Abhorrent Solutions II

This is an extract from (and revision of) something I put on this site last November - with a minor addition. The reason I'm doing this is that the current Russia/Ukraine peace process doesn't seem likely to produce a long term solution.

The mess in the Ukraine can be seen in many ways, two of which are closely related but may seem to represent opposing extremes. In one, there's a twelve hundred year history of regional and tribal conflict motivating all involved to occasionally run up the flag and start slitting throats; while, in the other, it's a Russian response to Bond level international villainy seeking to develop post soviet Ukrainian national socialism into the armored fist enforcing their vision of an eugenics driven, feudalist, state on the world in general and Europe in particular.

In fact, however, it doesn't really matter which combination of what factors most closely describes why or how things got to where they are - there's a very simple and effective way to end this particular eruption for decades to come.

The new American administration can offer both sides a deal under which:

• the U.S. agrees to withdraw from NATO within eight months;
• Russia pulls its troops back to its pre-war borders;
• Ukraine withdraws its forces from all areas in dispute;
• both sides renounce all support for guerrilla actions by partisans within the disputed areas and agree to jointly finance para-military peacekeeping activities in those areas to be organized and managed by the governments, or quasi-governments, in place;
• the United States, Russia, and the Ukraine announce their support for the right of the populations of any well defined, longer term, political jurisdiction to choose their own current and future associations;
• the agreement specifies that a new vote on language and larger political affiliations will be held in the disputed areas within three years - pending the outcome of which they will remain in the Russian federation with government and education conducted in Russian; and,
• the United States agrees to make monies already allocated by Congress for the purchase of military goods and services for the Ukraine available on a lend-lease basis for the purchase of industrial goods and services in the United States for use in any of the disputed areas.

Do this and seven things happen:

1. The killing mostly stops and huge numbers of Ukrainian families avoid either starving or freezing to death this winter while a significant number (estimated at upwards of 100,000) armed forces personnel drawn from both sides aren't killed and about three times as many aren't wounded;
2. the Russian federation would claim a major win but irretrievably lose popular support, and so ultimately its territories, if they did anything other than move immediately to providing extensive post war support to Crimea and the border republics - all of whom have voted multiple times for Moscow over Kiev and can be counted on to do so again if treated fairly now;
3. those currently in control in Kiev would also claim victory while deciding whether to take their monies and run, or fight an ultimately losing battle to hold their positions in what would, in their hands, quickly became a minor agricultural country;

4. the first half of Tom Clancy's Bear and Dragoon scenario in which China attempts to take the northern resource area from the Russian federation would become considerably less likely; while the second half, an eventual Russian-American alliance against China, would become more credible;

5. the political uproar associated with the withdrawal in the United States would combine with the availability of the resources previously committed to western Europe to greatly increase China's perceived risk in going after Taiwan or the Philippines - and the entire progressive "russia russia russia" thing (which I believe was initiated and pursued precisely to prevent a Russian-American alliance against China) would first blow up to hurricane level and then blow over; and,

6. western Europe, left on its own, would both rejoice and trash around in belligerent panic before eventually settling down to develop strong and interlocking trade with both Ukraine and the Russian federation - probably leading, and in not that many years, to a much larger, and far less bureaucratically constrained, version of the original European common market.
7. roughly a million Ukrainian refugees now in Europe, Canada, or the United States go home - bringing significant resources along with some new western ideas and skills with them.

Equally importantly five things don't happen:

1. under this plan neither side has any incentive to build a fortified, Korean style, demilitarized zone separating the combatants. Instead the incentives favor political and economic co-operation between Russia and Ukraine - regardless of which flag Crimea and the border republics eventually vote for.
2. there will be no third party peace keepers - so no costs and no related political crime and/or corruption by third parties operating in Crimea or the border republics;
3. the incentives strongly favor commercial and economic co-operation between Russia, the Ukraine, and the rest of Europe - so the sanctions end; the courts eventually sort out who owes whom for what; energy prices fall as Nordstream and other inter-connects restart; and at least some of the debt various EU nations are now starting to incur for defense expenditures is avoided.
4. instead of facing ever increasing costs and risks as European politicians leverage the NATO umbrella provided by the United States for their own ends, America's NATO support costs essentially disappear while 35,000 or so service personnel now stationed in Europe come home; and,
5. China reads the tea leaves, so the war in the pacific people seem to think will happen, doesn't.