What will it take to end the war in Ukraine?
When and how will the war end? Here's what Clausewitz tells us:
When will the war end? What will it take to end it? As the war continues into its 8th month, with neither side seeming poised to achieve a total victory, the road to peace seems hard to imagine. In this article, rather than speculate on how the war will end, I’ll try to explain what developments might lead the war to end and how to interpret developments on the battlefield in this context. In other words, I hope to outline the preconditions for peace in Ukraine.
To accomplish this, I’ll turn, unsurprisingly, to Clausewitz. To start, what is war? Keeping the philosophy to a minimum, in order to talk about ending war, we have to find the practical difference between war and peace. Clausewitz provides us with two ways of thinking of war, as “An act of force to compel the enemy to fulfill our will,” and, more famously, “…the continuation of policy with the addition of other means.” From these two statements we can see war as the use of violence for political purposes. As its opposite, we can therefore say that peace is a state in which politics is carried on without violence.
The core of Clausewitz’s argument is that war is not a rupture in politics. Instead, war is the addition of violence to existing political struggle. The violence that characterizes war is a layer which rests on a core of political conflict that continues to play out before, during, and after the use of violence. “War,” therefore, refers exclusively to the period in which violence is employed; it’s a matter of means rather than ends.
The question as to when the war will end is really asking when both sides agree to pursue their political goals without the use of violence. To answer this question, we have to focus on the political dimension. Just as political forces produced a state of war, political forces must convince both sides to cease the use of violence in their dispute. From this definition we see that violence will be avoided only if a state deems the matter of policy at issue worth less than the cost and risk involved in further violence. The decision to refrain from violence must be mutual, as if one side has use for violence, the other has no practical option than to resist with violence of its own. As a result, wars can only end when both sides consider it in their best interest.
What this all means is that the acts of violence war consists of are only significant to the extent that they have a political effect. Occurrences on the battlefield should be understood in the context of them furthering or hindering the policies of the combatants. Each town taken or lost, each casualty inflicted or suffered, gains its significance from the political forces it generates. We can consider the prospects of peace by examining the degree to which developments on the battlefield have or have not created political pressure for both sides to forgo violence and re-establish peace.
If we apply all this to the war in Ukraine, we can clearly see why peace remains distant. Russia is pursuing a policy of annexation of Ukraine's eastern provinces, at the very least. Russia succeeded in occupying substantial portions of Ukraine early in the war. Because Russia continues to occupy Ukrainian territory if Russia were to offer a cessation of hostilities, Ukraine would reject it. This is not, of course, because Ukraine doesn’t want peace, but because it clearly perceives that force is the only avenue for pushing the Russians out of Ukraine. In other words, the war continues because the Ukrainians correctly perceive violence is the only means of preserving its territorial integrity.
Some more pacifistic-minded people might look unkindly on Ukraine’s aversion to peace. However, as Clausewitz writes, “The aggressor is always peace-loving; he would always prefer to take over our country unopposed.” There is only one recipe for eternal peace: immediate, unconditional surrender to the aggressor. Clausewitz characterizes war as a defensive act, the decision to disappoint the aggressor and resist him by force. Russia would have much preferred its armies to have met no resistance on its drive to Kyiv. It was the decision of Ukraine to contest this act by force of arms that created a state of war and denied Putin the fait accompli he had carried out in 2014. In truth, Putin had been using violence since 2014 to advance his political objectives in Ukraine, with the February invasion representing only an escalation of a continuous effort.
This brings us back to the lesson of Clausewitz, that the presence or absence of war is only a change of the means. If violence with a political aim continues to occur, the war continues, regardless of whether a formal peace agreement has been signed. Just as, in the reverse case, war is not ongoing if acts of violence cease, even in the absence of a formal document. As a result, peace doesn’t require acceptance, or satisfaction with the facts on the ground, only an unwillingness to contest them with force. So long as either side is willing and able to use violence to improve its political prospects, the war continues.
