Trump will give Volodymr Zelensky an ultimatum by threatening to stop US military aid, forcing the Ukrainians to capitulate to Moscow’s demands. Donald Trump Jr and Elon Musk have certainly made comments along these lines (Musk even mocked the notion of Ukrainian sovereignty).  As the end of the fighting in Ukraine approaches, it is essential for Europe to be involved in discussions aimed at bringing it to an end. Indeed, beyond the future of Ukraine, the security of the entire European continent is at stake. Yet an examination of Trump’s Ukraine-related appointments reveals far more nuanced attitudes, notably among Keith Kellogg, future peace envoy to Ukraine. His views were published in April 2024 in a long paper[2] co-authored with Fred Fleitz, in which the two authors castigated Biden’s approach as diplomatically clumsy and tactically inept. According to Kellogg and Fleitz, Ukraine should have been armed at the end of 2021, when the threat of invasion loomed, and then at the start of the war, in order to expel Russian forces. On the other hand, too little and too late military aid would simply have prolonged the conflict by irritating Russia, with no prospect of a Ukrainian victory or a negotiated way out. In June, Kellogg and Fleitz presented Donald Trump with a plan recommending that American aid to Kiev be made conditional on acceptance to negotiate; on the other hand, they suggested forcing Moscow to start talks by threatening to increase military aid to Ukraine if it refused. Kellogg felt (unlike Trump himself) that Biden’s authorization to fire ATACMS long-range missiles against targets in Russia could strengthen the Western position in future negotiations.

The future head of US diplomacy Marco Rubio, who belongs to the interventionist wing of the Republican Party, should also be taken into account. Many describe this son of Cuban immigrants as a “hawk” and “neoconservative”, in favor of a strong global role for the United States with the involvement of the armed forces, in contrast to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, which advocates international disengagement. In 2023, Rubio co-authored a bipartisan bill in Congress prohibiting a US president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO. A fierce anti-communist, Rubio could take a hard line, especially in Latin America (by seeking regime change in Cuba and Venezuela), but also towards China. On Ukraine, he did vote against $95 billion in U.S. military aid by 2024, and would like to see a negotiated peace to end the current “impasse”. Nonetheless, he called Vladimir Putin a “gangster” and a “thug” during his own presidential campaign in 2015, praised the “courage” of the Ukrainians, and says he’d like an eventual peace to benefit them – a peace that would allow Americans to focus on what Rubio sees as the main threat: Beijing’s actions. We find similar positions to Rubio’s in Mike Waltz, appointed to the post of National Security Advisor. Although generally in favor of supporting Kiev, he insisted that this should not be a blank check, and that the Europeans should increase their own financial contribution. Waltz wants to put an end to a war he sees as resembling that of 1914-1918, and is alarmed by recent escalations (North Korean troop commitments, Russian testing of the Orechnik hypersonic missile). At the same time, Waltz emphasizes his collaboration with his predecessor Jake Sullivan, presenting a united front despite their differences: “For our adversaries who think this is a moment of opportunity, that they can play one administration off against the other – they’re wrong.” For now, Donald Trump’s promise to stop the war in 24 hours seems utopian. The “greatest peace deal in history” is far from a sure thing. Nearly four years into the war between Russia and Ukraine, with staggering military and civilian casualties likely numbering in the hundreds of thousands on both sides, it is fair to ask: what is the plan to end this war? While it is not our place as observers to dictate whether Ukrainians should continue their fight for independence, the immense human, material and financial toll justifies Western powers—who have sustained Ukraine’s resistance—raising the question: what is the strategy to end the war on terms that align with parties mutual interests, and benefit Ukraine as well? Is there a plan beyond simply prolonging the war indefinitely, or fighting to the last Ukrainian?

Ukraine’s military incursion into Russian territory in August 2024, striking towards the city of Kursk and occupying a sector of border territory south of the city, has been heralded by some in the Western media as a humiliation for Russian President Vladimir Putin and potentially a game-changing event, which may have changed the course of the war. No doubt, Ukraine’s offensive is an embarrassment for Russia. One might see in Ukraine’s actions an ambitious endeavour to divert Russian resources away from the Donbas, or a daring attempt straightforwardly to dramatically alter the dynamics of the war to secure a sudden break through that might cause an unanticipated psychological crack in Russian forces. More plausibly perhaps, the Ukrainian offensive seems to constitute an attempt to gain a bargaining counter in any future negotiations, a contingency that might come to pass after the forthcoming U.S. Presidential elections when pressure to bring the war to end could assert itself.

Although tactically impressive, Ukraine’s incursion is almost certainly not going to change the balance of forces, not least because the Kursk salient – like similar military manoeuvres in the last century, from the Spring Offensive in 1918 to the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 – is likely to become just another theatre of attrition. Attrition, as James J. Wirtz argues, constitutes the « default strategy in war » where each side engages the other in battles of annihilation « until material exhaustion, personnel losses or a collapse of political will forces one side to surrender ». Throughout history, Wirtz maintains, « the story is the same: empty the prisons, mass the artillery and bomb the cities until the enemy breaks ». And the salutary reality of attrition-based war at this point is that it appears to favour the Russians. Indeed, one month into Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, its initial manoeuvre phase seems to have ended as Ukraine seeks to defend its existing gains. The probabilities for the eventual outcome for Ukraine and wider Western interests, namely a de facto division of Ukraine, therefore remain largely unchanged. Our contention is that while Russia’s specific strategic goals and military objectives may have been initially obscure at the onset of the war, following Russia’s failure to successfully assault Kyiv in the opening weeks of the invasion, it is Western strategy that increasingly appears opaque and devoid of tangibility beyond keeping the war going for some unspecified timeframe. Behind this opacity to discern if a semblance of a coherent Western strategy can be identified.

