Every War Must End: And it is Time to End Western Strategic Magical Thinking in Ukraine

The idea of a ‘war without end’ is a common figure of speech, yet, as Fred Iklé’s renowned work states, Every War Must End.[i] War, as Carl von Clausewitz emphasised, is a means to achieve political objectives. For these objectives to be meaningful, they must be attainable within a finite timeframe and pursued at a cost proportional to the desired outcome. Wars may end through outright victory or defeat, with one side surrendering. Alternatively, combatants may come to the rational conclusion that, in the absence of a clear path to victory, it is better to end the conflict.

Nearly three years into the war between Russia and Ukraine, with staggering military and civilian casualties likely numbering in the hundreds of thousands on both sides, it is fair to ask: what is the plan to end this war? While it is not our place as observers to dictate whether Ukrainians should continue their fight for independence, the immense human, material and financial toll justifies Western powers—who have sustained Ukraine’s resistance—raising the question: what is the strategy to end the war on terms that align with Western interests, and benefit Ukraine as well? Is there a plan beyond simply prolonging the war indefinitely, or fighting to the last Ukrainian?

Ukraine’s recent military incursion into Russian territory in August 2024, striking towards the city of Kursk and occupying a sector of border territory south of the city, has been heralded by some in the Western media as a humiliation for Russian President Vladimir Putin[ii] and potentially a game-changing event,[iii] which ‘may have changed the course of the war’.[iv] No doubt, Ukraine’s offensive is an embarrassment for Russia. One might see in Ukraine’s actions an ambitious endeavour to divert Russian resources away from the Donbas, or a daring attempt straightforwardly to dramatically alter the dynamics of the war to secure a sudden break through that might cause an unanticipated psychological crack in Russian forces. More plausibly perhaps, the Ukrainian offensive seems to constitute an attempt to gain a bargaining counter in any future negotiations, a contingency that might come to pass after the forthcoming U.S. Presidential elections this November when pressure to bring the war to end could assert itself.[v]

Although tactically impressive, Ukraine’s incursion is almost certainly not going to change the balance of forces, not least because the Kursk salient – like similar military manoeuvres in the last century, from the Spring Offensive in 1918 to the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 – is likely to become just another theatre of attrition. Attrition, as James J. Wirtz argues, constitutes the ‘default strategy in war’ where each side engages the other in battles of annihilation ‘until material exhaustion, personnel losses or a collapse of political will forces one side to surrender’. Throughout history, Wirtz maintains, ‘the story is the same: empty the prisons, mass the artillery and bomb the cities until the enemy breaks’.[vi] And the salutary reality of attrition-based war at this point is that it appears to favour the Russians. Indeed, one month into Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, its initial manoeuvre phase seems to have ended as Ukraine seeks to defend its existing gains.[vii] The probabilities for the eventual outcome for Ukraine and wider Western interests, namely a de facto division of Ukraine, therefore remain largely unchanged.

Against strategic ambiguity

In this article we wish to explore the current strategic dynamics of the war in Ukraine. Our contention is that while Russia’s specific strategic goals and military objectives may have been initially obscure at the onset of the war, following Russia’s failure to successfully assault Kyiv in the opening weeks of the invasion, it is Western strategy that increasingly appears opaque and devoid of tangibility beyond keeping the war going for some unspecified timeframe. The article seeks to get behind this opacity to discern if a semblance of a coherent Western strategy can be identified.

Our conclusions are that Western strategic intentions not only remain largely unintelligible but risk replaying the defeats that have characterised recent failures of Western strategic practice. These setbacks and failures exhibit a predilection for exhortations towards maximalist positions that refuse to modify when they deviate from the realities on the ground. This predilection, we argue, is ‘strategic magical thinking’. It implies something miraculously will turn up if the war is just kept going long enough. Such an approach is unlikely to facilitate or enhance Western interests, let alone those of Ukraine. If Western policy is serious about helping Ukraine, strategic clarity, not strategic ambiguity, is required.

