The Strategic Dilemma of America and the European Union With Ukraine.
Putin himself probably faces a dilemma in the current situation.
Faced with the bogging down of the Russian army in Ukraine, the West is faced with a dilemma. Should it distribute more weapons to the Ukrainian resistance, as the Norwegian Secretary-General of NATO advocates, or should it favor Russo-Ukrainian negotiations, as Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, does?
Turkey has established itself as the main “honest broker” between the two belligerents. Its foreign minister even declared on March 20, 2022, that the peace talks in Antalya were very close to success. The talks focus on four main points:
The non-integration of Ukraine into NATO.
Crimea.
Donbas.
The status of the Russian language in the eastern regions of Ukraine.
The cessation of the massacre between Slavic brothers is the top priority. But, here, the difficulty is to avoid that possible concessions to Russia are seen as signs of weakness. The West cannot appear to reward the use of violence in international relations. Otherwise, tomorrow, China will pounce on Taiwan. It is, therefore, necessary to have a very fine, informed, and balanced diplomacy.
The West faces a dilemma
Before Turkey, France, Israel, and China had successively sought to be the conciliator that would bring peace to Eastern Europe. Turkey is appreciated by the Ukrainians, not only because it qualified the Russian military aggression as unacceptable, but also because it delivered to them, well before the beginning of the conflict, Bayraktar TB2. These armed drones, designed by President Erdogan's son-in-law, proved to be extremely effective in the war won by Azerbaijan against the Armenians in September 2020 in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Today, they are wreaking havoc on the armored columns of the Russian invader. Erdogan has also managed to maintain good relations with Putin, refusing to join the European and American sanctions against Russia. Turkish Airlines is the only airline in the NATO area that still flies to Moscow. The two leaders have clashed, through local militias, in Syria and Libya, but they have gotten along well since Putin warned Erdogan in July 2016 that a military plot was being hatched against him in Turkey.
French President Emmanuel Macron could have been this peacemaker, he who had visited at length, in Moscow and then in Kyiv, Presidents Putin, and Zelensky (February 7 and 8, 2022), he who continued to talk by phone with the Russian president after the beginning of his “special military operation” in Ukraine. But the problem is that the French president also posed as the leader of the sanctions at the European summit in Versailles, on March 10, 2022, in his capacity as the current president of the EU. The “at the same time” is a procedure that sometimes works in politics or economics, never in diplomacy.
Is Putin lucid enough to recognize the enormity of his three misjudgments?
The second branch of the strategic alternative for the West is to help Ukraine more militarily. This is not a crazy idea, because we are obliged to note that Vladimir Putin only understands power relations. But there is a risk of escalation. Are we sure that Putin will not be tempted to double down, like a gambler desperately trying to win back his bet at roulette? How can we save his face? Is he living in a bubble or does he realize the enormity of his three errors of appreciation?
The first one is to have underestimated the military value of the Ukrainian army and its real attachment to President Zelensky, regularly elected. The second is to have overestimated the value of his army, which shows unimaginable technical, logistic, tactical, and moral weaknesses. The third is to have underestimated the capacity for the cohesion of the West in times of crisis and the impact of economic sanctions.
It is not crazy to open an exit door to the wounded bear that prowls the farm so that it returns to its forest and stops ravaging everything in its path. Do we want to see a tactical nuclear device explode one day on the Polish-Ukrainian border?
Putin himself is faced with a dilemma: to continue his bloody adventure even if it means forging the Ukrainian nation hostile to Russia for a century, or to withdraw to limit the damage, even if it means admitting the enormity of his strategic mistake.
As it is in the political interest of the pro-Western Ukrainians to let go of the pro-Russian lands of Crimea and the Donbas, and to adopt an Austrian-style neutrality treaty that does not forbid them to equip themselves militarily, a Russo-Ukrainian deal is, therefore, possible today. It is also desirable. Unless we want to fight for our democratic ideals... to the last Ukrainian.