The War Equation: How do military conflicts end and why does the 'values' approach lose out to the 'brokering' approach?

Viktor Orbán's unexpected tour of three capitals – Kyiv, Moscow, and Beijing – is a powerful bid to seize the 'peacekeeping mission' in the Russia-Ukraine conflict by forces that do not align themselves with the Western coalition supporting Kyiv.

This tour was a response to the Swiss 'peace summit' organised by Ukraine and sponsored by the West, which demonstrated that although the Western coalition is strong, it lacks the capacity to mobilise sufficient global support for its 'values-based' approach to resolving the conflict.

Moreover, two and a half years of the Russia-Ukraine war have shown that for the Western 'coalition of values' to succeed on its terms, its members would need to invest significantly more resources. However, over this period, the West has been unable to decide whether it is ready for this.

As a result, the discussion about the necessity of ending the conflict through negotiations, that is, reaching an agreement with the aggressor, is increasingly becoming the focal point of the international agenda. There is a growing likelihood that the fate of the war will be determined with the involvement of players who view it not as a conflict of values but as a conflict of interests that can be resolved through bargaining.

But how prepared are the warring sides to discuss a real peace formula, and what determines this readiness? Modern understanding of the logic of military conflicts views them as a process in which the parties gain new information about their capabilities. As long as this information is incomplete, they are likely to want to keep fighting, even if there are no actual changes on the front lines. Additionally, the differing political costs of war and peace for democratic and authoritarian regimes will influence their positions during negotiations.

The unknown and variable formulas of war

All a politician knows before a war are the plans of their generals, intelligence data, and guesses about the enemy's behaviour. War tests these often overly optimistic expectations, as historian Geoffrey Blainey discusses in his book 'The Causes of War'. Once military actions begin, leaders learn whether they can truly mobilise the population, whether they have sufficient resources, and what their armies and allies are capable of. With this new knowledge, politicians can assess losses, adjust expectations, and enter negotiations. The course of war provides both sides with new information they previously lacked, and when this information is sufficient, they are ready to end the conflict, Blainey articulates the general logic of wars.

The scale of the Russian side's strategic miscalculation became clear at the very start of the war, as revealed by The Washington Post investigation. Hopes that Ukrainians would open the gates from within the fortress did not materialise. Russian authorities learned that their intelligence services had failed in their plans for a quick regime change, that the operational, logistical, and technological preparations for the invasion were inadequate, and that their understanding of Ukrainian leadership and society was incorrect. Moscow also failed to predict the readiness of Western countries to begin supplying weapons to Ukraine. At the cost of hundreds of lives, the Kremlin began acquiring new knowledge about the performance of its intelligence services, the quality of information received, and the state of its own army.

All this inevitably planted seeds of doubt in the minds of Russian leaders about the prospects of the invasion. On the other hand, the Ukrainian leadership could not accurately predict how long they could hold out and what kind of help to expect from allies. Amidst the critical lack of information on both sides, negotiations began very early, on the fourth day of the invasion. Judging by the draft agreements published by The New York Times and interviews with participants, both sides were ready for significant concessions.

The Ukrainian side considered agreeing to the key Russian demand of a permanent non-nuclear and non-aligned status, meaning not joining NATO (despite this goal being enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution), as well as concessions on the limits of the stockpile and range of certain types of weapons. Russia was willing to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine from Western allies. The cold shower of failures had the expected effect: 'According to one member of Ukraine's negotiating team, after each military failure, Putin reduced his demands', writes The New York Times.

In early April, information about the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Bucha and growing distrust between the sides began to complicate the process. Ukrainians and their Western allies, inspired by early successes, were increasingly unwilling to discuss concessions. The Kremlin's readiness for concessions also waned: in a subsequent draft deal, Moscow included a provision that all security guarantors for Ukraine, including Russia, would need to approve the nature of the response in case of an attack on Ukraine. This effectively gave Russia the right to block any response to its own potential future aggression. Negotiations lost their meaning. Putin declared that the 'special operation would continue until the original objectives are achieved', and Zelensky said that 'we will regain everything they occupy'. Both sides again developed opposing expectations about the likely course of events.

Since then, significant facts affecting the course of the war – the dynamics of Western aid, the impact of sanctions, the retreat of Russian troops near Kharkiv and Kherson, Russia's ability to mobilise additional 'manpower', and the prospects of a Ukrainian counteroffensive – have continuously added new data to the 'war equation'. The situation has changed relatively frequently, with one side or the other viewing their chances with greater optimism, and the question of negotiations has not been seriously raised.

But for at least a year now, attempts to change the situation on the fronts have not resulted in obvious success. Situations in which belligerents inflict damage on each other but do not advance on the ground (mutually damaging stalemates) should create space for bargaining, write Hein Goemans and Branislav Slantchev, political scientists studying the patterns of war termination. Stalemates of this kind make the convergence of positions rational.

However, new factors today include the more restrained attitude towards aid to Ukraine in the US and some Western countries, a new commercial contract allowing the Kremlin to replenish manpower (→ Re:Russia: People vs. Drones), and Russia's economy and military production appearing stable. Putin evidently hoped that the destruction of Ukraine's energy infrastructure and a new Russian offensive this summer would radically change the situation in his favour. Whether this calculation is accurate remains uncertain. And the war continues.

War and peace from the perspective of democracy and autocracy

Concessions return to the agenda when growing losses and costs threaten public discontent, economic crisis, or loss of power, note Goemans and Slantchev. Meanwhile, changes in public positions in Moscow and Kyiv are minimal, although mentions of the need for negotiations have increased. The Russian leadership can isolate itself from the political effects of the war and related losses through monetary infusions, manipulation of public opinion, and repression. The Ukrainian leadership is also withstanding the pressure of war costs because the society of the victimised country remains united and determined to resist.