As authors we say this not as apologists for Russian imperialism but as advocates of ‘good’ strategy that aims to maximise Western power and interests in seeking to assist Ukraine. But we do so with an honest appreciation of the realities of geopolitics and the limitations of idealism in the international system. It is the tradition of prudential realism typified by American political theorist Hans Morgenthau’s critique of U.S involvement in the Vietnam War,[viii] or Australian journalist Owen Harries’s position against military intervention in Iraq:[ix] it’s not about being ‘for’ Communism, for Middle Eastern dictators, or Russian irredentists; it is about being against bad strategy that dissipates Western energy, resources and soft-power for no obvious reason or benefit.

With these caveats in mind, let us proceed to evaluate the current dynamics of the war, first by deciphering Russia’s strategic design, and second, by evaluating whether a coherent strategic rationale can be detected on the part of the Western powers.

Strategic opacity and attrition, part 1: Russia

Leaving aside the differing historical narratives leading up to Russia’s invasion in February 2022, at the outbreak of hostilities it was Russia’s strategy and concept of operations that were unclear. What did Russia hope to achieve? Did it really believe Ukraine could be defeated in 72 hours?[x] Were Russian operations towards Kyiv the main thrust of its efforts? Or were these manoeuvres diversionary measures to suck Ukrainian resources away from the primary object of Russian interest, which was to occupy territory to the south and east?[xi]

An honest answer is that outside the tightly knit circle of Kremlin decision makers, few people really knew. The rest is speculation.[xii] What we might surmise is that Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion was stronger than many anticipated (including many in the West).[xiii] With material and financial support provided by NATO nations Ukraine’s resistance has been far stronger than the Russians may have at first envisaged.[xiv] Yet, what is also evident is that Ukrainian endurance has not been sufficient to prevent either Russia’s seizure, and retention, of the Eastern provinces over which much of the pre-2022 strife revolved,[xv] or Russia’s occupation of large stretches of Ukraine’s coastline. After the capture of Mariupol in May 2022, approximately 80 per cent of Ukraine’s coastline came under Russian control,[xvi] a figure that remains unaltered despite Russia’s Black Sea forces coming under more long-range strikes.[xvii]

With Russia’s capture of the territories in the Donbas, the attritional interface with Ukrainian forces has now assumed the contours of an extended stalemate. At best this intimates a frozen conflict should the tempo of the fighting subside:[xviii] a scenario in which both sides slowly grind away at each other. At worst – for the Ukrainian/Western side – the prospect is for a prolonged war of attrition in which Russian superiority in manpower, material strength, and willpower, threatens to wear down the West’s capacity to support Ukraine, while Ukrainian personnel and reserves are depleted.[xix] The willingness of Russia’s leadership to both inflict and sustain a continuously high level of casualties may appear morally repugnant to those schooled in Western doctrines of force protection.[xx] It is, though, an undeniable historical characteristic of Russia’s perseverance in wars of attrition.

None of this is to suggest that the Russians were knowingly aiming to wage a war of attrition from the start. To the extent that we can infer Russia’s intent prior to the invasion, it appears Vladimir Putin wished to coerce Kyiv into complying with Moscow’s diktats, before seeking to execute a coup de main when this strategy failed. If true, this was a doubly incoherent strategy, because having sought to wield forces to coerce Ukraine, Russia then sought to surprise its target, which had already been alerted by the attempted coercion. If these suppositions are correct, it is possible to contend that Russia wished to avoid a war of attrition but has been forced to adapt to attritional conditions following the initial thwarting of its military plans.

Having been compelled to adapt to military realities, it is plausible to read into the situation a Russian strategic gameplan, namely: occupy territory, inflict a negative attrition rate on Ukraine (including in the Kursk salient), and more generally turn Ukraine into a dysfunctional state that is financially dependent on Western support. The Russians then might wait out events either to a point where wholesale collapses in the Ukrainian front line occur or for a negotiated settlement on Russian terms. These terms may well encompass limiting Ukrainian sovereignty and the permanent annexation of the eastern and southern territories. Additionally, Russia will almost certainly refuse any settlement that sees Ukrainian membership of NATO, while seeking to make any Ukrainian path to EU accession both financially and politically costly.

