Brynn Tannehill, The Bulwark / Translation by iPress
Senior defense technical analyst Brynn Tannehill in The Bulwark argues that neither the Russia-Ukraine war nor the US-Iran war can currently be concluded through negotiations alone, as the parties still believe in their own paths to victory. In her view, the conditions for peace will be determined primarily by the situation on the battlefield and the ability of the parties to continue fighting, rather than by the diplomatic process itself. Ukraine and Iran are fighting wars they see as struggles for survival, while Russia and the US have engaged in wars by choice, from which it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to withdraw. Hence the conclusion: the West will bring peace closer not by pressuring Ukraine for a compromise, but by helping it achieve as significant successes as possible.
It is easy to start wars and much harder to end them. This is a lesson that both Donald Trump and Putin are learning now—largely for the same reasons. Both initiated wars by choice, based on the assumption they could deliver decapitating blows, achieve a favorable change of leadership, and eventually establish control over a puppet state. Trump apparently had Venezuela in mind; Putin likely envisioned a scenario more akin to Chechnya or Belarus. Instead, both are mired in quagmires from which they cannot escape via negotiations.
Despite this, many Western analysts instinctively call for negotiations in both cases. This is a mistaken approach. It is based on the assumption that a mutually beneficial outcome is possible, and then this flawed assumption is used to build the entire logic. In the war with Iran and in the Russia-Ukraine war, it is the situation on the battlefield that will determine when and how the war ends and whether negotiations will take place at all, not the other way around.
To understand why this is so, it’s worth considering why wars end. In general, there are five such reasons, and each of them alone may be sufficient: one side is no longer able to resist; one side achieves its goals; one side decides that the cost of concession is lower than the cost of continuing the fight; one side simply loses the will to fight; or both sides conclude that there is no path to victory.
As long as both sides retain the ability and will to fight, the war will continue. If even one side believes it has a plausible theory of victory, it will be reluctant to make significant concessions at the negotiating table. The more convincing and realistic this theory of victory, the broader and more stringent the demands will be.
In the modern era, the losing side is rarely completely defeated and unable to continue fighting. In the case of the United States and democracies in general, wars end either when a limited but well-defined set of goals is achieved (such as the liberation of Kuwait, the capture of Maduro or Noriega), or when public opinion turns against the war and policymakers decide it’s time to stop military actions for strategic or political reasons, and often both at the same time.
Whether a country decides to stop fighting and when exactly depends on whether the war is a war for survival or a war of choice. It also matters who makes this decision: often a war for survival for an authoritarian ruler or ruling group is a war of choice for the country itself, so the democratic or autocratic nature of the state also influences how it makes peace. When democracies wage a war of choice, public support usually quickly fades. However, when a democracy fights for national survival, its citizens will hold on to any hope and continue to fight.
With autocracies, it is somewhat different: waging a war of choice, they can continue regardless of whether it is popular or not. This is exactly what is happening in Russia’s war against Ukraine. If an autocrat believes that defeat will cost him power, he may continue to send old men and youths to the front lines until victory or collapse. In an autocracy, the fate of the ruler or ruling elite is equated with the fate of the country, so even a war of choice can be waged as if it were a war for national survival, as was the case during Saddam Hussein’s prolonged, bloody, and devastating war against Iran.
This is quite a bit of theory, but it is necessary to explain the current situation of Russia and Ukraine, as well as the United States and Iran. These two situations are similar, but there are several fundamental differences between them.
In essence, both the United States and Russia started wars of choice, from which they now cannot easily exit. In Russia, historically, very bad things happen to rulers who lose wars, and Putin is reportedly considering a new mass mobilization, despite the turmoil and discontent it will cause. Trump faces the threat of losing both the House of Representatives and the Senate and does not rule out declaring a state of emergency to rule by decree and rewrite electoral rules to rig elections.
In other words, both the Russian and American leaders are bogged down in wars they seem unable to win, and to postpone the consequences of defeat, both are ready to take steps that could cause widespread unrest. The key difference between the countries is that Russia still has a somewhat realistic path to victory. It could deploy a massive number of guided bombs and ballistic missiles for massive strikes on cities, infrastructure, and fortifications, as well as additionally mobilize 300,000 – 500,000 servicemen. This would overwhelm Ukrainian defenses, albeit at the cost of horrific losses among Russian troops. This could potentially allow Russia to achieve territorial goals – capturing the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. This slight possibility underpins Russia’s intransigent negotiating position.
The United States does not have such a clear path to victory. Trump acts neither as an autocrat nor as a democratic leader, but as something in between: he started a war of his own choosing, without setting clear goals or securing political support, but his options are limited as long as he still has to consider the war’s reception among his own party members and Americans in general. Stocks of some critical types of US armaments are depleted, and the American economy and army are not adapted to a ground invasion of Iran – seemingly one of the few ways to guarantee freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz without using weapons of mass destruction, albeit at enormous cost. Barring the use of nuclear weapons, even the most intensive air campaign cannot force Iranians to open the strait. That is why the United States signals that it might agree to Iran’s demands, which seemed unthinkable before the war, such as allowing Iran to control ship movement to the Persian Gulf and charge for passage.
On the opposite side of these two conflicts, Ukraine and Iran are fighting wars for survival. For Ukraine, it’s a war for national, cultural, and political survival, not just for the preservation of the ruling regime. Both countries are fighting, so to speak, on their own territory and are willing to endure extraordinary hardships for victory; both also have their own vision of how to achieve it.
Ukraine’s plan involves destroying Russian military forces and inflicting horrific losses on Russia for every meter of captured land. It also involves undermining Russia’s economy and forcing the Russian authorities to resort to mass mobilization. Achieving these strategic goals will force Putin to break the social contract with Russians, whereby they traded freedom for a higher standard of living and international prestige. There might be a limit to how much war Russian society is willing to endure; that’s why Putin is so reluctant to announce a new mobilization, send conscripts to Ukraine, or even call the war a war.
Both Russia and Ukraine believe they can win, and their demands are essentially non-overlapping. Therefore, a negotiated settlement is currently impossible. The best the West can do to achieve peace is to help Ukraine move as far as possible toward victory in the coming year.
As for Iran, its plan for victory is simple: keep the strait closed at least until the end of Trump’s presidential term and watch him helplessly squirm. Trump cannot address this with military means and at the same time is not ready to satisfy Iran’s maximalist demands. Heads – Iran wins; tails – Trump loses.
Iran has a theory of victory and will adhere to it as long as it seems viable, insisting on its excessive demands while Trump remains in power. And the United States does not have an acceptable way out of the predicament they created themselves: only sharp escalation or humiliating concessions remain.
