Over the summer a cacophony of voices has risen up across the West demanding that Ukraine seek negotiations with Russia to end the war. While some of these calls are genuinely well-meaning, desiring an end to the bloodshed as quickly as possible, the idea that Ukraine should begin to negotiate now ignores both how negotiations have historically worked and the current state of the battlefield in the Russo–Ukrainian war. It likewise also ignores the geopolitical reality of Ukraine’s importance in the West’s coming 21st-century cold war with China.
Much of the demand for negotiation arose from the fact that Ukraine was for months seemingly not making progress against Russia, though demands for negotiations began almost immediately after Russia’s initial gains. Jeffrey Sachs, writing for CNN in April, called for a negotiated peace to end the war. In June, Politico ran a piece arguing for peace due to the fact that “the momentum on the battlefield [was] shifting in Russia’s favor.” Similar pieces cascaded throughout the summer.
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