Why Rewarding Aggression Has Always Failed — and Is Failing Again.
Anne Applebaum said yesterday that Trump's US non-government Russian/Ukrainian war "negotiators" are acting very, "Russian", and THAT is NOT a good thing. They are acting like their efforts are there to personally profit them and Donald Trump, but not America, not Europe and NOT Ukraine.
Anne Applebaum said yesterday that the Trump team’s non-government, unofficial Russia/Ukraine-war “negotiators” — especially Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — are behaving in a way that looks “very Russian”: personalized, deal-driven, and oriented toward private benefit and side business rather than a rules-based settlement that protects Ukraine, Europe, or U.S. strategic interests.
In Applebaum’s framing, the “Russian” part is that Witkoff’s channel intersects with Kremlin-linked financial actors like Kirill Dmitriev (head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund), where “peace” talk and business talk blur the way they often do in kleptocratic systems.
(Other figures reported as part of Trump’s unconventional circle around these efforts include Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, alongside formal officials like Marco Rubio.)
In moments of global crisis, history rarely turns on good intentions. It turns on whether leaders understand how power actually works over time. The war in Ukraine has become one such moment — not only because of Russian aggression, but because of how some Western political actors propose responding to it.
A growing argument claims that peace can be achieved by sidelining institutions, bypassing formal diplomacy, and offering inducements to end the war — even if that means legitimizing territorial conquest. This argument presents itself as pragmatic, anti-war, and financially rational.
History, economics, and security analysis say otherwise.
1. The Nature of the War: What Is Actually Being Tested
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not a border dispute or a misunderstanding. It is a revisionist war of conquest — an attempt to erase a sovereign state’s autonomy and redraw borders by force.
This places Vladimir Putin in a familiar historical category:
-
A leader claiming historical grievance
-
Rejecting post-war borders and treaties
-
Framing aggression as defensive necessity
-
Treating sovereignty as conditional
This is not unique to Russia, nor is it ideological. It is a power strategy that depends on one thing above all else: whether conquest pays.
2. Backchannel Diplomacy: When States Become Personal Projects
One of the most troubling features of recent proposals is the use — or advocacy — of non-government intermediaries to negotiate with Russia over Ukraine’s future.
This matters because it shifts diplomacy:
-
from constitutional authority to personal influence
-
from enforceable commitments to informal assurances
-
from state responsibility to plausible deniability
In democratic systems, diplomacy is institutional for a reason. Institutions create:
-
continuity across administrations
-
accountability to law and allies
-
predictability for deterrence
Personalized diplomacy does the opposite. It tells adversaries that:
-
institutions can be bypassed
-
commitments depend on personalities
-
pressure should be applied privately, not publicly
That is not realism. It is state hollowing.
3. The “Deal” Fallacy: Why the Numbers Don’t Add Up
A recurring claim is that Ukraine could or should be induced to concede territory in exchange for enormous financial compensation — sometimes framed in figures so large they exceed any plausible enforcement mechanism.
This collapses under basic scrutiny.
Russia lacks the capacity to fund such outcomes
Russia is:
-
under long-term sanctions
-
operating a war-strained economy
-
depleting reserves to sustain the conflict
Promises of vast payments are not leverage against Russia. They are pressure on Ukraine, disguised as arithmetic.
There is no enforcement mechanism
Authoritarian regimes do not reliably honor post-concession obligations. History shows that once territorial objectives are secured, compliance drops sharply — especially when enforcement would require renewed confrontation.
A deal without enforcement is not diplomacy. It is surrender with paperwork.
4. Why Conquest Cannot Be “Priced In”
The core strategic error behind these proposals is the belief that conquest can be neutralized by compensation.
It cannot.
When territorial aggression succeeds:
-
future aggression becomes cheaper
-
deterrence becomes more expensive
-
borders everywhere become provisional
This is not a moral claim. It is a cost-curve reality. Every time conquest is rewarded, the price of stopping the next invasion increases.
This was demonstrated repeatedly in the 20th century, most catastrophically during World War II, when early concessions did not prevent war — they expanded it.
5. The Strategic Payoff of Supporting Ukraine
From a strictly national-interest perspective, U.S. and allied support for Ukraine has produced unusual leverage:
-
A major adversary’s military capability degraded
-
No U.S. combat troops engaged
-
Alliance credibility reinforced
-
Treaty-based order preserved
This is not altruism. It is asymmetric strategy.
Abandoning Ukraine would reverse those gains:
-
signaling that borders are negotiable
-
encouraging coercion elsewhere
-
forcing future conflicts to be fought at higher cost
There is no scenario in which that is cheaper.
6. Why Authoritarian “Peace Deals” Fail Structurally
Authoritarian systems negotiate differently than democracies.
They tend to treat agreements as:
-
tactical pauses
-
pressure-management tools
-
instruments to divide opponents
This is why “strongman deals” often produce:
-
temporary quiet
-
followed by renewed aggression
-
under worse conditions
Peace is not the absence of fighting. It is the absence of incentive to fight again.
Rewarding conquest preserves the incentive.
7. The Domestic Consequences of Foreign Policy Shortcuts
There is a final risk that is often ignored.
When leaders normalize:
-
bypassing institutions abroad
-
outsourcing state authority to personal channels
-
treating law as optional when inconvenient
They normalize the same behavior at home.
Foreign policy conducted outside constitutional structures does not stay foreign. It reshapes expectations of governance itself.
8. A Minimum Standard for Any Serious Peace Proposal
Any proposal claiming to end the war responsibly must meet five criteria:
-
Ukrainian consent without coercion
-
No legitimization of territorial conquest
-
Enforceable security guarantees
-
Reduction — not deferral — of future invasion incentives
-
Constitutional, accountable diplomatic process
Plans that fail these tests do not end wars. They schedule the next one.
Conclusion? Power Is Durable or It Isn’t
The belief that stability can be purchased by discarding rules has always been seductive — and always been wrong.
The international system does not collapse because leaders are cruel. It collapses when leaders misunderstand how power persists. Durable power comes from making aggression fail, not from bargaining with it.
If current proposals discredit themselves under scrutiny, it is not because they are controversial. It is because they are strategically incoherent — economically unsound, historically refuted, and structurally incapable of producing lasting peace.
History does not punish idealism.
It punishes short-term thinking disguised as realism.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
No comments:
Post a Comment