Mearsheimer: There’s no diplomatic way out of the Ukraine war

John Mearsheimer discusses the Ukraine war, Trump’s diplomacy, the legacy of 9/11 and the global shift from unipolarity to a multipolar order American political scientist John Mearsheimer has claimed that the Ukraine conflict can’t be resolved diplomatically because the two sides’ goals remain irreconcilable and it will ultimately be settled on the battlefield. Mearsheimer made the remarks during a visit to Moscow in an interview with Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs. Fyodor Lukyanov: John, if a time machine brought great diplomats like Metternich and Talleyrand into the present day, what would they do to stem the bloodshed and bring today’s conflicts to an end? Would they succeed? John Mearsheimer: Well, they were definitely skilled diplomats. And if we talk about the Ukraine-Russia war, they would go to great lengths to try to solve that. But I think that they’d be unable to do it. I don’t think that war, the Ukraine war, can be settled diplomatically. I think it’s going to be settled on the battlefield. Read more The CIA paid cash. A NATO ally supplied the torture prison Now you say to yourself, why do I think it can’t be settled diplomatically? It’s because Russia’s goals are unacceptable to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s goals are unacceptable to Russia. For example, Ukraine wants the territory that Russia has annexed returned to Ukraine. It views the Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson as sacred territory. And from Ukraine’s point of view, it’s completely unacceptable that Russia be allowed to annex that territory. Furthermore, Ukraine, given what’s happened, wants a security guarantee, either from NATO or from the United States, to protect it moving forward. This is unacceptable to the Russians. Furthermore, it’s unacceptable to the Russians to give up the territory that they’ve now annexed.

So how can you have a diplomatic agreement between the two sides when there are such stark differences? Ukraine is simply unwilling to give up those four oblasts and Crimea, which Russia has annexed. And Russia is unwilling to allow Ukraine to have that territory back. Furthermore, Ukraine wants a security guarantee from the West. It wants to be part of NATO, which is understandable from Ukraine’s point of view. But Russia certainly doesn’t want Ukraine in NATO. That was the principal cause of this war to begin with. So you see that the Russians and the Ukrainians are directly at odds on key issues where they’re unwilling to compromise. So the question is, how do you get a diplomatic solution? And the answer is, you don’t. And this one will be fought out on the battlefield. And the final solution will be determined by who wins the war. Russian servicemen of a mobile anti-aircraft unit are seen at a position in the Kharkov sector of the front line amid Russia's military operation. © Sputnik / Sergey Bobylev / Sputnik Fyodor Lukyanov: All right, then what would victory actually look like? Would winning the war mean eliminating Ukraine as such? John Mearsheimer: I don’t think that the Russians are going to eliminate Ukraine. I think that’s almost impossible. I think what the Russians are going to do is they’re going to take a substantial portion of Ukrainian territory. They already have taken probably about 20%, and I think they’ll ultimately try to take considerably more territory from Ukraine. But they will not conquer all of Ukraine. Furthermore, Ukraine will be, when this war is over, a dysfunctional rump state. And the Russians will have a vested interest in making sure that Ukraine remains a dysfunctional rump state, so that it can’t join NATO, and so that it doesn’t present a threat to Russia. So I think what