It’s About Security, Stupid!

Transitioning from Ukraine to the West exposes significant shifts in perspective. My most recent reentry into Europe and the US, after a stint in Ukraine, brought to light a perceptual disconnect around one crucial issue – especially as peace talks and potential deals appear in the news. That issue is security.

Outside of Ukraine I’m often asked the question: “Would Ukrainians accept a land-for-peace deal?”

The simple answer is: “Yes, definitely. As long as they get a real security guarantee.”

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour aired on Thursday, Oct. 22, President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted: “The most important thing [is] security guarantees.”

Of course, the full answer to the question of “land-for-peace” is very complex.

A recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology indicated that 61 percent of Ukrainians consider handing Moscow all of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region in exchange for security guarantees completely unacceptable.

However, like all such polls, the survey needs to minimize the contingencies surrounding any given issue. In this case, giving up the so-called “fortress belt” of cities in the remainder of the Donbas region that Ukraine still controls would be “unacceptable,” as it would require Kyiv to pull troops away from what constitutes its “Maginot line” against a Russian blitz toward Kyiv. In terms of security, such a land giveaway would be tantamount to capitulation – something obvious to Ukrainians on the ground there.

Other Topics of Interest

Russia Won’t Negotiate Seriously While It Thinks It Can Force Ukraine to Surrender, Sybiha Says

Ukraine’s foreign minister was responding to remarks by Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov, who complained that Washington had failed to pressure Kyiv into accepting a peace deal.

Focusing on the issue

When I consider the question, I keep hearing the refrain of Bill Clinton during the 1992 US presidential elections, when he was running against the incumbent George H.W. Bush.

Bush had just won a quick war, liberating Kuwait and manhandling the Iraqi army, which was supposed to be the third strongest in the world. Yet, despite his undisputed foreign policy success, economic figures were beginning to hint at recession, and the young candidate Clinton jumped on them with the rally cry: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Clinton’s success lay in his ability to simply focus on the obvious, rather than getting sidetracked by ancillary issues and spectacles.

In a sense, that’s how Ukrainians feel. Everything depends on security. And security for Ukrainians has never been easy.

3 options for security guarantees

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has sought three basic types of security guarantee.

The most desirable for Kyiv, at least initially, was NATO. But as Zelensky pleaded for some sort of NATO membership, it became clear that this would never happen as long as Ukraine was under attack. And even after a ceasefire, opposition to Ukraine’s full membership would be virtually insurmountable.

That left Ukraine with the hope of a watered-down alternative to NATO: separate bilateral security agreements with partners that could help in the event that any future peace deal were breached by Moscow. Preferably, the partner should be a NATO member with nuclear capabilities. (Only the US, the UK, and France fit that bill).

The key to any such agreement would be what’s referred to as an “Article 5-type” clause that would oblige the partner to come to Ukraine’s assistance in case of attack. But Article 5 is ambiguous enough to have even NATO members questioning what would happen if Russia attacked (ironically, the very scenario that NATO was designed to deter and/or defend against).

This second scenario is fraught with problems. What about foreign boots on the ground to monitor the ceasefire? What about foreign military bases in Ukraine? What about tripwires? It’s not surprising that most nations have diplomatically eschewed committing to Ukraine’s security beyond money and materiel.

The third scenario – at least from the perspective within Ukraine – is fast proving to be the only viable solution: Ensure that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) become so strong and capable that any invasion of Ukrainian territory would be too costly for the aggressor. And this is exactly what’s happening.

As with any promising solution to an intractable problem, the positives tend to snowball with momentum. As the nature of warfare becomes increasingly determined by drones and artificial intelligence, all the world’s military powers are studying the tactics and technologies employed in Ukraine. Even NATO military officers understand that in order to defend against a hypothetical attack, Ukraine’s know-how – acquired and developed out of necessity – is essential.

At this stage, though, Ukraine still can’t go it alone. Kyiv is currently parlaying its battlefield experience and willingness to sacrifice blood into a flood of treasure coming from the rich countries to its west. Security autonomy will take time, so Ukrainians have little choice but to hold the line, have faith in the AFU, and hope for the best in the West.

What this means for negotiations

As Zelensky continually insists: It’s about security. All the mineral and gas deals, all the talk of Donbas lines and territorial integrity, these are sideshows – important only inasmuch as they determine Ukraine’s security.

The Donbas issue – which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio disingenuously claimed on Oct. 22 was what “the war is about” – offers a perfect example:

It’s not that Ukraine is so attached to some holy notion of land or the mineral wealth beneath it. Zelensky has publicly repeated that he would accept a ceasefire on the current line of contact. But to give away land Russia has been unable to grab in 12 years for the sake of a dubious guarantee? That would be worse than naiveté – it would be disastrously criminal negligence on the part of Ukraine’s negotiators – especially as US President Donald Trump and his cohort, most notably Elon Musk, are so quick to double-cross friends for the sake of personal (not even national) interest.

As such, any proposed peace deal, if it is to be taken seriously, must offer real security guarantees. Given the current climate of distrust, “Article 5-like” guarantees will and should be met with a politely diplomatic “Thank you very much, but…” followed by hardnosed inquiries into details of commitments and tripwires.

The view from Ukraine, now nearly five full years into Moscow’s failed full-scale invasion, is rather clear. From the front line, where Russians are dying at a 10:1 ratio in many places and being fed into a drone buzzsaw in a maniacal effort to claim ruined Donbas villages as “conquered,” to cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa, where inhabitants are bracing for a winter rife with power outages and ballistic missile attacks, no one is talking about surrendering, which is what Trump is effectively trying to coerce.

With each passing day, Ukraine’s only real security hope grows in strength, and many of its European partners have begun to realize that in terms of security they cannot do without a strong Ukraine.

Ultimately, though, Ukrainians know their security will hinge on two ineluctable facts – one biological, the other political – all dictators die, and all empires disintegrate.

This is a generational fight that can’t be framed by American or European election cycles. And the existential security problem Ukraine has with Moscow is centuries old.