RE: Reality Interrupts Fantasies ...Again17 Aug 2023 11:46
Peace deals
Stian Jenssen, chief of staff to Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, has put the cat amongst the pigeons by suggesting that Ukraine could consider ceding part of its territory to Russia in exchange for Nato membership.Β
The comment predictably caused a kerfuffle and he quickly walked his comments back saying they were only βhypotheticalβ and no one was intending to actually give chunks of Ukraine away to end the war. But of course that is not true, is it? People in the Western alliance really are talking about βlettingβ Putin keep the Donbas, the land bridge and the Crimea as part of any eventual ceasefire deal as really there is no other choice.
So Jenssenβs comments are very interesting as his slip suggests very strongly there is a real debate going on behind the scenes on how to end the war and that peace formulas are being actively discussed. And territorial concessions will have to be part of that as despite Ukraineβs heroic rhetoric of expelling Russian troops completely before peace talks can even start that is not realistic. Especially since the West is not prepared to send Ukraine the weapons it needs to actually win. For example the number of pilots that will be trained to fly the F-16s has been reduced from eight to six now and the training has been delayed again into next year.
The only way out is for some sort of frozen conflict and the world is littered with this sort of solution that last decades: the Korean DMZ, Turkeyβs occupation of north Cyprus and the Berlin wall all spring to mind.
The issue is how do we get from here to there. Jenssenβs comment suggests that the West have started this discussion, but clearly the outrage it caused means we are still a long way from actually seeing a serious discussion on this.