Peace in Ukraine

Nobody has come out with a workable peace plan for Ukraine except Volodomyr Zelensky. His plan is optimistic, but there are two elements within it that are non-negotiable to ensure a permanent end to violence between the Russian invaders and Ukraine. <h2>Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be restored to the 1991 borders.</h2> First, at the grand strategy level, this will set a precedent that invasions to annex territory are not allowed. This is an essential element going forward for nation-state relations everywhere in the world. Breaking such a precedent would be disastrous. Second, making an exception for a nuclear armed nation would be more disastrous still. The main asset that Russia has is its nuclear arsenal — without it, NATO would have intervened from day one and the war would have never started. Setting a precedent that nuclear-armed nations can invade their neighbors because the civilized world won’t respond will encourage massive proliferation as dictators everywhere will stop at nothing to acquire nuclear weapons. Third, no nation would ever again disarm itself of a nuclear arsenal. Ukraine having surrendered its own nuclear weapons in 1994 will be seen as one of the greatest blunders in political history. It may already be, but I’ll withhold judgement on that. Armed with nuclear weapons, Ukraine might never have become a democracy. In any case, relenquishing nuclear weapons will be seen as national suicide, and it will never happen again. <a href="https://medium.com/@dylan_combellick/peace-in-ukraine-162a95cfc9df">Website</a>