Generally speaking, it’s true not to make concessions prior to a negotiation, but it’s also true that you are unlikely to begin negotiations in the first place if your position is perceived as unacceptable. When you are negotiating a fair price for a new car, you don’t begin by offering half of the list price.
Last week, the establishment class practically had a conniption when newly minted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine would not include either returning the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2013, back to Ukraine or potential Ukrainian membership in NATO during remarks in Europe. “We will only end this devastating war – and establish a durable peace – by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield,” he said. “We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering. A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0. That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.” In response, Nicholas Grossman, a political science professor at the University of Illinois, writing for MSNBC declared that “NATO is in serious trouble, and with it, the post-Cold War international order. For the first time in the alliance’s 75-year history, its most powerful member is pulling back and may be effectively pulling out.” He continued, claiming, “The first big impact will be in Ukraine. America is effectively switching sides, from helping Ukraine resist Russia’s attack to helping Russia gain concessions. Hegseth declared that the United States not only refuses to be part of any force providing security guarantees to Ukraine in a war settlement, but also won’t come to the aid of a NATO member whose forces backstopping a settlement get attacked by Russia. At best, that is a bad negotiating strategy. Even if the U.S. did not provide security guarantees, the strategic ambiguity of potential U.S. support for a NATO ally that does would discourage violations of the peace, and create future leverage.” In his view, “Trump and Hegseth forfeiting [of] Ukraine’s bargaining position in advance — rather than showing a unified front, starting high and being willing to move down in exchange for concessions — is more than poor negotiating. When a reporter asked Trump if he views Ukraine ‘as an equal member of this peace process,’ Trump responded, ‘I think they have to make peace. That was not a good war to go into.’” Even some Republicans were less than enthused. For example, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker claimed that he was “disturbed” by the comments, calling them a “rookie mistake.” “Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job,” he said. “But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line…Everybody knows…and people in the administration know you don’t say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won’t agree to.”
On Monday, CNN’s Stephen Collinson further expanded upon both of these notions, declaring that “Trump offers key concessions to Putin ahead of Ukraine peace talks in Saudi Arabia” and “Vladimir Putin is riding high ahead of critical US-Russia talks Tuesday in Saudi Arabia on ending the Ukraine war. Donald Trump’s administration has ended the Russian president’s international isolation, shattered Western unity on the conflict and cast doubt on how far the US would go to defend Europe, signaling a stunning shift toward Putin and away from America’s traditional allies.” Combined with what he described as a “searing attack on European democracy by Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security conference — and his decision to meet the leader of the far-right anti-immigrant AfD party just days before the German election — meanwhile shook European leaders. The speech was a clear sign the Trump administration intends to promote many of the populist movements that are evoking dark echoes on a continent twice destroyed by war in the 20th century. And Hegseth’s blunt warning in Brussels last week that Europeans needed to ‘take ownership of conventional security on the continent’ was widely seen as a sign of Trump’s antipathy for NATO and its security umbrella. All of this is music to Putin’s ears, since it suggests that his status as an international pariah is over, and that he has a deal within reach over Ukraine that would cement his territorial gains. The divisions Trump has opened inside NATO is delivering on one of Russia’s most important foreign policy goals.” “It’s indeed like Easter, Hanukkah, Christmas, (the) birthday of Vladimir Putin and everything is happening in one day,” explained Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “Whatever Champagne is not chilled is brought to the fridge and other bottles are uncorked.” Thus, the conventional wisdom can be fairly summarized: President Trump is making a short term mistake by offering up concessions before negotiations have officially started, and potentially a long term mistake by re-normalizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and undermining NATO. While the relationship between Presidents Trump and Putin has been extensively covered, up to and including Trump “making no secret of his admiration for strongmen leaders” according to Mr. Collinson and even Trump being a Manchurian-candidate style Russian-plant, the upfront concessions argument is relatively new – and perhaps equally misguided in its own, if somewhat lesser, way. Generally speaking, it’s true that one shouldn’t make concessions prior to a negotiation, but it’s equally true that you are unlikely to begin negotiations in the first place if your position is perceived as entirely unreasonable and unacceptable. For example, when you are negotiating a fair price for a new car or home, you don’t begin by offering half of the list or the asking price and expect the seller to take you remotely seriously. Instead, you begin by proposing something lower than you are willing to accept, but close enough to a reasonable price that the seller will be inclined to engage.
