Peace in our time?

Biden's latest comments on talking to Putin are fine

Joe Biden, no stranger to the gaffe, has caused a stir again by saying at a joint press conference with Emmanuel Macron that he would be willing to talk to Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, provided that certain conditions were met. This has caused a reaction from some commentators in the West who are hyper-sensitive to any sign that NATO is going to sell out Ukraine or pressure it into accepting unfavorable peace terms.

Here’s the thing though: Biden’s comments were fine. Take a look:

Look, there is one way for this war to end the rational way: Putin to pull out of Ukraine.  Number one.  But it appears he’s not going to do that. 

He’s paying a very heavy price for failing to do it, but he’s inflicting incredible, incredible carnage on the civilian population of Ukraine — bombing nurseries, hospitals, children’s homes.  It’s sick what he’s doing. 

But the fact of the matter is, I have no immediate plans to contact Mr. Putin.  Mr. Putin is — let me choose my words very carefully — I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war.  He hasn’t done that yet.  If that’s the case, in consultation with my French and my NATO friends, I’ll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he wants — has in mind.  He hasn’t done that yet.

Biden quite clearly says that “there is one way for this war to end” and that is for “Putin to pull out of Ukraine”. He then goes on to state that “I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war”. All that Biden is saying is that if Putin calls up the White House and says he wants to pull out of Ukraine, then Biden would take that call. Is there seriously any argument against that?

The fact that this is controversial at all highlights something I wrote about on this blog two months ago, which is that there is a real lack of realistic discussion in the West about how the conflict in Ukraine might actually end. Given Russia’s blatant aggression and numerous war crimes, talking about talking is currently verboten in much of the West. At a time when Ukrainian military victories are filling the news, bringing up negotiations can seem like a plot to force Kyiv to settle for less than it can win on the battleground. More broadly, there seems to be a widespread feeling that Russian power must be utterly defeated and humiliated so that Ukraine can dictate, rather than negotiate, its terms.

This emotional response is understandable but it’s also not very realistic, or reflective of how the vast majority of wars end. Unless this conflict is going to end with Ukrainian tanks rolling down the streets of Moscow, there will eventually be some sort of talks and some sort of agreement. The government in Kyiv is eventually going to want talks and the government in Moscow is eventually going to want them too. When the time comes for them, it’s going to be important to be prepared to make them as successful for Ukraine as possible. Pretending they’ve never going to happen doesn’t do that.

A related issue that many people raise is whether or not America or NATO more broadly will seek to force conditions on Ukraine which Ukraine doesn’t want to accept. A very unrealistic standard has emerged in some circles whereby absolutely any involvement by anyone other than Kyiv in deciding how the war ends is inappropriate. Again, this is not very realistic. This fight has potentially existential implications for NATO and the United States and their military aid is what has kept Kyiv fighting at all. It would be an absurd moral hazard to state that the U.S. and NATO will continue to run existential risks for Ukraine while having absolutely no influence over Ukraine’s actions. Again, this just isn’t how the world works.

That’s not to say that the U.S. ought to force Ukraine into a bad deal. It’s just that we shouldn’t be surprised at stories like this, which tell us that the Biden administration persuaded Kyiv to stop conditioning talks on Putin’s overthrow. Much more of this will be happening behind the scenes than we will find out about until the archives are open. It’s a credit to both Washington and Kyiv that most of the discussion between them about how the war might end is being kept secret, although we can expect more leaks and attempts to shape the narrative as talks actually come closer to being a reality.

But we also need to keep in mind that bad deals are in the eye of the beholder. It is possible that Ukraine and the U.S. will have a divergence of interests at some point in the future. It might arise over an issue like the future of Crimea, whether to push for a complete evacuation of all Russian troops from the Donbas, or the role of Putin in any eventual agreement. Part of why Ukraine and the U.S. are so tight-lipped now is because they don’t want to give the enemy a sense of where their fault-lines are, in case it provides an opportunity for the Russians to split them. The cracks are anyway mostly somewhat hypothetical, although we know that Western officials are worried that a Ukrainian push on Crimea may lead to an unacceptable escalation of the conflict.

But, again - this is fine. Every alliance has its disagreements. In World War II, the allies were at each other’s throats constantly and sometimes couldn’t even agree on which continent to launch the next offensive. In World War I, King George V once openly wept at what he thought was a betrayal by President Woodrow Wilson over when to initiate peace talks with Germany. After victory, myth takes over and these disagreements get papered over, as if they never existed. But they did.

So in summary: Yes, talks will happen. They will be messy. But they’re also the only way to end this. So bring them on - as soon as Putin decides he’s had enough of losing on the battlefield.