While the Beatles feature in the title of this commentary, the lyrics from another British rock and roll band offer a practical framework as the warring sides in the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe probe for an acceptable offramp after four years of bloodshed.
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
Well, you just might find
You get what you need
Mick Jagger’s plaintive performance from the Stones’ 1969 classic highlights the core challenges of the continuing negotiations between the combatants and the United States. How the sides solve their respective want/need dichotomies will be fundamental in finding a lasting solution.
Let’s look more closely at this want/need dilemma, starting with Ukraine. On the want side of the equation, Kyiv aspires to ultimately regain all of its territory lost since 2014 —including Crimea, desires to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO, and hopes for Russian reparations to help rebuild the country. Absent a radical change in the battlefield reality in Kyiv’s favor or an equally cardinal evolution in Washington’s approach to the current negotiations, all of these aforementioned Ukrainian “wants” seem to be nonviable.
That does not mean, however, that all is lost for Ukraine. Standing firm with their allies and maintaining a, at least, non-confrontational relationship with Washington, could still result in Ukraine securing elementary needs in the talks with Moscow. Paramount among these are airtight security guarantees in any post-war settlement, based on the deployment of a broad-based international force authorized to vigorously counter any potential Russian malign activity. The amount of Ukrainian land that is lost or retained in the Donbas is salient, but that issue will not make or break the future of Ukraine. Without a robust, internationally-backed security architecture to prevent future Kremlin aggression, Russia will remain an existential threat to Ukraine’s viability as an independent nation state.
This is not to say that territory is not critical. It is. In that vein, Kyiv needs to maintain access to the Black Sea, specifically at the main port of Odesa, for its future economic well-being. Furthermore, to ensure continued energy security, Ukraine requires unfettered access — possibly under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency — to the power generated by the country’s main nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest. Along with post-war economic integration — formally or informally — into the European Union, control of these two geographic regions within Ukraine will be indispensable to Kyiv’s long-term economic vigor.
Fulfilling the above requirements will lay the groundwork for more long-term, but equally important, Ukrainian exigencies, which include a post-war reconstruction plan and the subsequent return of refugees. There is unquestionably a building block aspect to Ukrainian needs. A strong, post-conflict security regime, coupled with the preservation of key territories in the south, will spur the international investment required to rebuild the country, in the process inducing the return of refugees, pivotal to arresting Kyiv’s demographic decline.
There are equally divergent gaps along Moscow’s want/need continuum. Tsar Vladimir (I want to be) the Great dreams of controlling all of Ukraine, using it as a stepping stone for reestablishing Russian hegemony over those cursed lands residing astride the Carpathian mountains, in the geopolitical interstices between Germany and Russia. Putin would also like to see NATO’s post-Cold War enlargement to the east reversed. The above scenarios appear patently unrealistic, with the Kremlin’s gambit to divide the NATO alliance blown back in its face by the recent admission to the alliance of Finland and Sweden, greatly eroding Moscow’s power projection capabilities along NATO’s northern flank.
Logically, that leaves Moscow trying to salvage some needs from Putin’s disastrous “special military operation.” It seems likely that a key requirement for the Kremlin to accede to an end to the current hostilities will be territorial concessions by Kyiv, particularly in the Donbas region. Given the tremendous losses that the Red Army has suffered over the past four years, Putin will look for face-saving Ukrainian compromises to help convince the homefront that the Russian sacrifices were warranted. While the Russian leader still enjoys the benefit of time in this conflict, his window of opportunity for securing his needs — let alone his wants — on the battlefield is undeniably closing.
Turning to Washington, President Trump is pursuing a Nobel Peace Prize like the Wiley Coyote chasing the Road Runner. Though the president has unquestionably contributed to multiple ceasefires and fragile peace accords over the past year, his attempts to mediate the ultimate Slavic slugfest have yet to bear tangible results. Trump’s headlong pursuit of peacemaking glory needs to be tempered by the demands of ensuring a lasting settlement based on a sovereign, stable, economically viable, and non-threatening Ukraine coexisting with a Russian neighbor, whose legitimate security concerns will be respected.
Consequently, Washington would be wise to shift from its seemingly pro-Russian leanings to exert equal pressure on Moscow to make the required compromises to permanently end the fighting. Otherwise, President Trump risks the appeasement mistakes made in September of 1938 in Munich by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, about whom Winston Churchill so eloquently remarked, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”
Robert Beck of Peterborough served for 30 years overseas with the United States government in embassies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He now teaches foreign policy classes at Keene State College’s Cheshire Academy for Lifelong Learning.