In this case, no one seriously believes that Russia will give back Crimea, which it has held for more than a decade now, under any circumstances. They would not have done so before the war. They will not do so after fighting the war to a bloody stalemate, despite having the so-called free world aligned against them, which if anything has had the unanticipated consequence of making them fight even harder and more closely aligning them with a new set of allies that could have even more devastating consequences. We know this both because of the character, or lack of it, of the Russian President, who clearly views the situation rightly or wrongly, as an existential crisis and because of Russian history itself in similar situations, where they have demonstrated a, shall we say, obstinate view of affairs even in defeat. In 1904, hostilities broke out between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over their respective ambitions in Manchuria and Korea, what is now known as the Russo-Japanese War. Japan had attempted to ease tensions beforehand by ceding Russia’s Manchurian dominance in exchange for a recognition of Japan’s own dominance in Korea, after signing an agreement with the United Kingdom. Russia, however, rejected the exchange, prompting Japan to attack the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur on February 9, 1904. Both sides declared war in the aftermath, but rather unexpectedly, the conflict quickly turned into an embarrassing Russian rout. Japan landed troops in Korea, crossed into Manchuria, landed more forces on the Liaodong Peninsula, and laid siege to Port Arthur itself, which fell in January 1905. By March, the Japanese had also taken the Manchurian capital at Mukden, and in May, destroyed a second Russian fleet that had sped over from the Baltic Sea. While the rest of the world agreed Russia had suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of an emerging imperial power, Russian leaders certainly didn’t act that way when President Teddy Roosevelt organized peace talks at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. Rather than being humbled in defeat, the Russian delegation refused to accept they’d lost the war and promptly demanded concessions from the Japanese instead of giving them themselves. Though this seemed backwards to almost everyone involved, the underlying reality was very simple. Japan might well have won on Southeast Asian turf, but to advance their demands any further and settle the matter permanently, they’d have to mount a near impossible invasion of Russia itself through Siberia. Because this was either impossible in principle or so difficult in practice as to be impossible, Russia maintained an incredibly strong position throughout the negotiations and by the terms of the final treaty, one is hard pressed to say that they actually lost the war in the first place. While the Japanese began by demanding permanent recognition of their interests in Korea, their control of the Island of Sakhalin, which they took during the hostilities, the withdrawal of Russian forces from Manchuria, and various reparations, Tsar Nicholas forbade Russian negotiators from making any such concessions, knowing the Japan couldn’t prosecute the war any further. As a result, Russia was able to secure continued presence in Manchuria, via the Chinese Eastern Railway, get back half of Sakhalin Island, an unheard of concession at the time after it was taken in battle, and be obligated to pay no reparations at all. As a result, Roosevelt was declared the best “herder of emperors since Napoleon.”
While President Trump hasn’t yet proven himself in the same league as the legendary Bull Moose, the lessons should be overwhelmingly clear: President Putin simply won’t participate in any negotiations where Crimea and NATO membership for Ukraine are under consideration, nor is he likely to give up any of the territory Russia has gained since they invaded. If this was on the table, Putin wouldn’t be at the table. Asking for something you know there is no chance of ever getting, something that will likely anger the other side of the negotiation before it even begins isn’t a particularly sound strategy, one might call it a rookie mistake, especially when you can always walk away if your other immutable terms aren’t met. Of course, whether or not we should be entering into a negotiation at this juncture, potentially one without Ukraine itself as part of the discussions at least in the first round, is another question, one where good faith judgements will vary considerably for obvious reasons. Those advocating for negotiations believe that the cost of the war in blood and treasure has far exceeded any benefit in the so-called total victory for Ukraine, a concept that hasn’t really been well-defined in any event. At this point, no one can even say for sure how many have died on both sides, but estimates generally place the figure at between 700,000 and 1,000,000. As of late last year, Russia controls approximately 20 percent of the country, a figure that hasn’t changed more than a couple of percent in almost two years, and somewhere around 3.5 million Ukrainians are living under Russian occupation with over 250,000 buildings destroyed throughout the war torn country. The amount of money spent on the conflict over the past three years is also hard to determine, but between the US and the European Union the figure is upwards of $350 billion, split about equally. The question for everyone is how long this can continue as a bloody, expensive stalemate, and what constitutes an acceptable end. While there are those who insist Russia is on the verge of defeat, it’s difficult to take them seriously considering the number of times the claim has been made, from sanctions destroying the Russian economy, to the Russian President being completely isolated on the world stage, to massive spring offensives that fail to capture any new territory. Even if you subscribe to this view, a date past which the view becomes unsupportable should be clearly stated, unless you assume the war can go on forever, if not an actual plan for victory. Otherwise, you, like me, likely believe three years of conflict, much of it over regions like Donbas that have been contested for decades is enough and a settlement has to be reached in the near future.
In that case, the question is what constitutes an acceptable end and who decides? To Russia at least, an acceptable end will certainly not include conceding the primary causes for the war in the first place, the contested territory they now occupy and NATO membership, especially when President Joe Biden implicitly gave President Putin permission for a “minor incursion” before he launched a full scale invasion. President Trump, it certainly appears to me, is acknowledging that immutable fact in an attempt to get the Russians to commit to a position, which would be an achievement in its own right and only then can we address the Ukrainian side. What are they willing to accept after their country has been invaded and ransacked? Even then, however, there remains the question of who accepts the final proposal. While much has been made of the fact that Ukraine didn’t participate in the first round of these negotiations, that doesn’t strike me as dispositive of anything when the terms will ultimately be made public and Ukraine – along with everyone else – will get a chance to offer their opinion. At the same time, Ukraine hasn’t held an election since the war began. Is the decision to end it President Volodymyr Zelensky’s alone? Russia, in what amounts to an obvious move to delay, is insisting on elections before any final settlement. While it’s a strategy that benefits them to some extent and we can assume they believe it will be to their advantage somehow, the question is still valid and needs to be answered at some point. As President Trump himself put it yesterday, “You know, they [the Ukrainian people] want a seat at the table, wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have to have a say, like it’s been a lot of times since we’ve had an election?…That’s not a Russia thing; that’s something that’s coming from me.” In the meantime, I understand the desire of many, some even on my own side of the political spectrum, who continue to insist Russia needs to experience some kind of resounding defeat. Of course, this would be optimal, but reality – the reality facing is right now – is not optimal. Optimal would have been preventing it in the first place, or in the second, coming up with a successful strategy, rather a bizarre combination of existential rhetoric that only increased Russia’s desire to win, and pushed Russia in the hands of both our enemies and always, along with an endless supply of arms and cash. Wars, once started, need to end, and as we have seen in the Middle East, President Trump, despite his detractors and constant naysayers, has already moved us further in that direction in a month than his predecessor had in years.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 