Strategic opacity and attrition, part 2: The West

Conversely, it is difficult to visualise exactly what Ukrainian/Western political objectives and military strategy now comprise, beyond sustaining Ukraine’s ability to defend its frontlines, while keeping as a pipedream the possibility of Ukraine going back on the counter-offensive in 2025. Into this prospectus we can also observe a series of missed strategic opportunities.

Arguably, the initial ‘strategic victory’ for Ukraine came in the early stages of the war, by countering Russia’s initial advance and turning the conflict into a lengthier confrontation. In that respect, it is possible to perceive, as Anatol Lieven and Alex Little have argued, that this phase of the war saw Ukrainian independence and sovereignty preserved, much like the Finns were able to achieve against the Soviet Union in the Winter War of 1939/40.[xxi]

The capacity of an inferior opponent to parry the might of a much larger power, which Ukraine achieved in the two months following the invasion, created a strategic window that could – and probably should – have been used to bring the war to an end as a clear-sighted appreciation of the strategic opportunities and vulnerabilities might have suggested. The peace would, without question, have been imperfect, and ceded control of some Ukrainian land, but a broader settlement could have restricted Russian gains and secured most of Ukraine’s territory.

Furthermore, this scenario is not one that presents itself only in hindsight. Preliminary talks were held between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul in April 2022.[xxii] Wiser heads on all sides could have brought the war to an early conclusion. Although these exploratory talks, like any peace process, were always likely to be complex and fraught, there is little doubt that Western assurances of military support either scuppered the negotiations[xxiii] or at the very least contributed to a set of circumstances where ‘Ukraine – encouraged by western backing – decided to roll the dice on the future of the conflict’.[xxiv]

The real ‘what-if’ is not whether the talks in 2022 could have ended the war in terms of a ‘just peace’ favouring Ukraine. Rather, it is whether sustaining a direct mediated dialogue channel could have added different dynamics to the war, potentially allowing for greater conflict limitation, and providing off-ramps for all sides as the fighting continued. These questions cannot begin and end with notions of Russia’s evident inability to engage in ‘honest’ dialogue.[xxv] Russian negotiators can be habitually duplicitous, using diplomacy as an adjunct to war and as a smokescreen for battlefield actions (as proven through Russian negotiating behaviour in Ukraine in 2014-15 and Syria after 2016). This is the price of entry into wartime negotiations with wars initiated by Russia and it is useful to continually interrogate the matter of whether this might be too high a price to pay.

Initially, Ukraine’s strategy of refusing to negotiate with Russia and fighting on seemed fully validated. In August and September 2022, Ukraine mounted successful offensives in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, stabilising its front lines around its second largest city, Kharkiv. These were significant gains for Ukraine.[xxvi] They illustrated why any decision to settle for an inferior and unjust peace earlier in 2022 is not cut and dry. The course of the war since late 2022, though, presents a more confused picture. Ukraine attempted a counter-offensive in summer 2023 which failed dismally, notably in the Zaporizhzhia region, where it attempted to recapture some of its lost coastline but barely made headway beyond Russia’s defensive lines.[xxvii]

The legacy of this failed counter-offensive has been considerable on the course of the war. Ukraine mounted its surprise summer 2024 Kursk offensive with one eye on proving that its Western-backed armed forces were indeed capable of manoeuvre warfare to secure dramatic gains. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even described the Kursk offensive as part of Ukraine’s ‘victory plan’.[xxviii] A sober strategic assessment would more likely conclude that the window of opportunity for Ukraine to truly turn the tide of the land war has closed.

As current events now stand, it is difficult to see what strategic advantages have been achieved or are likely to accrue to the Ukrainian/Western position by the prolongation of the conflict.

Strategic histrionics?

