How should this war end ?

The status quo ante bellum solution

The failure of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reinforced my belief that the use of force to achieve political objectives almost invariably produces bad outcomes. That’s obvious for the millions of Ukrainians who’ve been driven from their homes, and the thousands who’ve been killed or wounded, but it also true for Russia. Even in the best possible case for Putin, ending with some modest territorial gains, the Russian economy has been gravely damaged, thousands of Russian soldiers have died, and Russia has become an international pariah.

To summarise drastically: military power is useless, except for destruction. But there’s an obvious problem to be addressed - what about self-defence? It’s necessary to resist aggression, but how can we stop aggression being justified in the name of self-defence. A first step is to reject pre-emptive ‘self defence’ of the kind used by Putin to justify this war, and by GW Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. The next is to limit the extent to which self-defense can justify the defenders becoming aggressors in their turn.

Back in 2010, I argued that the best rule was ‘status quo ante bellum’. That is, (a) having defeated an aggressor, a country is not justified in seizing territory, unilaterally exacting reparations or imposing a new government on its opponent. (b) Conversely, and regardless of the alleged starting point, countries not directly involved should never recognise a forcibly imposed transfer of territory or similar attempt to achieve advantages through war.

How would this idea apply to the war in Ukraine. Applied to the current war, ‘status quo ante bellum’ would require Russia to withdraw all its forces from territory occupied during the war and maintain Ukraine in its pre-war position as a NATO non-member. Consistent with point (b) the status of Crimea and the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine would remain unresolved, Russia’s claims would not be recognised except in the context of a negotiated agreement with Ukraine.

Reparation for the damage and destruction wreaked by Russia would be determined by international arbitration, and could be paid out of the reserves seized at the beginning of the war. Most other sanctions would be withdrawn.

This seems fairly close to the negotiating position that the Ukrainian government has reportedly taken. It seems unlikely that Russia would be willing to accept it right now, but the combination of military failure and economic collapse might push them that way fairly soon.

To be clear, status quo ante bellum doesn’t mean a literal return to the pre-war situation. The death and destruction caused by the war can’t be cancelled out by a treaty. What matters is that the rest of the world should act to help Ukraine recover, and that, whatever domestic spin may be put on things, the Russian state should gain nothing and bear the costs of its aggression.

Peace is still a long way off, unfortunately. The way the war ends will help to see if the status quo ante solution is a useful idea or not.