Status quo ante bellum:
what does it mean for the war in Ukraine
Back in 2011, I wrote a post arguing that
self-defense (including collective self-defense) is justified only to the extent of restoring the status quo ante bellum. That is, having defeated an aggressor, a country is not justified in seizing territory, unilaterally exacting reparations or imposing a new government on its opponent. 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.
What does this claim mean in the context of the war in Ukraine? In my view, it means that the Ukrainian government and its international supporters should seek a ceasefire in which Russia withdraws its forces to their positions of 23 February, without conceding any Russian claims regarding annexations or (if they still operate after the sham referendums) the Luhansk and Donetsk separatist republics.
It is already evident that the Russian army can’t hope to secure a better outcome than this. Judging by hostile leaks and popular opposition, lots of Russians, including in the military have recognised this, even if Putin hasn’t. But, on current indications, it will take a long time before the Ukrainians can recover all the territory currently occupied since the invasion. An early Russian withdrawal would liberate tens of thousands of people from a brutal occupation, as well as preventing vast loss of life on both sides (bearing in mind that the Russian army will increasingly be made up of conscripts, including Ukrainians). And more of the aid flowing to Ukraine could be used for rebuilding, rather than expended in fighting.
A ceasefire wouldn’t imply that Zelensky was going back on the pledge to recover all the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea. The Ukrainian position would be the same as it was before the invasion. But it was clear then that the areas under occupation couldn’t be recovered by force and that is probably still true, particularly as regards Crimea.
An obvious question is whether a ceasefire would give the Russians the chance to rebuild for another attack. In my view, the opposite is more likely. By next year, Russian energy exports to the EU will have ceased, and Russia’s technical capacity will have degraded further through the effects of sanctions and the flight of skilled workers. Meanwhile, Ukraine will have the chance to train its enlarged army, and reorient its economy towards the EU.
Of course, wars change things and an exact return to the status quo ante bellum is impossible. The dead are still dead, the crimes committed during the war will not be absolved, the aggressor can rarely be made to pay full reparation, and so on. Both sides will be worse off than if the war never happened.
I’d be interested in thoughts. However, anyone thinking putting forward a pro-Putin, or anti-anti-Putin position should stay quiet. No comment of this kind will be published, and the commenter will be permanently banned. If you’re in doubt, that probably means you shouldn’t comment.
I thought that there would be a ceasefire after both sides grew tired of war, but despite the cost, Ukraine seems the opposite of war-tired. It looks like there is now snowballing relationship between their battlefield victories and higher morale.
They've kept surprising us during this conflict, and I wouldn't bet against them doing the same in the future. They seem confident they will, so I'm not sure I see them agreeing to a ceasefire unless they've been bogged down for a long time.
Spot on John. Quite a mess we have collectively gotten the world into. I think the expansion of NATO eastwards post the 1989 end of the cold war was a mistake comparable to the Treaty of Versailles. The later created the conditions for the rise of Hitler while the former created the conditions for the rise of Putin and the nationalistic right in Russia. A little of a decade ago, I had dinner in Moscow with my former World Bank boss Kristalina Georgieva, the current MD at the IMF who had then been appointed as the Bank's Resident Representative in Russia. Kristalina told me that the Bank's and the west's treatment of Russia in the early year's after the fall of the the Berlin Wall would come back to haunt the us - too much market fundamentalism too quickly with too little support for the development of an appropriate regulatory/governance framework (Kristalina's take). This, combined with military/diplomatic isolation and humiliation rather than trying to incorporate Russia into a new European partnership simply created the conditions for emergence of extreme nationalism backed by gangster capitalism (my take). The way forward is really difficult to see but a ceasefire is essential. As you said - the dead are still dead, the crimes committed during the war will not be absolved, the aggressor can rarely be made to pay full reparation... Both sides will be worse off than if the war never happened. Unfortunately, this may also apply to the world as a whole for quite some time.