Declaratory Western policy is to continue the war ‘for as long as it takes’.[xxix] But what does this mean? For as long as it takes to do what? The ominous reappearance of this phrase, first heard in Western policy circles around 2010 during the NATO led operation to stabilise Afghanistan[xxx] gives troubling substance to the accusation that Ukraine is yet another ‘forever war’,[xxxi] and that Western support will at some indeterminate point in the future eventually crumble.

What is it all about? This is the most fundamental strategic question of all. What is the fighting meant to achieve? As has been argued, one can perceive a strategic plan in Russia’s current military operations, but it is hard to fathom a coherent objective or plan in Western strategy. Unless more specific goals are subject to some secret protocol, Western/Ukrainian objectives appear vague, aspirational and maximalist. Are the goals to recover all lost territories?[xxxii] To keep Ukraine in the war?[xxxiii] To defend democracy and the ‘free world’?[xxxiv] To prosecute an ‘unending struggle between dictatorship and freedom’?[xxxv] To wage a proxy war against Russia?[xxxvi] To undermine the regime of Vladimir Putin and overthrow the Russian government?[xxxvii] All these potentialities have been floated in Western media commentary and policy making circles.

At this juncture, the only prevailing logic one can identify in the capacious, aspirational, rhetoric of Western commentators and policymakers is to bolster Ukraine’s capacity to stay in the fight. But, again, the question is to what end? If the goal is to recover all of Ukraine’s lost territory, then such a goal suggests itself as broadly unachievable in current circumstances. Should we therefore believe that Western strategy towards Ukraine is fundamentally histrionic, and that beyond sustaining Ukrainian morale, while also using Ukrainian military action as a practical conveyance of moral repugnance towards Russia’s invasion, the West’s maximal aims are not ones that should not be taken at face-value, but primarily as face-saving?

Can we discern a Western strategic rationale in Ukraine?

If the rudiments of a Western strategic rationale can be teased out, we can recognise that the maximalist, open-ended, declaratory policy to continue the war for ‘as long as it takes’ possesses only one utility, which is to gain leverage in future negotiations, based on the supposition that Russia does not necessarily want a protracted war, and will at some unknown point seek a negotiated settlement based on war weariness.

This leverage, however, if it has any purchase over Russian policy makers at all (and there is little evidence it has) will only ever be exerted by a handful of select Western foreign policy elites. The danger is that Western publics and opinion formers more generally have taken the histrionic, maximal, line about seeking total victory at face value.[xxxviii] This removes Western flexibility in publicly backing any kind of end to the war short of Ukrainian victory. Imagine the backlash around a ‘Munich’ style sell-out that would almost inevitably accompany a compromise settlement.[xxxix] Western media commentaries are replete with warnings about going soft[xl] and the danger of not giving Ukraine the backing it needs to finish the job.[xli]

This is likely to have a concrete impact on Ukraine’s strategic flexibility to end the war on terms that are less than fully favourable or just. Like many conflicts in the past, where prolonged bitter fighting has been followed by a phase of simultaneous fighting and talking the situation finally shifts, after many setbacks, more fully onto the negotiation track. Here, the flexibility of the combatants and their backers to adapt to these changing dynamics is an important variable.[xlii]

The maximal and morally-informed aspiration of not rewarding Russian aggression comes into focus. In December 2023, the G7 (which includes Ukraine’s key backers) issued a joint statement which included this line: ‘Russia’s obligations under international law are clear: Russia must both end its illegal war of aggression and pay for the damage it has caused’.[xliii] Zelensky has repeatedly reminded global audiences that Ukraine does not want to give in to Russian aggression.

This, however, is an expression of moral intent, not of practical strategy. It is a moral, even laudable goal: it aspires to punish Russia for its violation of the UN Charter through its attempt to severely damage another sovereign state, and the appalling loss of life and livelihood suffered by Ukrainians at Russian hands. These moral aspirations, nevertheless, tally awkwardly with the unfolding reality. They may also hinder Ukraine and the West in switching to a negotiation track – and publicly selling the reasons for doing so – since to do so would contradict over three years of maximal rhetoric over the terms by which the Russian invasion should be curtailed.

