How Wars End

A Final Word About the Ukraine War: An Historical Perspective

It's hard to see how this bitter conflict will end. The present stalemate on the battlefield reveals an unwillingness on both sides to compromise on their most cherished aims. Kyiv wants to remove all invading Russian forces from its sovereign territory. Moscow, the aggressor, continues to demand Ukrainian territory, which it seems increasingly unlikely to conquer.

If we look at the two world wars of the 20th century, perhaps we can draw some instructive parallels - after all, by early June this year the Ukraine War will have lasted as long as the First World War. In both World War One and World War Two, decisive military defeat ended any hope that the Central Powers and Nazi Germany respectively could continue fighting. Certain groups in post-war German society argued that their country had not truly surrendered in 1918. They claimed their army had withdrawn back to barracks in good order, giving rise to the 'stab-in-the-back' myth that Hitler would later exploit. However, all the evidence now shows that German morale and reserves had utterly collapsed by November 1918.

Mass German surrenders on the Western Front had already occurred on an unprecedented scale. We are talking hundreds of thousands of men, led by their NCOs, calmly leaving their trenches and giving themselves up to the enemy. The armistice that followed was dictated to the German delegation under the threat of further Allied attack. It was a brutal acknowledgment that Germany had lost the war.

The End of World War II

As for World War II, there's no dispute that in 1945, both Germany and, a few months later, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies. Their respective countries were comprehensively destroyed, overrun, and occupied. It is hard to see a similarly decisive outcome happening in the Ukrainian conflict, while the finale to World War One, where one side decisively forced the other to stop fighting, defies the current attritional state of the battlefield.

Ukraine, at most, would be satisfied with driving the invading Russians off its sovereign territory: it has no interest in invading and occupying Russia, unless to use captured Russian territory as a bargaining chip in peace negotiations.

The Russian Perspective

For their part, the Russians seem very unlikely to overrun or occupy Ukraine. Their casualties are mounting alarmingly, with serious estimates running at 1.2 million and counting. Their economy shows signs of severe strain. In such a situation, it would be foolhardy for the Russians to try to spread the conflict to other countries, such as members of NATO. This would likely encourage a more proactive coalition behind Ukraine, dramatically tipping the balance against Moscow. Such a scenario could lead to something closer to a World War Two outcome - not an occupation of Russia, of course, but existential for the Putin regime nonetheless.

The Unique Nature of the Ukraine War

World War Two's end was decisive in a way that World War One's was not for two very good reasons. Firstly, 1945 marked the first and only time in history that atomic weapons have been employed in anger. This fact alone makes the current war in Ukraine hard to predict. Would Putin, for example, countenance tactical nuclear weapons at any point? He has talked about them, and if he felt cornered, it is not impossible he would resort to them.

However, realistically, that is a line which probably nobody wants to breach, for fear of what lies beyond. Mind you, the same was said about bombing civilians from the air and the use of poison gas. Despite pre-war international agreements prohibiting both, all sides in World War One rapidly adopted these new tactics.

The second reason for the unique nature of the Ukraine War? In a word, Trump. In 1945, the extraordinary might and resources of the USA led the fight against the Axis powers. This was critically supported on the Eastern Front by the massed divisions of the Red Army. Today, who really knows what Trump's America is up to in this war? All its actions, and most of its rhetoric, suggest a desire to please Moscow rather than arrive at a just and equitable settlement.

This makes the Ukraine War unique in recent history and all the more difficult to resolve.

Surrendered German troops march in orderly fashion into Allied captivity, autumn 1918. The lack of armed escorts suggests these men have willingly given themselves up to end a war they no longer want to fight.

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