How wars don’t end: A response to Gerard Toal’s analysis of ceasefire negotiations in Ukraine

We were a two-hour drive away from the frontline in Mykolaiv. The Ukrainian military officer sat across the table from us in the dimly lit hotel lobby of the Black Sea port of Odesa. This city, a jewel of strategic importance, had been a Russian target since the start of the full-scale invasion. But by the spring of 2023, when this conversation took place, Odesa’s inhabitants, resilient and undeterred by shelling and drone attacks, clung to their daily lives with fierce determination. Meanwhile, Ukraine's military bolstered coastal defenses and eventually turned the tide on the war’s Black Sea front.

The Odesan officer addressed our group of researchers and Brussels politicos with a calm intensity. For an hour, he fielded our questions with patience and precision. Then, his voice took on a sharper edge as he posed his own query: “If Ukraine stops fighting for the liberation of occupied territories, can you guarantee NATO membership for the rest of the country the following day?” We were woefully unprepared, far removed from any real decision-making authority. Yet, we understood enough to deliver the hard truth: the answer was no. ¹

Discussing the future of occupied Ukrainian territories was never taboo, as Gerard Toal argues (Toal, 2024). But in any significant discussion about the future of Ukrainian territory, free or awaiting liberation, the focus inevitably shifts to how to provide security guarantees for the embattled country and create the conditions for a future Russian withdrawal from Ukraine. Toal’s argument stops where the heavy lifting of how to build a sustainable peace begins. In addition to the focus on territory only as a geographical space to be negotiated over, Toal also offers an incomplete forecast of how a negotiated peace under current conditions would look like for Ukraine and for NATO members. Lastly, by choosing to analyze the ‘storylines’ that prevent Ukraine and its allies from accepting Vladimir Putin’s ceasefire conditions and cede territories to Russia, Toal misses an opportunity to use his political-geographic perspective to discuss a more obvious connection between the pursuit of peace and the vision for a ‘post-war’ world order that can make that peace sustainable.

With the essay, Gerard Toal adds his voice to an expanding chorus that argues in favor of a negotiated cease fire that transfers Ukrainian occupied territories to Russia as the best solution to end this war. A ‘frozen conflict’ is the best option that Ukraine could hope for anyway, he argues. And he identifies the bulk of Western commentators as responsible for the continuation of the war by censuring public debates on negotiations. His argument mixes rational-realist cost benefit calculations – Ukraine and the West can exit an unwinnable war by ceding occupied territory to Russia, as well as ethical concerns – Ukraine can save more Ukrainian livelihoods if it accepts the loss of some territories and lays down arms, and the West can avoid escalation by accepting Russia’s victory over a small territory in Eastern Europe. By subscribing to a set of case specific ‘sacred values’, and responding to ‘psychological factors and biases’, Toal argues, the West only extends Ukrainians’ suffering and puts its own security in danger.

The major flaw in this line of argument remains the difficulty to make Russia’s 2022 full scale invasion simply about annexing some Ukrainian territory in the East. Ukrainians understand that the costly fight for their eastern territories transcends the immediate goal of liberation. That fight is fundamentally about the country’s very survival and independence. It is also about the predictable intentions of Vladimir Putin: specifically, to strengthen his dictatorship. Observers of Russian domestic and foreign politics in Eastern Europe are acutely aware that Russia’s invasion is not merely about annexing a piece of Ukraine’s territory (see for example Brands, 2024; Person and McFaul, 2022; Popova and Shevel, 2023; Yurchenko, 2023). And so are NATO’s eastern flank governments who are urgently bolstering their defenses to deter potential Russian aggression (NATO, 2024). President Vladimir Putin himself reconfirms time and again that this war does not stop in Kharkiv. He seeks to prevent Ukraine’s NATO membership to maintain the power asymmetry between Russia and Ukraine. That asymmetry is essential for the completion of his plans to erase Ukraine’s sovereignty.

There are no signs that Putin is giving up on military action to achieve that goal. Quite the contrary. He has pursued an arms purchase deal with North Korea, strengthened Russia’s military relationship with China, and forged a “full-scale defense partnership” with Iran. Russia’s President has approved record spending on defense and security for 2024 that constitutes close to 40% of the total budget expenditure (Kragh, 2024). In his latest ‘peace offering’ made in June 2024, Putin suggested Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, even though at that time Russia did not control Zaporizhzhia and had been forced to retreat from Kherson. And he wanted Ukraine to reject all plans to join NATO. This is not a proposal for a ceasefire, but a demand for the total surrender of Ukraine, essentially recognizing all occupied and unoccupied territory as Russian, lifting all sanctions, changing language laws, and accepting implementing laws that Russia deems correct. If such a deal were accepted and Ukraine relinquished Kherson, Russia would once again have a foothold across the right bank of the Dnipro river. This would threaten Mykolaiv and, in the longer run, Odesa. And this would also give Russia a platform for future attacks on the rest of the country.

Absent all-in Western support to defeat Russia, and without any NATO security guarantees for the country, or even 80% of it, what options remain for Ukraine other than to fight on and strive for a better position in reference to the invading force? And what better strategies for those in the West who know the conflict than to make the case that without security guarantees for Ukraine, a cessation of the fight in the East is a surrender of Ukraine’s sovereignty along with an acceptance of defeat of NATO’s stated goals on the world stage? Staying away from striking a ceasefire deal on Russia’s terms, unlike what is suggested by Toal, is as real-politik as it gets.