If one were to translate maximalist Western declaratory rhetoric into some kind of operational and strategic design, it might look something like this:

1. Support a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the hope of splitting Russian occupation forces.
2. Inflict punishment strikes on Russian targets.
3. Provide a clear path for Ukraine to join NATO.
4. To use these outcomes to weaken, divide and potentially ‘decolonise’ Russia.

The problem is that no matter how one cuts it, these potential aims are all totalising, and at the very least are only likely to motivate Russia to continue the war. Short of finding some miraculous way to inflict disproportionate rates of attrition on Russian forces, which somehow forces the Kremlin to sue for peace, or produces a spectacular collapse of the Russian state (all the while avoiding any potential Russian escalation towards nuclear confrontation), these goals reflect a seeming Western obliviousness to the prosaic reality that sooner or later this war will have to be brought to an end by a negotiated settlement.

At best such a strategic plan provides no basis for negotiations. At worst it merely incentivises Russia to prolong the war, not least because continuing hostilities are a way of warding off any coherent move towards Ukraine joining NATO since membership is precluded for any accession state involved in an unresolved war with another sovereign state.

To really help Ukraine, tell us how this ends…

If Western declaratory positions all point towards a condition of endless conflict over Ukrainian territory, which remains in a condition of de-facto division, how is this strategically coherent, let alone moral? The G7’s joint statement in June 2024 included the assertion that ‘We remain determined to dispel any false notion that time is on Russia’s side’ in Ukraine.[xliv] It is difficult to see how this relates to the attritional reality of the war in its current phase. Western policy is, in this respect, in danger of becoming an exercise in strategically magical thinking. Its strategic narrative over Ukraine is trite and likely to be self-defeating, informed as it is by a liberal idealistic teleology that is antagonistic to prudential understandings of strategy.[xlv]

In this context, one can point to one notable difference apparent in the strategic outlooks of the Western powers, vis-à-vis Russia. For Russia, whatever the operational setbacks it experiences and the failure to realise initial goals, be it in Ukraine or elsewhere, its standard approach has been to seek to gain something, even from a botched invasion. Its modus operandi is to persist over the long term, but crucially to modify its strategic objectives, rather than stick rigidly to unachievable ones.[xlvi] In contrast, the West seems intent on following its own familiar strategic playbook, witnessed most recently in the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021: hold out for everything only to risk losing it all in the end.

The understandable notion that Russia could never be willingly rewarded for its aggression now juxtaposes awkwardly with the reality that Russia seems able to wrest some important gains for itself at Ukraine’s expense. Deriding these gains as ‘catastrophic’ in terms of the costs Russia has sustained has some merit in building a story around Ukrainian defiance and success. But this would now form part of the West’s own off-ramp for explaining why outcomes in Ukraine will fall far short of the declared desired maximal outcomes.

A complete abandonment of Ukraine by every single Western nation is still largely unthinkable and remains both strategically unwise and morally unsatisfactory. Even if Donald Trump returns to the White House and leaves the job of supporting Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction to the European countries, support for Ukraine is unlikely to cease. The sheer complexity that now awaits any attempt to bring the fighting to a swift end with the establishment of a demilitarised zone between Ukrainian and Russian forces (an idea floated by Trump’s running mate J. D. Vance during the US presidential campaign) is itself likely to prove complex and protracted .[xlvii] And if Kamala Harris wins the election, US support to Ukraine will have to adapt to the evolving realities of a war that will soon enter its fourth year by the time the next US president takes office.

The argument presented here is not to end the war at any cost and on any terms. Neither is it to sell-out Ukraine to Russia by privileging the Kremlin’s objectives. Far from it. But supporting Ukraine to remain independent and defensible in the long run despite suffering a de-facto division is a very different strategic goal to supporting Ukraine to wage perpetual warfare to secure diminishing tactical victories. The Western powers, whether largely united or divided when doing so, will sooner or later need to work with the Ukrainian leadership to switch strategy. They will have to do so in ways that snap out of strategic magical thinking.