Zelensky’s “10-point peace plan” is hot air.Just listing off conditions that you want is pointless without first consulting the other involved party, especially if your conditions are all totally delusional. The framing of his peace plan is equally questionable, as he wants it discussed at a global summit, which illustrates incapability. If Ukraine cannot be talked to without the USA in the room, then why talk to Ukraine at all? Why should Russians, or anyone else, take Ukrainians seriously if they don’t take themselves seriously? But the biggest problem is that Russia has no reason to negotiate with Ukraine.
Big countries tend to have big problems, so world powers like Russia or China often are pretty easy to negotiate with, as the cost of a generous settlement with a small adversary is less than the cost of a protracted war. In their respective wars with India and Vietnam, the Chinese did just enough to “teach them a lesson” and then called it quits. The same goes with Russia and the Chechen insurrectionists – Chechens enjoy a high degree of autonomy, are lavished with federal money, and this investment paid off in the long term. Now Chechens quite enthusiastically fight for Russia, which I doubt anyone could have imagined 20 or even 10 years ago. Russia gave Georgia a bloody nose in 2008, but unlike Ukrainians, Georgians threw in the towel and avoided protracted war. Today Russian-Georgian relations are strained, but they’re overall fairly good and improving with time.
But the window for such a generous settlement has already passed. Ukraine chose protracted war, so now there’s no reason for Russia to stop until they have total victory. Everyone who opposes Russia for whatever reason in the future has to understand that they can be like Georgia, or they can be like Ukraine. Obviously it is better to be like Georgia.
As an analogy for the Russia/Ukraine feud, let’s say I get into some sort of dispute with a rich person like Mark Zuckerberg and he sues me. I complain about it on Twitter and Elon Musk sees my post. Musk doesn’t like Zuckerberg so decides to take my side and gives me $1 million for lawyers. These lawyers are good at their job and they make Zuckerberg look bad on the first day in court. Musk even writes his own tweet congratulating me for my success and claims Zuckerberg is “completely humiliated and on the verge of defeat.” I feel so confident I tweet that I am launching a “summer counter-suit” against Zuckerberg, but will accept a settlement if he gives me $50 billion and one of his mansions.
That’s not me “negotiating” with Zuckerberg, that’s just rambling a bunch of delusional demands that he would obviously never accept, and more importantly, doesn’t get me off the hook for the things HE wants from me. Zuckerberg isn’t “losing” and I’m not fighting him to a “stalemate.” All he has to do is keep dragging me into court until Elon Musk gets tired of giving me free money, and that’s it. Without Musk’s money I wouldn’t last a week, but I keep acting like I’m invincible and have Zuckerberg exactly where I want him.
Ironically, I am actually making things worse for myself. After my initial success in court, I could have convinced Zuckerberg to to accept smaller concessions from me. Maybe I could have even convinced him that whatever he was mad about just isn’t worth the cost of beating me and I wouldn’t have to give him anything that I hadn’t already lost. Instead, I let myself be Musk’s pawn in his own vendetta against Zuckerberg and publicly rubbed it in his face. Now by accepting anything less than victory, Zuckerberg wouldn’t be just losing to me, he would be losing to Musk. So now Zuckerberg MUST beat me, even if that ends up taking longer and costing him far more than he initially expected.
Ian Kummer
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And in this story you will end up homeless, jobless, with ruined reputation, probably without a spare pair of pants to cover your butt, yeah