[SS from essay Peter Schroeder, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He was an analyst and a member of the Senior Analytic Service at the Central Intelligence Agency and from 2018 to 2022 served as Principal Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.]
Two and a half years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States’ strategy for ending the war remains the same: impose enough costs on Russia that its president, Vladimir Putin, will decide that he has no choice but to halt the conflict. In an effort to change his cost-benefit calculus, Washington has tried to find the sweet spot between supporting Ukraine and punishing Russia on the one hand, and reducing the risks of escalation on the other. As rational as this approach may appear, it rests on a faulty assumption: that Putin’s mind can be changed.
The evidence suggests that on [Ukraine](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/ukraine), Putin simply is not persuadable; he is all in. For him, preventing Ukraine from becoming a bastion that the West can use to threaten Russia is a strategic necessity. He has taken personal responsibility for achieving that outcome and likely judges it as worth nearly any cost. Trying to coerce him into giving up is a fruitless exercise that just wastes lives and resources.
Impose enough costs on Putin, like the Ukranians have done in Kursk, and the Russian people will shorten the waiting game themselves. Putin cannot exist as a “strongman” if he cannot guarantee a minimum of safety for the Russian people who he asks to turn a blind eye to the invasion of Ukraine and now Russia itself. If Putin is all in, then he will only be encouraged to take more if his bet pays off.
Look at someone’s little nephew dressed up as an admiral!
Honestly, I disagree on the penultimate gambit of the only option is to wait Russia out, although from an IR perspective I completely understand the viewpoint and agree with the futility of the US’s position of trying to increase the costs on Russia whilst limiting Ukraine.
The key is to cause a rapid supply chain collapse of everything within 250km of Ukraine’s border over the space of a few days, preferably during the middle of Winter. Supply chain has always been Russia’s Achilles heel during this conflict and would force Russia into regime preservation if its forces collapsed on itself.
Yes we know. We actually all know
The question is: are we ready to pay the price to impose costs on Russia and support for Ukraine needed for the Russian people to either cease to want to fight for putin, or putin to stop because there’s no people to staff his personal security anymore, whereby he’s gonna get removed by someone
5 comments
[SS from essay Peter Schroeder, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He was an analyst and a member of the Senior Analytic Service at the Central Intelligence Agency and from 2018 to 2022 served as Principal Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.]
Two and a half years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States’ strategy for ending the war remains the same: impose enough costs on Russia that its president, Vladimir Putin, will decide that he has no choice but to halt the conflict. In an effort to change his cost-benefit calculus, Washington has tried to find the sweet spot between supporting Ukraine and punishing Russia on the one hand, and reducing the risks of escalation on the other. As rational as this approach may appear, it rests on a faulty assumption: that Putin’s mind can be changed.
The evidence suggests that on [Ukraine](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/ukraine), Putin simply is not persuadable; he is all in. For him, preventing Ukraine from becoming a bastion that the West can use to threaten Russia is a strategic necessity. He has taken personal responsibility for achieving that outcome and likely judges it as worth nearly any cost. Trying to coerce him into giving up is a fruitless exercise that just wastes lives and resources.
Impose enough costs on Putin, like the Ukranians have done in Kursk, and the Russian people will shorten the waiting game themselves. Putin cannot exist as a “strongman” if he cannot guarantee a minimum of safety for the Russian people who he asks to turn a blind eye to the invasion of Ukraine and now Russia itself. If Putin is all in, then he will only be encouraged to take more if his bet pays off.
Look at someone’s little nephew dressed up as an admiral!
Honestly, I disagree on the penultimate gambit of the only option is to wait Russia out, although from an IR perspective I completely understand the viewpoint and agree with the futility of the US’s position of trying to increase the costs on Russia whilst limiting Ukraine.
The key is to cause a rapid supply chain collapse of everything within 250km of Ukraine’s border over the space of a few days, preferably during the middle of Winter. Supply chain has always been Russia’s Achilles heel during this conflict and would force Russia into regime preservation if its forces collapsed on itself.
Yes we know. We actually all know
The question is: are we ready to pay the price to impose costs on Russia and support for Ukraine needed for the Russian people to either cease to want to fight for putin, or putin to stop because there’s no people to staff his personal security anymore, whereby he’s gonna get removed by someone