How to End the Russo-Ukrainian War in 24 Hours
The US president could end the Russo-Ukrainian war in 24 hours.
I’ve been saying this for months and since then Trump has said the same, “If I’m president I’d have that war settled in 24 hours” as well as RFK Jr., “I will settle this on Day 1.”
All the president has to do is call Putin and tell him we’re ready to mediate a deal.
Putin will agree so long as we put Crimea and NATO on the table.
Zelensky will agree because he’s dependent upon our dollars.
With negotiations open, they’d agree to a temporary cease-fire and then a peace treaty (obviously working out the details of the full treaty will take more than 24 hours).
Where’s my Nobel Peace Prize?!
America could perhaps bluff to increase Ukraine’s negotiating leverage by leaking that if Russia walks away from a deal then we’ll 10X aid to Ukraine.
This threat could get Ukraine some more of the Donbas, but at the end of the day America and Ukraine would agree to never add Ukraine to NATO and Ukraine would agree to officially give up Crimea and parts of the Donbas, which already have an extensive Russian history with large Russian populations. Putin would agree to leave whereby the West would help Ukraine build back better.
Of course, Zelensky would push back from having to make these concessions since he wants back all the land + reparations + convict Putin as a war criminal, but as president I’d remind him of two key points…
Ukraine knew of the threat of invasion and yet didn’t even bother to spend as much as Russia did on its military as a percentage of its GDP because god forbid they taxed their oligarchs more. #Consequences
Pre-war the Ukrainian government is one of the worst in the world. Corrupt. Controlled by a few rich people. I mean really unfortunate for the people of Ukraine. Ukraine has better agricultural land than the United States does. It is the bread basket of Europe. — Bill Gates, 2023
Second, Zelensky is absolutely free to continue to fight. I know if America was attacked we’d continue to fight regardless of how much aid other countries gave us, for example, following Pearl Harbor we spent about 35% of our GDP on defense. He’s also free to continue to appeal to other governments for financial support, especially those in Europe who this war more directly affects and who have donated even less than us. And Zelensky’s free to also appeal to American citizens for voluntary financial support. The president could even donate however much of his own money he wants to Ukraine to convey his ongoing personal support, but the American government should no longer force Americans via the barrel of a gun to give their hard-earned money to a country whose leader doesn’t even think we’re giving it out of the kindness of our heart.
Your money is not charity, it’s an investment in global security. — Volodymyr Zelensky
Since Zelenskyy doesn’t think our aid is charity then please tell me what “global security” justification there is for writing Ukraine a blank check?
Russia has an economy the size of Florida, which is largely based on oil, which if the DNC didn’t regulate away nuclear energy, natural gas, and oil drilling then Russia’s profits would be much smaller.
I can see why former Soviet republics would be concerned if Ukraine gave up a single inch of territory since they could be next, but there is 0 threat of Putin pushing into Poland let alone the United States.
Now, what would be terrible for global security is if we created such bad blood with Russia that they’d do even more to undermine us abroad and at home.
What would be terrible for global security is if Russia collapses and its nukes fell into shakier hands. Some would like to see enough Russian blood/treasure sacrificed (and as a consequence Ukrainians too) to degrade Russia’s military capabilities while not so much blood/treasure that it collapses. This is a dumb balancing act with little upside.
What would be terrible for global security is in sending billions of dollars of weapons for which we already don’t know enough about where they’re going they end up falling into the hands of terrorists and tyrants.
What would be terrible for global security is if Russia allies itself even more with China and Iran to increasingly form an axis of power opposed to human freedom.
What would be terrible for global security is if due to misinformation, bad luck, and/or bad actors the conflict is broadened to an even more alarming degree.
What would be terrible for global security is if in increasing our military-industrial complex’s budget it becomes an even greater threat to our freedom here at home, which if the U.S. falls to tyranny then we’d likely pull the whole world down with us.
What would be terrible for global security is in increasing defense spending it also makes it easier for the powers-that-be to justify increasing non-defense spending too so that our economy slows down even more whereby China would have more relative economic power to pressure their trading partners to rewrite their rules to advantage themself over us.
