Today, Explained - How does the war in Ukraine end?

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

The next Congress could be a whole lot less willing to keep spending billions on aid to Ukraine. It’s time to talk about how this war could end. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard with help from Miles Bryan, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ukraine-Russia war hasn't ended yet, still going strong, but support not quite as strong. I would say over the summer, support started to drop off. It's terrible to say, but the public does have sort of limited interest in these things. And some of the economic effects were beginning to make themselves felt. Russia's invasion disrupted the flow of food for millions of people around the world and caused prices to spike. They're increasingly looking at the sort of massive aid packages being sent to Ukraine. The United States is sending another billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine, including rockets and anti-tank weapons. And in Europe, we're starting

to see debates over energy and how long this war can go. So support is still there for the war, but it's definitely getting softer. With waning support, midterms and winter coming, we're going to ask what the end of this war might look like on Today Explained. The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever.

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Ukraine Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Emma Ashford. She's a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. It's a DC think tank. Emma focuses on American foreign policy. And she's here today to tell us how support for Ukraine is waning a bit and and what the end of this war might look like. But we started with what support looked like at the beginning of this escalation eight months ago. It was very strong at that time. Harvard stands with Ukraine. Thousands of Californians embrace total strangers with open arms and open hearts. We've all banded together to say, let's help these people who are in need. That's such a powerful message for today.

Not just in the United States, but in most countries that you would consider part of the Western bloc, right? In Europe, in the US, in Canada, and in some Asian allies too, like Japan and South Korea. Support for Ukraine was basically through the roof. Outside of that block, support was always a little softer because those were the countries that were more worried about food supplies and fuel and things like that. But initially, at least in the West, we saw just a massive wave of support for the Ukrainians defending their homeland, protecting their freedom, protecting democracy, etc. I even heard things I remember in the outset of this war that like Americans were willing to pay more at the pump to support

this war, to support Ukraine. Was that true or was that just some sort of phantom rumor kind of thing? I am sure somebody probably said that. I'm skeptical that Americans would be willing to pay more at the pump for basically anything, because that is usually a leading indicator of when support for things drop. Yeah. It's been surprising and somewhat heartening that support in the U.S. has actually remained as high as it has for Ukraine, given how much economic pain we're seeing, you know, here and in places in Europe. And that support has included billions upon billions of dollars, like $16 billion so far, I think.

So the exact figure depends who you ask. Far more than $16 billion in terms of weapons supplies, but a smaller amount of money that has gone directly to support the government of Ukraine, because obviously they're in the middle of a war. They need money to actually keep their economy afloat. And so, you know, you talk about the aid packages from Congress. And what you're talking about is some combination of financial support directly to Ukraine, support for refugees who've had to flee the conflict both inside Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe. And then these just massive weapons packages that are being sent on a regular basis out of stocks, both here in the U.S. and in most U.S. allies. And since you brought up Congress, I feel like that's a good segue to the fact that recently a bunch of lefty Democrats in Congress sort of ended up in some self-imposed hot water for publishing a letter.

30 Democrats sent a letter to President Biden urging him to pursue direct talks with Russia to reduce harm and support Ukraine in achieving a peaceful settlement. And while the progressive caucus put out this letter basically saying, you know, Biden, we love everything you're doing. Please keep doing it on Ukraine. But maybe also think about adding a diplomatic element to this strategy. That's really what the letter said. It was very mild and very non-controversial. The problem, I think, was the timing. Apparently, the letter was written in June, back when neither Ukraine or Russia was doing particularly well on the battlefield. And diplomacy might have made more sense then.

But in the context of all these recent gains that Ukraine has made, I think people interpreted this letter very badly as saying, well, Ukraine should just surrender to Russia. So I don't think the outcry over the letter was particularly well justified, but it tells you something about how this debate has become a real political football in Washington, that it got the reaction it did. They have withdrawn this letter that they sent to President Biden. This is Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington.