Zelensky, as a democratically elected president, is inevitably more influenced by public sentiment than Putin. The 'rally around the flag' effect in Ukraine is gradually fading, with citizens increasingly viewing Zelensky not as a hero, 'defender of the nation', but as an ordinary politician whose actions they can approve or contest (→ Re:Russia: Extraordinary legitimacy). This likely explains some changes in Zelensky's positions. 'We don't have much time. We have many wounded, killed – both military and civilian. So we don't want this war to last for years', he said in late June in Brussels, later speaking about the possibility of negotiations with mediators such as China, the US, or the EU.

At the same time, for Putin, the consequences of an inconclusive or ambiguous peace could paradoxically be a greater problem than the war itself. The outcomes of wars significantly affect the prospects of holding power more for autocrats than for democrats, according to political scientists Giacomo Chiozza and Hein Goemans. An autocrat has a 76% chance of retaining power for three years after a victory in war, but only 23% after a defeat. For a president in a democracy, the likelihood of staying in power after a victory is 29%, and 16% after a defeat. Moreover, various punishments after losing power await 7% of democratically elected and 41% of authoritarian leaders, including the possibility of death (7% of cases) and exile (23% of cases), as calculated by Alexander Debs and Hein Goemans in another study. Paradoxically, for an autocrat, prolonging the war may be less risky than its inconclusive end, which would raise questions about his ability to achieve his goals through force and the meaning of the sacrifices made.

Values and transactions

To make peace, the warring sides must be ready to accept at least minimal demands from each other, write Goemans and Slantchev. However, in the initial and most acute phase of the conflict, the parties (with varying success) strive to present it as much as possible as a conflict of values, thereby achieving maximum mobilisation of their camp.

Ukraine rightly claims unprovoked aggression by authoritarian Russia against a country seeking self-determination based on a conscious democratic choice. The Kremlin, for its part, asserts that it is conducting a 'liberation struggle' against Ukrainian nationalism and an imposed world order dominated by the US. Western politicians and intellectuals have also used the language of values, arguing that by supporting Ukraine, they are supporting the right to democratic self-determination in the face of authoritarian aggression.

‘The use of moral arguments by states to justify their positions complicates the conclusion of a deal, even if it is in everyone's interests’, writes Harvard professor of international relations Stephen Walt in an article for Foreign Policy. In the negotiation process, each side has to make compromises. But value-based arguments are maximalist and hinder the pragmatic reformulation of positions. ‘Emphasis on moral principles turns potentially resolvable disputes into very difficult-to-settle conflicts’, Walt concludes.

The summit organised by Ukraine in Switzerland in June was intended to involve as many countries as possible in discussing Ukraine's peace formula, based on the recognition of the inviolability of the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity (i.e., on values). But the forum predictably demonstrated that it is harder to attract politicians from the Global South to this approach than Western politicians, writes Bloomberg. Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia did not sign the memorandum following the meeting, and China did not participate.

The unexpected tour of the 'illiberal democrat' Viktor Orbán, who visited Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing over the past week, looks like a response to the Swiss summit and marks the entry into the peacemaking arena of supporters of a 'transactional' rather than a values-based approach to war and peace. Almost nothing is known about the content of the talks, but the very fact that Orbán visited the three capitals looks like a powerful bid to hijack the peacemaking agenda.

Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Centre in Berlin, believes that China has a potentially advantageous role as a peacemaker. Last year, Beijing tried its hand at this role, facilitating the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but overall, the Chinese have little experience in international mediation. If Xi Jinping can indeed help achieve at least a ceasefire, it will elevate Beijing's geopolitical reputation to a new level. The result will be appreciated both in the Global South and in Europe.

Rivalry with China is an important part of the agenda of Donald Trump, who could become the US president again. At the same time, he and the Chinese leaders share a transactional approach to international relations. During his first term, Trump showed that he did not feel reverence for the traditional allies of the US and was ready to talk to anyone. It is also worth remembering that he has the peacekeeping achievement of the Abraham Accords, which paved the way for the normalisation of relations between Israel and several Arab countries: the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey could join an alternative peacekeeping mission. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already facilitated secret negotiations on prisoner exchanges in Israel, while Turkey played a significant role in reopening the Black Sea for grain shipments. The coalitions forming in today's world are unstable and not defined by long-term loyalty to specific ideologies or camps. The 'middle powers' of the Global South are characterised by extreme pragmatism in foreign policy and a desire to maximise their sovereignty and economic gain through numerous tactical alliances (→ Re:Russia: The Philosophy of the 'Middle Powers').

The Western coalition is strong, but its capabilities are no longer sufficient to change the political behaviour of defectors. The value-based positions that current leaders of the US and Western Europe hold out of inertia no longer possess the same mobilising power. At any rate, two and a half years of war have shown that victory for the 'coalition of values' would require its participants to invest significantly more resources. However, the West has yet to determine whether it is willing to do so.

As a result, politicians who do not lean towards value-based self-determination and are not ready to join any 'camp' are emerging in the peacekeeping arena. 'The overwhelming majority of developing countries do not want to become dependent, for example, on Russia and China. Those who made such a choice during the Cold War, like Angola, now regret it', says Jean-Joseph Boillot, a researcher at the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). Thus, for many leaders of the Global South, a transactional approach to the peace problem is a natural continuation of their strategic positions and mode of existence. Ready to communicate with everyone and therefore acceptable interlocutors even for bitter opponents, they will promote their approach and are ready to play an effective role in achieving a transactional peace – a deal with the aggressor – against the backdrop of the 'coalition of values' failure.