This tells us why the war continues, but it does not tell us how the war might end. To do that, let’s return to the beginning of this article, where I mentioned that Clausewitz had two characterizations of war. The first was the concept of war as the continuation of policy with the addition of violence. This was useful in our discussion of the difference between war and peace, however his second definition of war as “an act of violence to compel our enemy to fulfill our will” will be helpful in discussing how wars end.
Clausewitz expands on this second definition by drawing comparison to a duel, or wrestling match. Just as in a wrestling match each opponent seeks to throw or pin the other, states seek to do the same in war. We might consider a victorious battle as analogous to a throw, and the taking of territory equivalent to a pin. These developments reduce the capacity of our opponent to resist, and inflict pain upon them, respectively. Just as in a wrestling match or duel, the aim is to make your opponent concede, in war, the aim is to convince them to concede a political question.
“Each tries through physical force to compel the other to do his will.”
From this, we can see that wars end only when one side considers whatever terms desired by its enemy to be less unbearable than the continuation of the war. In other words, when the pain or prolonged struggle or occupation (or the threat of such pain) outweighs the pain involved in giving in to enemy demands.
The natural derivative of this is that the lesser or greater the demands, the greater the battlefield success needed to compel them. When we consider that battlefield success is a proxy for political pressure, the relationship is unsurprising: the greater the political demands, the more political pressure needed to attain them. For example, were the Russians to offer complete withdrawal from Ukrainian territory in exchange for nothing more than a promise from Ukraine not to join NATO, Ukraine would likely accept such an offer. The alternative would be to eject Russian troops from occupied territories on the battlefield, a prospect which carries with it more pain than the concession of a toothless promise to abstain from NATO membership.
In reality, however, Russia has made clear its intentions to annex the parts of Ukraine it has occupied. Russia’s demand for Ukrainian acceptance of this policy is a nonstarter; permitting Russian annexation of occupied territories would be more painful to Ukraine than continuing the war. Here we come to the difficult question: if Russia remains committed to its policy, how can the war end?
This is where the battlefield situation makes its impact on the political question. The ultimate objective of military action is to convince your opponent that accommodation is preferable to continued struggle. Success on the battlefield is a means of placing political pressure on your opponent. While Russia occupies significant territory in Ukraine, the possession of territory is only effective in gaining political concessions if your opponent doesn’t think they can win the territory back, or if they think the cost to do so would be unbearable.
Ukraine is unwilling to accept Russian demands precisely because it believes the cost to liberate the occupied territories is less than the cost of accepting the annexation. Russian efforts in mobilization and fortification have the objective of persuading the Ukrainians that the reverse is true. Ukraine will use counter-offensives to attempt to persuade the Russians that attempting to cling on to its occupied territories will be more painful than conceding them.
What happens if neither of these attempts succeed and neither side can pressure the other to concede the issue? War carries with it the inherent risk of catastrophe. As the military balance swings against one side, there’s an increasing risk of a collapse of its army or government. The risk of this will often convince a state to make peace at any price when facing dramatic defeats on the battlefield. If they refuse to do so, the collapse of the army will allow their opponent to directly seize the territories contended. Even if Putin is unwilling to agree to Ukrainian demands, a collapse of the Russian army would make his agreement unnecessary.
It is for this reason that dramatic successes such as the Kharkiv Offensive have such significance. Beyond the direct military results, they apply political pressure on the Russians to come to terms before there is a military collapse and Ukraine is able to dictate terms. While it seems unlikely at the current juncture, the same is true if the Russians conduct a successful large-scale offensive.
In conclusion, the end of the war in Ukraine is contingent on either a change in the political situation, where either the Russians or Ukrainians consider it cheaper to accept the other’s terms than continue the war, or the collapse of one side. Developments on the battlefield make the former more likely by threatening the latter. What we can take from Clausewitz is that the violence of war is merely a means of applying political pressure to pursue policy. As we see further changes in the frontlines over the coming months we can continue to apply Clausewitz’s analogy of a pair of wrestlers and pay attention to the potential of developments to affect the political question that is at the heart of the war.