She, of course, the chair of the Progressive Caucus. This comes after 24 hours of swift criticism, particularly from her fellow Democrats and even those that had signed on to this letter. Has there been further opposition to the kind of spending that Congress is doing? Yeah, well, so one of the other reasons the letter sort of kicked up a fuss is it was really the first sign on the Democratic side of the aisle that there might be lawmakers who were starting to think about how the conflict might end, the costs that it was imposing. And that's something they explicitly say in the letter is, you know, we support Ukraine, we want to do this,

but as representatives of the people, you know, this amount of money is concerning, we have a responsibility to think about it. That was the first sign on the left, but on the right, we've seen people complaining about that for months now. And no matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America. We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the US economy. But we've also seen folks in the Congressional caucus, everybody from sort of like Marjorie Taylor Greene on down, who are more Trumpyy Republicans basically arguing that we don't need to spend all this money to protect Americans. We should take that money. And depending sort of on the

flavor of Republican, it's either we should spend it at home, we should save it for taxpayers, or we need to be spending more on turning towards China for some of them. I voted no on the aid package for several reasons. I mean, one of them, just the sort of technicalities of it. For one thing, it's huge. It's three times as much as the Europeans have done combined. And this isn't just something that's happening in Washington, D.C. I was watching the World Series this weekend and saw this ad from some right wing group called Citizens for Sanity. But instead of helping us, Joe Biden has sent 66 billion dollars to Ukraine, weapons worth billions more. And now Joe Biden says his

fight in Ukraine could lead to nuclear Armageddon, World War III. You know what I say? No mas. Citizens for Sanity paid for this ad. My assumption is that millions of Americans saw that ad and have no idea what Citizens for Sanity is, but are like, oh, yeah, wow, we're spending billions in Ukraine. What the hell? Yeah, it's particularly interesting because I believe Citizens for Sanity is one of Stephen Miller's political groups. But it's clearly the ad is clearly trying to appeal to Hispanic voters. Look, the issue of spending in regards to Ukraine, the issue of gas prices and the costs Americans are bearing has become an election issue for the midterms. Right. And I think, you know, at least some of the pushback that we're seeing is just politically motivated. You know, it's the notion that Republicans can probably score a win off of this. But I think in other cases, it's a genuine concern, you know, not so much about supporting Ukraine, but about how far that support will go. And you heard that bit right at the end of the ad, you know, Joe Biden says we'll have a nuclear Armageddon. You know, that's

overblown. But there are quite genuine fears here of potential nuclear exchange or nuclear use inside Ukraine. And so these are pretty potent political messages, and there's some basis and truth there. I think, you know, we're in a difficult place. The administration, I think, has done a pretty good job so far of pursuing, you know, what you might call a realpolitik approach to this conflict, right? We're helping Ukrainians. Our aid is clearly making a difference in the conflict. We have an interest in Russia not conquering large chunks of Europe. But we're sort of rapidly approaching the point where those costs and the risks of escalation may start to get higher than we actually want to bear. And that's a very difficult political decision because, as you say,

support for Ukraine is an incredibly righteous cause. So it's really hard to have a debate about what are the limits of US or Western support to Ukraine? Where do our interests diverge from Kiev in terms of, you know, what we're willing to bear? And how might we actually look for an end to this conflict? And, you know, I think those are the big questions that we've all been avoiding over the summer, and they're going to become more pressing in the coming months. So maybe worthwhile talking about how this war might end. I think that's what's been missing from this debate so far. We know that we want Ukraine to win.

The question of how far this goes is a really difficult one, and nobody really wants to actually talk about it because it does imply, I think, you know, some limits to Western support. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an aura frame for himself.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Today explained Moss with Emma Ashford on how this war might end. One thing to definitely keep in mind is that most wars, at least wars between states, typically end in some kind of negotiation. It's a very rare war in the international system that ends with total defeat of the other side. You know, nobody's talking about Ukraine going all the way to Moscow here. So at some point, you know, we are making a decision about when the risks and costs of the conflict outweigh the benefits of continuing. And that calculus might look very different in Kiev or in Warsaw or in Berlin or in Washington.

