War in Ukraine: Possibilities for a Peace Settlement

EER Notes: Group of 78 Ukraine Webinar, 05 October 2022 Page 1 of 12 -But we also face the reality that the conclusion we draw from our alarm is not reflective of the prevailing mood: -for many, the greater fear is that a ceasefire could come too soon: -Gwynne Dyer, a war analyst of unusual insight, well-known to us all, recently noted that the risk of an early Russia-declared ceasefire has subsid. [...] PRIO thus assumes that Russia’s attack will be resisted, come what may, and concludes that the best way to shorten the war is to increase arms supplies to Ukraine, and thus to hasten the inevitable Russian retreat.ii -what’s left out in that analysis is the ugly fact that such wars don’t produce a winner, only devastating exhaustion, with mop- up operations then left to the humanitarians and the d. [...] Ending the War: -Ceasefire proposals aren’t currently of much interest to the parties to the conflict, but there are still regular calls to end the fighting, especially by civil society groups (a recent Quincy Institute poll even suggests that 57% of US voters would support the pursuit of negotiations to end the war). [...] -O’Hanlon acknowledges the disadvantages of a ceasefire and negotiations when territory is occupied, but concludes they must still be pursued because the prospect of indefinite war is simply too “terrible” a prospect.iv -These Governance issues are key to the long-term stability of Ukraine on two levels: -First, even if all Russian troops vacated Crimea, the Donbas, and the other occupied regions,. [...] EER Notes: Group of 78 Ukraine Webinar, 05 October 2022 Page 9 of 12 -The prevailing view in the West has been that negotiations are up to Ukraine, but that is not a credible position for a collective West that is obviously not a passive bystander, but is in fact a major contributor to the fighting, and that with the rest of the world faces the grave dangers of continuing and escalating war.