https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/01/ukraine-russia-peace-negotiations-painful-choices/

Opinion: Painful choices lie in the path to peace in Ukraine

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A Ukrainian serviceman exits a trench dug along the front line east of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 31. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)

In the agonizing final years of the Vietnam War, a strategist named Fred Iklé wrote a treatise titled "Every War Must End." His basic theme was that "wars are easier to start than to stop" — a message that applies powerfully now to the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine have been meeting for preliminary peace talks in Turkey this week, which has raised hopes for a settlement. Both sides have described the same basic terms for resolving the conflict: In exchange for a halt in the fighting, Ukraine would agree to a neutral military status that wouldn't threaten Russia.

But this formula masks painful choices: Such a pact would grant Russian President Vladimir Putin at least partial victory. For many in Ukraine and the West, that is unacceptable. Putin launched an unprovoked, illegal invasion. His army committed atrocities against civilians. He shouldn't be rewarded for such behavior.

The Biden administration's view is that it's up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to decide whether to settle for neutrality or keep fighting for a better deal. "The Ukrainians will have to decide when the situation on the ground is ripe for a settlement," argues Stephen Hadley, a former national security adviser to President George W. Bush who keeps close contact with the Biden team.

After fighting so valiantly, Ukrainians won't want a settlement that leaves the country disarmed and vulnerable to a future attack. "This is viable to me in only one way — the kind of neutrality that Switzerland has — fully armed, with a citizen army," Konstantin Gryshchenko, an influential former foreign minister of Ukraine, told me in an interview.

The Russian military has performed poorly so far, and some Ukrainians think more fighting will bring victory. But U.S. officials specializing in Russia are skeptical. Russia is a large country with the ability to resupply and reposition its forces; Ukraine is a relatively small one that's short on the essentials for survival. The war is 40 days old; who can say what the battlefield situation might be in six months or a year?

Iklé offered a useful caution: "It often happens in wars that the weaker party makes no attempt to seek peace while its military strength can still influence the enemy, but fights until it has lost all its power to bargain." He called this "self-destructive perseverance."

Iklé was similarly skeptical of punitive tactics such as Russia's seeming determination to bomb its way to a desirable settlement. "Inflicting 'punishment' on the enemy nation is not only an ineffective strategy for ending a war, it may well have side effects that actually hasten the defeat of the side that relies on that strategy," he wrote.