To the non-apocalypse-minded among us, the Doomsday Clock tracks the human race’s relative proximity to self-caused human annihilation, measured by the number of hours and minutes before Doomsday at midnight. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, widely regarded as the closest the human race has come to nuclear annihilation, the Doomsday Clock stood at seven minutes to midnight. At the beginning of this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced the Doomsday Clock was 90 seconds to midnight. In case seconds isn’t a good indicator, we are currently in very deep trouble.
Tensions have escalated in the already contentious Russia-Ukraine war — including the use of hypersonic missiles and threats of nuclear retaliation by Russia — and the conflict has reached a critical point. In past months, we’ve seen the deployment of North Korean troops for the first time since the Korean War, the authorization of long-range missiles to be used directly against Russian-populated areas and perhaps most horrifically, the declaration that Russia would allow nuclear retaliation for such attacks. This announcement was followed by the deployment of an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile, which was initially thought to be the first combat usage of an ICBM. Either way, the message is clear — the conflict is ramping up, not slowing down.
While President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, his soft-touch approach to Russia and Russian president Vladimir Putin calls into question how much an immediate ceasefire would benefit our ally Ukraine. In a podcast appearance, Vice President-elect JD Vance promoted a plan in which Ukraine would have to forfeit about 20% of land lost throughout the war to be converted into a demilitarized zone, while Kyiv would be denied entry into NATO. Other proposals floated by the Trump administration — freezing battle lines, ceding Ukrainian territories or denying NATO membership — all seem to handily benefit Russia’s interests. While these deals may sooner end the conflict which has killed or wounded over a million already, a premature peace deal could be a major blow to Ukraine, leaving them vulnerable to future Russian aggression and undermining its democratic independence.
Maintaining the preservation of Ukraine as a strategically placed ally to the United States has proven to be an overriding concern for President Joe Biden’s administration. While there is certainly great value in one superpower trying to keep another in check, we cannot treat this as another Vietnam or Afghanistan. This conflict has resulted in the senseless death of hundreds of thousands, and with each passing day, the chances of escalating to a point of no return grow greater. Russia has proven it’s resistant to the economic pressure of sanctions that have been levied against them. We can’t rely on the idea that we can beat Russia in a war of attrition — economically and militarily it’s proved too resistant to be intimidated into defeat.
A peaceful and fair resolution in Ukraine relies on Russia relinquishing territories gained in the Donbas region and Ukraine’s induction into NATO with a promise of peace. The key issue therein is the Donbas region, comprising the Ukrainian territories of Donetsk and Luhansk which Putin has been trying to wrest control of for years. The region is primarily Russian-speaking, with Russian-backed leaders maintaining control of the territories before the war, but its citizens have asserted they are not favorable to Russia, according to Ukrainian polls. Russia has planned to regain military control of the region and then use local proxy governments to call for a referendum and annexation of the region, just like with Crimea. As it stands, Ukraine hasn’t made enough land gains to the north in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions to offer as a trade to regain its lost territory in the Donbas region. To even stand a chance of putting this war to an end as is, they’d need to give up its dream of regaining Crimea — and may need to consider additional land concessions as well.
As is, Russia maintains tentative control of the region and only seems to be waiting for undeniable control to make any such move. While the popular perception might be otherwise, Ukraine is very much on the back foot in this war.
It must be clear that Ukraine needs to be off-limits to Russia from here on out. If our concern is chiefly with the integrity of Ukraine’s democratic processes and its independence from Russian oppression, then our actions and commitments to the future need to reflect that. There is no good reason why we should allow significant portions of Ukraine to be lost to Russia just because Putin feels like it. As such, peace negotiations need to make clear that threatening nuclear retaliation doesn’t give Putin the leeway to carry out mass invasions.
Ultimately, the uncertainty of peace comes from whether Putin will actually stop at the acquisition of Donetsk and Luhansk, or will take calls for peace as further sign of Ukraine’s defensive weakening and seize the opportunity. If Trump denies Ukraine’s entry into NATO, what’s to stop Russia from coming back in another decade and scraping more land away from Ukraine? If the decision came down to end the war today or even in a month as Trump suggests, Ukraine would stand to lose a great deal — with little hope that its situation would get any better following peace.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Noah Zaldivar at [email protected].
