Why must the war end now?

Seemingly everybody from clear-eyed commentators to heads of state to Trump himself have insisted it's time for the Ukraine-Russia war to come to an end. But why?

Because the war has gone on for three years, and that's long enough? Because the cost in lives, devastation, and resources has been enormous?

Those aren't good reasons, not least because they're arbitrary, as if the timetable should account for our stock (or deficit) of patience. Or as if the suffering must end because we are decent, caring people who can't bear to observe it. Which, frankly, rings a bit phony to me anyway.

Indeed, the brutal destruction wrought by a vicious aggressor should steel our resolve, although putting it that way runs the risk of cheapening the real resolve before which we should stand in awe: namely, Ukraine's. By comparison, "our" resolve comes at such trifling cost and with almost no sacrifice.

That $200 billion of U.S. aid and arms is chump change compared to the geostrategic value it buys us. And again, saying that runs the risk of losing sight of the most important value, which is Ukraine's freedom, and our insistence on a world order that does not tolerate wars of conquest. 

The question of when the war should end is actually easy to answer: It should end when Ukraine says it should end, and on terms of Ukraine's choosing. If Ukraine wants to keep fighting, our job is to provide it the resources it needs. If Ukraine wants to negotiate a settlement, our job is to assist it to get the best deal that it can.

Honestly, that's not a very big ask of us.

Ukraine, and only Ukraine, can determine when and if its sacrifice has become too great, relative to what it thinks it can achieve. That's not for us to say, because it isn't our country being invaded, and our people being brutalized.

To arbitrarily stop now would be to reward the aggressor, which sends all the wrong messages and creates all the wrong incentives, and would be morally bankrupt.

Expectations are crucial. Russia needs to understand beyond all doubt that there will be no arbitrary end; that it will need to extract itself from the mess it has made, or keep on bleeding. Ukraine is said to be barely hanging on, but that observation applies to Russia too.

It's under-appreciated how much Russia's military has been decimated, and its economy ravished, by its war of conquest. Inflation is 10 percent. Interest rates are 21 percent. The economy is not in recession, but current low GDP growth is driven by war spending, which is considered to be unsustainable.

It's not an exaggeration to say that Russia's military has been devastated. Ukraine says it has destroyed 10,000 Russian tanks, which should be taken with a grain of salt. But western analysts put the number in the thousands. Common estimates are around 4,000 main battle tanks destroyed or captured, and 8,000 armored vehicles. The U.K. estimates Russia is able to produce around 100 new tanks per year. According to the Institute for the Study of War, "Russian forces have sustained vehicle and artillery system losses on the battlefield that are unsustainable in the medium- to long-term given the limitations of Russia's defense industrial capacity and Soviet-era weapons and equipment stocks."

(When considering U.S. aid so far to Ukraine, it's worth pointing out that, before the war, any analyst would have considered it a stunningly good bargain to deplete Russia's military capacity so severely at the cost of a mere $200 billion. Russia is an aggressive adversary, a threat to its neighbors, and to the international order. Its diminishment at that scale would have been viewed as a good thing.)

Russia has also suffered enormous battlefield casualties. Ukraine claims 850,000 Russian troops killed, captured, missing, or wounded. The U.K. puts the estimate at 790,000, and the U.S. over 700,000. Russia has suffered more dead, by some multiples, than all Americans killed in Vietnam.

In the recent Oval Office mugging of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Trump stressed Ukraine's recruitment difficulties—difficulties that are unsurprising after three years of all-out war. (The U.S. relied on a massive draft to fight WW II, and also the wars in Korea and Vietnam.) But Russia too is facing significant recruitment challenges. Recruitment is down to around 40 per day, from perhaps 250 per day in mid-2024. Russia has been losing an estimated 1,500 troops per day for the past three months. It's exhausted its prison population recruitment pool that supplied what can only be described as battlefield cannon fodder in the early going. Russia is increasingly turning to foreign nationals, criminals, and debtors to bolster troop numbers, and of course a sizable contingent of North Koreans. But its fighting strength is far below what it would like.

Given all that, Putin would be delighted to be extricated from his dismal predicament on favorable terms that allow him to keep a big chunk of Ukrainian territory. Which, to my great consternation, is exactly what President Trump seems to be angling towards. What a monumental travesty that would be. Trump is also moving towards re-normalization of relations between Russia and the U.S., which is simply bewildering. Trump has suggested that Russia be re-admitted to the G-7, for example. And he's moving to weaken or remove sanctions enforcement. These are all shockingly inappropriate moves that send exactly the wrong message to a thuggish aggressor.

Having the war drag on indefinitely would be very bad for Russia. That's why the West and the U.S. need to make it absolutely clear that their support for Ukraine will be robust, ongoing, and open-ended, with no arbitrary limits or timelines. Trump's style of Putin-coddling negotiation is highly inappropriate. Putin needs to know that not only will he not be bailed out, but his cost will be staggering if he chooses to keep fighting. That understanding will help shape whatever peace agreement finally emerges. (At the same time China will get the message that it needs to keep its hands off Taiwan.)

It's certainly true that some kind of negotiation will need to happen at some point. But it's for Ukraine, not us, to say when that needs to happen, and whether there should be a ceasefire or other concessions. Since the true cost of the war is being paid by Ukraine, and since its own freedom is at stake, only Ukraine can determine when the war should end. It really is that simple.

Copyright (C) 2025 James Michael Brennan, All Rights Reserved

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