Russia and Ukraine are caught in a mutually desperate stalemate
Despite periodic predictions that either Ukrainian or Russian forces are on the verge of a battlefield breakthrough, there can be little doubt that the war in Ukraine has ground to bloody stalemate. Neither side possesses, nor is likely to possess in the foreseeable future, the kind of decisive military advantage that would allow it to prevail on the battlefield and realize even its more modest geopolitical objectives.
Nor do either of the belligerents possess the staying power to continue the war at the current level of intensity for much longer. Russia faces economic and political obstacles to the kind of mass mobilization prolonged conflict would require, while Ukraine’s Western backers are unlikely to be willing or able to continue supporting Kyiv in the face of gas shortages, economic woes and the exhaustion of their own stockpiles of arms and ammunition.
This being the case, the only real question is whether the current operational reality can best be characterized as a “mutually hurting stalemate” or a “mutually desperate stalemate.”
If it is a mutually hurting stalemate, then the conditions are ripening for productive negotiations to begin. A mutually hurting stalemate, of course, is technically a situation in which both belligerents find themselves locked in a conflict that neither can win unilaterally and that is so painful to both that they judge it more advantageous to start negotiating rather than continue fighting.
But we are not yet in such a stalemate — indeed, we are not even close to the point where Kyiv and Moscow will judge that there is more to be gained than lost by joining their foes at the negotiating table.
On the Russian side, the levels of pain remain high but bearable. The international sanctions have hurt Russia, but not as dramatically as many had hoped; and Russian battlefield losses, while eye-popping, have not been back breaking. Moreover, Moscow’s ability to hang in the fight has been reinforced by the belief (hope?) that both Ukrainian resolve and Western support will not survive the coming winter. Bottom line? While Russia is hurting, the pain remains bearable.
And that pain is certainly more bearable – to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies, at least, if not the average soldier at the front – than conceding to Kyiv even a “small win” at the negotiating table. The Russian leadership simply has too much invested in the success of their “special military operation” to agree to return even to the January 2022 status quo ante, let alone to that of January 2014.
Similarly, on the Ukrainian side, the pain of the current stalemate remains politically sustainable. Painful? Without doubt. The physical devastation and human suffering visited on Ukraine by the Russian invaders is without doubt cataclysmic. But not unbearable. As with the Russian regime, the Ukrainian leadership continues to be able to sustain the war politically and militarily, buoyed by the belief (hope?) that the other side will crack before they do and that all that is required for victory, therefore, is to hang in the fight just a little bit longer.
So, while the situation on the ground in Ukraine is obviously a stalemate, and while it can fairly be described as mutually hurting, it cannot really be characterized as a “mutually hurting stalemate” in the technical sense described above. And that, I would suggest, means that it is evolving into something far more ominous — something I will call a mutually desperate stalemate.
In this form of stalemate, one or more of the belligerents comes to consider both battlefield deadlock and diplomatic negotiations to be unbearably costly, driving it to desperately seek a third option — one that may be risky and even dangerous but that also entails the prospect of ending the stalemate on favorable terms.
The logic here is simple: Where one of the belligerents knows that the status quo will become increasingly costly and foreseeably untenable, “rolling the dice,” while risky, is the most rational course of action because it at least creates the possibility of salvaging a “small win,” even if it will not yield a decisive victory.
That’s the risky part. The dangerous part is that rolling the dice is likely to involve some sort of escalation. On Kyiv’s part this might entail horizontal escalation involving attacks on Russian assets in Crimea or Russia proper, or both. On Moscow’s part it might similarly entail horizontal escalation, though in the form of strikes against NATO members providing arms, ammunition and other forms of aid to Ukraine. But it might also involve vertical escalation in the form of nuclear strikes, either for demonstration purposes or in earnest.
Either way, the potential for catastrophe – for both the belligerents and others – is obvious. The war could become even more destructive, possibly even widening to include NATO members, and conceivably even spiraling into a nuclear war between Russia and the United States.
We’re not there yet, of course. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have reached the point of mutually desperate stalemate. But it is a looming probability, and one that may be upon us sooner rather than later.
Indeed, I would suggest that, given the way this conflict has unfolded to date, the only real questions now are: When will we achieve this state of mutually desperate stalemate, which side will succumb first and what will the ensuing escalation look like?
Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter @aalatham.
Source: TEST FEED1
