Is it your position that this war should only end militarily?
my position is that the war will only end when both sides view the cessation of hostilities as preferable to the continuation of them. that is obviously not the case now, nor was it in july.
a ceasefire now would only benefit russia and the appearance of dissension in biden's party only encourages russia. hence stupid.
I think establishing a dialogue could potentially make more clear paths to ending the conflict, it is of course very possible that both sides would be unwilling to even talk, but setting that as a goal is just a very obvious step toward that eventual end. It is possible that taking this step could lead further away from later negotiations as you suggest, but we should compare that to the alternative that continuing the war is more likely to end the war than starting to negotiate its end. That seems wrong to me.
You and many others are very concerned with what Ukraine would think about all this, well good news! The statement had very careful language that said Ukraine and the Ukrainian people would need to support this ceasefire, so I’m not sure why it is implied like the US would be imposing this upon Ukraine. However, it is obviously true that Ukraine is the junior partner in this alliance with the US and the support of the US is not unlimited.
The part about “dissension encourages Russia” is just straight up Rumsfeld speak nonsense. Even if it were true it should not be a reason to forego critically discussing matters of war and peace for political leaders in the US. We do not owe Ukraine or any other country, even our closest allies, that kind of deference even in times of war.
As for what I think will happen or what should happen, I think that Russia will get at least some of the territory it now occupies and keep crimea. I think a more fair solution would be leaving Ukraine and getting some sort of concessions on NATO membership, but Russia really mumped itself so hard to know what Ukraine would really accept. The problem for Ukraine is, Russia hasn’t really paid a big price economically and Ukraines Allie’s in Europe may have to this winter so it isn’t that clear to me that prolonging the conflict is absolutely in Ukraine’s interest unless you concede that the first and only principle is Ukraine’s national interest and all other concerns by other parties should be secondary considerations. I don’t think that and also don’t think that is a realistic framework to impose.
I also think that having ongoing negotiations decreases the likelihood of escalation to nuclear war. I think that is a separate and really important achievement and reason enough to start and keep communications going with Russia. Now if you believe that Russia is truly completely irrational and Putin is going to use nukes no matter what then you should act differently (although I’m not quite sure what one would do with that).
Getting some parameters and discussion started now is beneficial for lots of reasons.
