War is Hell

A negotiated settlement in Ukraine could end the hell of war

By John Byrnes, Strategic Director at Concerned Veterans for America

A negotiated settlement in Ukraine could end the hell of war. In 1993, as a U.S. Marine, I deployed to Somalia, where I saw the worst human suffering that I have ever witnessed.  During an ongoing civil war, one faction had weaponized famine among the civilian population, adding to the devastation of combat. It was a humanitarian crisis as a weapon of mass slaughter.

Deployed to Iraq a decade later as an Army National Guardsman, I found myself treating potentially fatal wounds to civilians and soldiers alike, with just a few hours of “combat lifesaving training” behind me. 

In Afghanistan, I not only handled the remains of fallen comrades—up close and personal—but I saw the ruins of rural villages devastated by modern Soviet weapons in the 1980’s.

William Tecumseh Sherman once said,“war is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.” This is often credited more simply and colorfully as “War is Hell.” 

Those of us who have been to war, who have seen and felt and smelled it, know this firsthand.

The people of Ukraine are going through hell. Even with what I’ve seen in war, it’s hard for me to conceive of the sheer scale of human suffering in Ukraine since the war began three years ago. An estimated one million people have been killed or wounded.  This is including more than 250,000 soldiers and nearly 30,000 Ukrainian civilians killed.  

Almost all of the fighting has occurred on or over Ukrainian territory. Russia has a three to one advantage in population, a tenfold advantage in GDP, and thousands of nuclear weapons. Initial estimates show that Ukraine has likely lost 2% of its total population and 4% of its male population during the conflict versus approximately 0.1% and 0.3% for Russia.  

Ukraine’s success, however limited, has been dependent on military aid from the United States ($66.5 billion out of $117 billion congressionally authorized funds) and from Western Europe (combined contributions totaling over $50 billion).

These facts lead to several conclusions. Russia clearly has the upper hand in the ongoing war, especially in an attritional stalemate. It is almost impossible that Ukraine can militarily evict Russia from all its pre-war territory, even with continued Western military and financial aid. Western aid however is finite, with military stocks dwindling and domestic economic priorities requiring attention in both the U.S. and Europe. 

Ukrainian accession to NATO is also off the table. If Ukrainian membership remains a stated option, Russia will continue to fight. If NATO accepts Ukraine as a member before the war’s end, Russia would certainly consider itself at war with NATO, escalating the chances of direct confrontation and even combat between two nuclear powers. Post-war Ukrainian NATO membership would similarly increase Russia’s incentive to keep fighting and would permanently increase the risk of a NATO-Russia conflict.

The hell of war would continue.

While Russia has an upper hand, Ukraine has proven difficult to conquer and the war has drained Russian resources. 

With the war effectively stalemated, continuing casualties on both sides fail to change who controls which sections of territory by any large margins. This leaves a negotiated settlement between the warring states as the most likely path to ending: the war, the destruction of infrastructure and economies, and most significantly, the ongoing loss of life. The Ukrainians have remained reluctant to negotiate, though with President Trump back in office, that is changing. Still, creating the conditions for negotiations and resolving the war with a defensible peace for Ukraine will require substantial diplomatic efforts.

In America, any diplomacy that aims to resolve the conflict by negotiations faces a sizable and vocal opposition, all expressing some version of “Why should we negotiate with an evil dictator like Putin? He started the war.”   

Russia and Putin do bear the responsibility for beginning an unjust war and violating the borders of a sovereign nation against the norms of modern international relations. 

But honest and engaged diplomacy before the war would likely have prevented the invasion and saved hundreds of thousands of lives. 

Western nations, particularly those in NATO, along with Ukraine, should have foreseen that Russia’s pronounced objections to Ukraine being integrated into western facing security arrangements meant that entertaining NATO membership would likely lead to war. Given the massive loss of life, it is obvious that stronger efforts at diplomacy should have been applied by the U.S. and our allies. For nation-states, security will always supersede the ideals of right and wrong, treaties, norms, and international law. This is doubly true for nation-states led by revanchist autocrats.

It doesn’t matter that the U.S. and NATO have repeatedly stated that NATO enlargement moving eastward towards Russia is purely defensive and does not constitute a threat to Russia. It only matters that Russia perceived a threat. With full knowledge of Russia’s historic view that powerful nations or coalitions on its western border constitute a security threat, the U.S. and Europe continued to move NATO ever closer. The possibility that NATO would include Ukraine ultimately seemed too threatening to Putin. 

Through underestimation and misjudgment of Russian motives, the West failed to do more to prevent a terrible war, eschewing diplomacy for righteousness. And while it is too late to prevent the war, it is not too late to negotiate an end that will save the lives of both Ukrainians and Russians, while preserving Ukraine as a source of geostrategic neutral ground between NATO and Russia. 

The most rational and likely end, acceptable to all parties, is a state of armed neutrality for Ukraine. A neutral, well-defended, sovereign Ukraine would trade unrealistic hopes for real security, able to build a deterrent strong enough to resist aggression.  

Russia has failed to conquer Ukraine, despite great advantages, and Ukraine has proved itself as a resilient nation determined to remain independent. An agreement that allows Ukraine to maintain a strong military, capable of blocking incursions, that allows Ukraine to trade freely with partners of its choosing, while avoiding NATO commitments or even alignment, is the best path to put this war to a long-needed end.

John Byrnes is strategic director at Concerned Veterans for America and a combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps and Army National Guard.