Deciding when that cost-benefit analysis changes, that's the question Western leaders have right now. And how much of that did Elon Musk take into consideration when he tweeted out the scenarios in which he thought this war would end? Ah, yes. Elon Musk, noted geopolitical thinker. Redo elections of annexed regions under U.N. supervision. Russia leaves if that's the will of the people. Crimea, formerly part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 until Khrushchev's mistake. Water supply to Crimea assured. Ukraine remains neutral.

You know, I think the thing that was most notable about that incident was that apparently Elon Musk was repeating something that he had been told potentially through intermediaries that may have actually come from the Russians. And from my point of view, looking at it, that actually suggests there is some willingness to negotiate on the Russian side at some point. And that's a good thing for potentially ending this war, even if what Elon Musk proposed is a bit unrealistic at this point.

This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end. Just a question of how many die before then. Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war. Well, remind us what Russia is looking to get out of this war. I mean, if Putin could draw up his ideal endgame right now, just if he could rule the world and get whatever he wanted, what would that be? We know what he wanted on February 24th when he ordered the invasion. And what he wanted then was toth when he ordered the invasion. And what he

wanted then was to topple the government in Kiev, presumably install some kind of puppet government rather than actually annex Kiev, annex Ukraine. But he wanted Ukraine to remain a sort of satellite state of Russia, one that was beholden to Russian foreign policy interests, one that wouldn't join NATO or the European Union. So it's obvious Putin's not getting that. I'd say at this point, Russia appears to have downgraded its goals to basically some control of territory and probably some Ukrainian neutrality. But I think at this point, we're talking about some kind of armed neutrality where Ukraine mostly aligns with the West. So I think the Russians have really downgraded their war aims as the war has gone on. But what you're saying is that if Russia were able to secure this territorial

buffer that you're talking about, and maybe Ukrainian neutrality in the EU and NATO, they would end this war potentially? It's not possible to know until we actually get into negotiations. It's also possible, as some have suggested, that a peace deal could simply set the stage for a future war. But I do think that a properly thought through peace deal, one that actually does give Russia something out of this, as well as giving Ukraine what it has earned, what it has fought for, could be a settlement that could actually survive here. So the question really is, is Russia telling the truth about its aims, or does it intend to simply come back and conquer more of Ukraine, and designing a deal

that makes that far less likely to happen. So what are the potential scenarios for negotiation here? There's probably four scenarios in which we could think about starting negotiations or thinking about reaching some kind of deal. One is if the Ukrainians enjoy serious success, do manage to push the Russians back either to those 2014 lines or maybe even all the way out of sort of that part of Ukraine. If the question turns to Crimea, I do think that's a point where Western leaders at least may want to push for a settlement. If the Russians succeed in their mobilization efforts, right, they've initiated these huge mass mobilizations, they've mobilized maybe 300,000 men, by all accounts, in the last

few months, if that actually succeeds in producing more military force, and the Russians managed to turn this thing around and start advancing, you know, that's another place we might want to negotiate because we would want to limit further losses of Ukrainian territory. If the conflict boils down in a stalemate again, so like the one we had over the summer, perhaps a bit longer, if we get to the point where the costs of continuing just aren't worth it because neither side can make headway, you know, that's another place where the battlefield reality might translate into a deal. And then I'd say the fourth, and this is a somewhat slightly different scenario, but there may be a scenario in which the risks of escalation become so high that Western countries

