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> There are some simple facts that aren’t really controversial. There are two ways for a war to end: One way is for one side or the other to be basically destroyed. And the Russians are not going to be destroyed. So that means one way is for Ukraine to be destroyed. Well this isn't true. Russia could just give up without negotiating a settlement. Or it could declare victory and leave. Or Ukraine really could destroy, not Russia as a state, but the ability of the Russia to keep an offensive army in the field. Russia isn't supposed to be sending conscripts to the front and so far it mostly isn't. It can't maintain some of the fictions it's been preaching about the war so far if it did so. That severely limits the amount of troops it has available for the war. Yes, Ukraine is not going to be able to march on Moscow and end the Russian state, but that doesn't mean that they won't be able to keep fighting and force Russia to end the war on more favorable terms. Chomsky is trying to frame this in such a way that the best possible outcome is for Ukraine is they capitulate in some way in order to appease Putin. That's a false framing and ignores most of the subtleties of the conflict. > We can, however, look at the United States and we can see that our explicit policy — explicit — is rejection of any form of negotiations. It is not the United States' place to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine. It would be both unjust and impossible for the United States to force Ukraine to quite this conflict for its convenience. Ukraine has been negotiating with Russia since nearly the beginning of the war and so far both have been unwilling to budge. Any agreement that the Unites States would come to with Russia would just result in the US ceasing aid and leaving Ukraine on its own. The US could not guarantee that Russia would not violate its side of the agreement and in fact would leave Ukraine much more vulnerable if Russia did decide to violate its agreement. That would be a repeat of the Munich Agreement. > Well, something has to be done about Donbas, the proper reaction, which maybe the Russians would accept, would be a referendum, an internationally supervised referendum to see what the people of the region want. One possibility, which was available before the invasion, was implementation of the Minsk II agreements, which provided for some form of autonomy in the region within a broader Ukrainian Federation, something like maybe Switzerland or Belgium or other places where there are federal structures — conflict, but confined within federal structures. The problem with this approach is that it would give Russia veto power on Ukraine's foreign policy, in other words, a total capitulation. Russia administers the the breakaway region in the Donbas and unless that treaty would force Russia to leave, which it wouldn't do, Russia would be able to directly control Ukraine's foreign policy. Add that it would force Ukraine to forswear any military assistance from other countries, it would make Ukraine vulnerable to Russian invasion, all the while providing no guarantees that Russia would have to respect Ukraine's sovereignty. Chomsky wants to frame this a reasonable compromise, but in fact it's not a compromise, it's a trap disguised as a compromise drafted by Russia, and Ukraine recognizes this. Minsk II was rejected by Ukraine, not the US. |