What would be terrible for global security is by focusing so much of our foreign policy attention on this war we miss what should be our #1 foreign policy objective: stopping the proliferation of WMDs — nuclear, biological, chemical, and artificial intelligence.
Ultimately, foreign policy should be dictated by principle over pathos.
As with the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, there’s a narrative that the West is winning up until the moment we pull out, but as weeks become months become years when is enough enough? What is our exit strategy?
Even if Ukraine overcomes the huge odds by pushing Russia back to its borders then what?
Ukraine and Russia are in a war of attrition where each side has theoretically expended less than 1% of their people (combined causalities is about 400,000 out of a combined population size of about 200 million people) and supplies (Russia’s economy shrank 2.1% in 2022, but with assistance from China, India, and Iran it’s ability to wage war is almost inexhaustible).
Putin is willing to sacrifice as much as he needs to to “win” or at least not lose, but how much blood and treasure are you willing to see expended?
It’s easy to be for the “popular thing” when you don’t have to do anything, but what if this war ends up costing you $3,000?
It’s over $100 billion now and reports say it’ll take over a trillion to rebuild Ukraine and that’s if the war ended today so it’s therefore possible that when the smoke settles the U.S. alone would’ve spent $1 trillion or $3,000 per American in order to get a little more or less of what we could’ve gotten yesterday.
If this $3,000 wasn’t printed/inflated, but instead added as a line item to your income tax then public support would evaporate faster than Martha Vineyard’s patience with Pedro’s antics.
With so little upside and such tremendous downside a competent compassionate president would’ve prevented this war or at least brought it to a close yesterday.
After having received my Nobel Peace Prize, I’d then try to pass my Get the Force Out Act (GTFO), which would state:
Any country that unjustly invades another country will be hit with a 30% tariff and the invaded will get aid equal to 30% of their GDP.
Similar in format to the War Powers Act, the president would have to notify Congress within 48 hours of determining an invasion to be “unjust” at which point the House and Senate would have to authorize this determination with a majority vote.
This powerful auto-like deterrence would serve as a default floor for which the US government could choose to do more or less, but at least it’d make clear the huge cost a nation would likely have to pay who is tempted to “F*ck around.”
I’d then fly around the world to pressure as many of our allies as possible to implement their own version of GTFO so that in the end the economic cost of an unjust invasion would be so high that it’d be economic suicide for any nation to “find out.”
Any dreams of running for president in a few decades?
It won't be possible end the Russo-Ukrainian War by making Ukraine give concessions, and Ukraine will *not* stop defending its territory if NATO and other countries were to stop supplying the Ukrainian military. If NATO pressured Ukraine to sign a peace treaty with Russia, Russia would simply invade Ukraine once more several years later (Crimea in 2014, Ukraine in 2022-23, and Ukraine again in ~2027), and Ukraine would be in an even worse position because they would've completely lost the Donbas, Crimea, strategic/defensive territories, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, most of their Black Sea ports, and international recognition of much of their territory.
NATO countries like Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania and most of Eastern Europe would never tolerate allowing Russia to keep the Ukrainian territory that they have now. Russia invading Ukraine endangers *their* national security too, especially if a Russia-occupied Ukraine reached their national borders. NATO cannot risk letting that possibility happen. If NATO wants to guarantee a stable buffer zone against Russia, then they have to keep supplying Ukraine. The reason why *all* NATO countries are so willing to send weapons and supplies to Ukraine is because it's in their self-interests.
The Russian government has very strong geopolitical, national, cultural, defensive, and political incentives to keep invading Ukraine until they conquer the entire country, even if this is not aligned with the interests of the average Russian citizen. Most countries are aware of this.
The only way to end the war for good is to make Russia lose, most likely by starving their war budget into oblivion. The alternative is that Russia waits a while, and attacks again, just like how they waited 8 years after stealing Crimea to strike again. The world should've already learned that appeasement doesn't work after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, a year after they annexed Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938.