want to push for a settlement. And that would be, I think, you know, the nuclear use question that's been talked about a lot lately, or if the war sort of started to spill out of Ukraine into neighboring NATO member states, right? So that's a situation in which negotiations would be very difficult. But if the alternative is a larger war, I do think that's a place where negotiations might become necessary. okay so four scenarios escalation stalemates russia starts winning more ukraine starts winning more and what do you think the best case scenario is here for ukraine for the world so you know the best case scenario um and and this is this is very difficult right because you know, the best case scenario, and this is very difficult, right? Because, you know, I think in some ways for many countries, particularly those relying on, you know, food and fuel that comes through the Black Sea, you know, a much quicker end to the conflict probably would be better for them. It obviously wouldn't be better for the Ukrainians necessarily, and it might not be better for Europe. So from our point of view, sitting here in the United States, the best case scenario would be one in which we continue to arm and fund the Ukrainians, they make substantial territorial gains,

and then we can leverage that into some kind of durable settlement, right? We don't want this to just go on forever. We want to be able to turn that aid into something that actually creates a durable settlement. And when and if that happens, can Ukraine or anyone else trust that Putin and Russia will abide by the terms of that negotiation long term? No, because that's how international treaties work. You know, states are not bound by them. What we can do is try and build a settlement that makes it less likely. So one that's not punitive, for example, and the example we might bring up here

is the Versailles Treaty, which placed on Germany at the end of World War I, called for massive reparations, reshaped the German government, actually ended up contributing to some of the circumstances that ended up producing World War II. So we don't want to do that kind of thing, right? We want to avoid that sort of mistake. And making sure that both sides can live with the settlement that's created is one way to do that. Another is to simply ensure that Ukraine is well enough equipped to fight off future invasions that it can deter Russia from trying this again. And so a question that's come up is the question of security guarantees to Ukraine,

which the Ukrainians want. I don't think a security guarantee like NATO is particularly credible or is a good idea in this context, but a commitment from the West to continue to arm Ukraine, to help them build up their forces, to support them in the case of a future conflict. That could be quite a viable way to deal with this problem. And if Ukraine is strong enough that it can deter Russia on its own, then we might also be able to avoid future conflicts.

So what you're saying is whatever the negotiations bring, they have to include security for Ukraine, but also a way out for Putin. Yeah. And, you know, then you start to get into really difficult questions about, you know, Russian domestic politics and Ukrainian domestic politics and what leaders can sell to their populations. But the one piece of good news in all of this is that Putin is an absolute personalistic dictator, which means he can probably sell a loss at home as something more than a loss. So, you know, if we can find a settlement that is workable, hopefully Putin can find a way to sell that that doesn't endanger his own power. You know, that might incentivize him to think about ending the conflict. I mean, obviously, you know, it's not ideal from the point of view of human rights or Putin staying in power, but from the point of view of ending the conflict, it's definitely where you want to be. And what will the world have learned from this conflict when and if that day

comes? So people are going to take different lessons from it. I think we've already seen that the Biden administration has taken the lesson that we are in an era of revisionist great powers who want to conquer their neighborhoods, that this is about a fight between democracy and autocracy. And I think that's what the administration has taken from this. What I take from it is a very different lesson. I take from it the idea that, you know, we know that the post-Cold War period is ending.

We know that American power is in kind of relative decline, right? We're not the world's only superpower anymore. And the thing that worries me about the war in Ukraine is it's a case where, you know, U.S. foreign policy alliance building has bumped right up against the borders of another great power. And we've basically seen a war come out of that. And I worry that we might then see that happen in other places, you know, Taiwan being the most obvious case. But, you know, we need to think about living in a more sort of multipolar world where there's lots of different states rather than the sort of 1990s where America could basically dictate a lot of things around the world. Emma Ashford. I'm a senior fellow in the Reimagining U.S. Ground Strategy program at the Stimson Center. Our show today was produced by Victoria Chamberlain. I'm a producer at Today Explained.

She had help from Paul Robert Mounsey. That's right. Matthew Collette. I mostly go by Matt. Miles Bryan, Siona Petros, and Laura Bullard. This is Factual. I'm Sean Ramos from... The rest of the team here includes... Our supervising producer is...

Our director of sound is... My co-host is... We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld. Today Explained is distributed on the radio by WNYC. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. You can get in touch with us

anytime via email. We're at todayexplained at vox.com. We're also on Twitter. But, you know.