This leads me to the second point where Toal does not take his argument far enough. The speedy peace project under current battlefield and political conditions does not fit a pragmatic-realist paradigm that has NATO’s stated interests in mind, despite what the author aims to suggest through his support of a realist approach to the matter and by quoting the peace seeking efforts of other realist scholars of international relations such as Charlie Kupchan (Haass and Kupchan, 2023). Moreover, hasty peace negotiations with no external security guarantees for Ukraine do not meet any of Toal’s ethical goals to safeguard more Ukrainian lives or deliver NATO’s human rights goals either.

Indeed, the Russia-Ukraine war presents NATO and its members with a new set of challenges that impact its goals in the space of human security. Those goals were stated in the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept, and they have been reaffirmed by NATO summits since, most recently in July 2024 in Washington, D.C. On the one hand, it benefits NATO to ensure that it responds ethically and in line with its own value-set even when faced with an unethical adversary. Safeguarding lives, preserving human rights and international law, responding to an attacked sovereign democracy’s call for help, and the absence of material benefits from its involvement in the war are part of that strategy that aligns with NATO values. On the other hand, NATO’s answer to Ukraine’s demand for military support means investing in the attacked country’s defense system and the international defense complex, collaterally extending the duration of the war, the global stocks and demand for weapons and ammunition, and with implications for human security indefinitely. But would peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, under current battlefield and political conditions, deliver any of the goals that NATO and its allies, including Ukraine, set for themselves? The answer is no.

To achieve its goals, NATO’s first line of defense is deterrence. Deterrence uses power projection to influence an opponent’s decision making. And what is true for conventional weapons is true for nuclear deterrence. In other words, NATO invests in costly defense instruments to increase the chances of never having to use them. But deterrence only works if an opponent believes NATO is also willing to use force once their security has been challenged. Strategy must be backed up by the threat of force to be credible. Relinquish all goals that NATO has set for itself in general (and in this war specifically) would diminish its credibility, and so limit its deterrence capabilities.

The same logic applies for the European Union (EU) and its bid to invest in Ukraine’s future as a member. The Europeans are increasingly realizing that they can, and should, deter Russia from future attacks on Ukraine and further West by credibly entangling their own economies and security to that of the invaded country (Anghel and Jones, 2024a). Such major shifts of paradigm are also a testament to EU self-interest, not only a commitment to Ukraine’s future.

The ‘frozen conflict’ scenario that Toal endorses would mean an acceptance of Russia’s rule over occupied territories without a strategy to ever recuperate those territories. It remains unclear how this would deliver less suffering for Ukrainians, despite Toal’s adherence to the ‘crimes against humanity’ storyline that he critiques. In addition to the clear evidence of Putin’s intent to use occupied territories for future attacks, millions of Ukrainians living under occupation would endure severe hardships. The physical and psychological harm inflicted by Russian forces is well-documented. Russia aims to erase Ukrainian identity in these areas. While success is doubtful, even imagining Eastern Ukraine as a Russian province underscores the inevitable stunting of development for its people. Moreover, it would make the development of ‘free’ Ukraine along its chosen European path more challenging as long as its borders are not secure.

Lastly, although Toal puts the power of ‘storytelling’ at the center of his critique of Western failures to deliver peace, he does not seek to answer what narrative would create not only peace, but a stable peace. The end of war is not just about beating up the enemy, it is also about creating a stable aftermath (Rose, 2011). What would Europe look like without strong links to Russia? How will Russia accept this new world order, and where does China, which is currently funding Russia’s efforts to potentially exhaust Western resources, fit into that world order? Currently, there is no post-war long-term vision of how transatlantic partners want to deal with Russia (Anghel and Jones, 2024b). Moreover, for post-war success, the war must also end in the minds of those who fought it. What narrative can justify Ukraine’s enormous losses? It only serves Russian interests if Ukrainians believe in a narrative that they were pushed to accept an unjust peace and that they would have won the war if the West had not delayed military aid, if the West had not broken their promises of support. In Russia, on the other hand, people believe they are fighting Americans and NATO, that the invasion of Ukraine is another stage in a continuous glorious war of defense. That narrative will not be replaced with the occupation of Zaporizhzhia.

Gerard Toal’s framing of Ukraine and its allies’ reluctance to accept Russia’s apparent peace terms and give up on Eastern Ukrainian territories as a ‘taboo’ based on ‘commitment problems’ and ‘biases’ hardly does any justice to the scale of the problem. A stable post-agreement order requires Western determination to create security guarantees for Ukraine, and a unified vision of where Russia fits in a new world order. The transfer of occupied territories that Toal suggests would bring an end to this war in reality positions Russia for more effective attacks to secure its real goal to terminate Ukrainian sovereignty and reinforce Putin’s dictatorship, defeats NATO’s interests as stated in its new Strategic Concept, prolongs Ukrainian suffering and security uncertainty for Europe, and demands a post-agreement ‘narrative’ in which Ukrainians accept defeat and sever their country’s future from a European path. The resistance to Russia’s version of a peace settlement is not the result of narrative taboos, it is a reasonable demand for a better alternative in which unprovoked aggressors who want to upend international law do not win the day.

Toal suggests that behind closed doors, many war observers concede that Ukraine may need to compromise its territory to save lives and prevent NATO escalation. Without thinking of the security guarantees that would accompany such a compromise, and a coherent vision for dealing with Russia, those commentators must also admit Western defeat and Russia’s victory. NATO’s reluctance to risk escalation to defend Ukraine underscores a broader failure – once it said it would, and then didn’t, deterrence failed. Protecting anything of value next time will require full use of force. To avoid that violent scenario, I hope to have a different answer for the Odesan army officer next time we meet.