Our conclusions are that Western strategic intentions not only remain largely unintelligible but risk replaying the defeats that have characterised recent failures of Western strategic practice. These setbacks and failures exhibit a predilection for exhortations towards maximalist positions that refuse to modify when they deviate from the realities on the ground. This predilection, we argue, is ‘strategic magical thinking’. It implies something miraculously will turn up if the war is just kept going long enough. Such an approach is unlikely to facilitate or enhance Western interests, let alone those of Ukraine. If Western policy is serious about helping Ukraine, strategic clarity, not strategic ambiguity, is required. In that sense, this war on Ukrainian territory must be stopped. We need to get back to the basics and understand that an honest appreciation of the realities of geopolitics and the limitations of idealism in the international system. It is the tradition of prudential realism typified by American political theorist Hans Morgenthau’s critique of U.S involvement in the Vietnam War,[3] or Australian journalist Owen Harries’s position against military intervention in Iraq[4]: it’s not about being for Communism, for Middle Eastern dictators, or Russian irredentists; it is about being against bad strategy that dissipates Western energy, resources and soft-power for no obvious reason or benefit. With these caveats in mind, let us proceed to evaluate the current dynamics of the war, first by deciphering Russia’s strategic design, and second, by evaluating whether a coherent strategic rationale can be detected on the part of the Western powers. Over the course of his presidency, Joe Biden vowed to back Ukraine for as long as it took to defeat Russia. During its mandate, his administration has doled out over $61 billion in military aid to Kyiv, with scores of packages including advanced air defense systems and munitions, millions of artillery shells, hundreds of armored vehicles, and much more. President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed a very different approach to how the U.S. will deal with the nearly four-year-old all-out war, raising concerns that he could abandon Ukraine.

Trump, who was the first president to provide Ukraine with lethal aid in the form of FGM-148 Javelin advanced anti-tank missiles, has yet to provide details of his peace plan. However, it is reported that those close to him have ideas that include freezing the front lines as they are, and getting Ukraine to promise not to join NATO for at least 20 years in return for a promise to continue arming Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks, according to The Wall Street Journal.^[5] « Under that plan, the front line would essentially lock in place and both sides would agree to an 800-mile demilitarized zone, » the publication proffered. « Who would police that territory remains unclear, but one adviser said the peacekeeping force wouldn’t involve American troops, nor come from a U.S.-funded international body, such as the United Nations. » A lot will change over the next few months. We should also see more clarity about exactly what the proposed peace treaty espoused by the soon-to-be 47th president will entail. Having majorities in both the Senate and House will make whatever agenda he chooses easier to become reality. Still, a deal with Russia may be far more difficult than Trump envisions. There are major concerns that Trump will hold out aid to Ukraine unless it agrees to a deal it does not want to make. And then there is also the issue of where the U.S. relationship with NATO would go if Trump decides to stop supporting Ukraine’s fight for whatever reason. A major fissure could form as a result after the alliance has come together in its support of Ukraine to a degree many thought was impossible. A little more than a week into his presidency, Donald Trump’s optimistic plan to bring an end to the war in Ukraine is floundering, with the fantasy-driven “peace plan” crafted under the guidance of retired LtGen Keith Kellogg running head on into the fact-driven reality of a Russian victory defined by objectives unfettered and unfazed by American posturing and threats.
Trump’s coercive methods and rhetoric, even if they only have real effects on his own sphere of Western influence, reintroduce transactional diplomacy in which everything is quantified financially, as in the early days of 19th-century colonialism and economic liberalism. Above all else, if a peace deal isn’t realized, the question of what happens next is arguably is the most glaring concern. So far Trump has not addressed that very real possibility.

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[1] Every War Must End – Columbia Classics – by Fred Charles Iklé (Author)- January 26, 2005.

[2] « America First, Russia, & Ukraine » – Lt. General (Ret.) Keith Kellogg, Fred Fleitz, April 11, 2024.

« Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine was an avoidable crisis that, due to the Biden Administration’s incompetent policies and rejection of the America First approach to national security, has entangled America in an endless war. The Biden Administration’s risk-averse pattern in the armament of Ukraine coupled with a failure in diplomacy with Russia has prolonged the war in Ukraine, which now finds itself in a war of attrition with Russia. Bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties. »

https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/america-first-russia-ukraine

[3] Hans J. Morgenthau, « Vietnam: Shadow and substance », The New York Review, 16 September 1965, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1965/09/16/vietnam-shadow-and-substance/; Jennifer W. See, « A prophet without honor: Hans Morgenthau and the war in Vietnam », 1955–1965’, Pacific. Historical Review, Vol. 70, No.3 (2001), pp. 419-448.

[4] Michael Fullilove, ‘Vale Owen Harries 1930–2020’, The Interpreter, 26 June 2020, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/vale-owen-harries-1930-2020.

[5] « Trump Promised to End the War in Ukraine. Now He Must Decide How. » Foreign-policy advisers close to the president-elect put forth different versions of a plan to effectively freeze the front line – By Alexander Ward Updated Nov. 6, 2024 6:10 pm ET. https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-presidency-ukraine-russia-war-plans-008655c0?st=pyKv3p&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink