The internet exploded, with the weight of the response highly negative not just to Musk’s proposed solution, but to his supposed support for Russia’s position in the war.

Ukraine-Russia Peace:

– Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.

– Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).

– Water supply to Crimea assured.

– Ukraine remains neutral.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022

Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022

I didn’t read his proposal or his subsequent defense of it, including his noting that some people in the far eastern parts of Ukraine might indeed prefer to be included in Russian territory, as taking Putin’s side. He was merely pointing out that for the war to end, Putin will have to agree to the solution. Yet this sort of idiocy was the response of the internet:

BREAKING: Putin awards Elon Musk rank of colonel pic.twitter.com/BrXff54HB7

— Sputnik Not (@Sputnik_Not) October 6, 2022

Some confusion regarding the proposal was natural. Russia conducted fake referenda in the regions they occupy or occupied until Ukraine kicked them out, and some perhaps assumed that Musk was suggesting that those referenda should be respected. That in fact not what he proposed, as you can see in his first tweet.His proposal of a referendum, while perhaps misguided, was not ridiculous or pro-Putin in my judgment.

Elon Musk now: pic.twitter.com/fLEGd0MZqa

— olegas (@surajev) October 6, 2022

Ukrainian reaction was understandably harshly negative. I won’t share a tweet from a Ukrainian ambassador because it was too profane. The tweet itself seemed ungrateful, given Musk’s crucial support for Ukraine given how vital his Starlink contributions have been to the conduct of the war. Much of the coordination of troops and weapons would have been impossible without Musk’s help.

But being pissed off at a prominent person suggesting that Ukraine might compromise with Russia is more than understandable. Russia is the aggressor and in a just world it would be punished horribly for their evildoing. Ukrainians naturally believe that the solution should be just.

This is not a just world. And unless Putin is displaced and probably assassinated, Putin will be the guy who decides how the war ends.

Ending the war in Ukraine will not be easy, and the most important thing to remember is that wars are rarely won on the battlefield alone. The last such war I can recall is the defeat of Germany in World War II. In that war we had to take every inch of territory and kill almost all the Nazis. But even Japan capitulated without a total destruction of its military. Most wars have political solutions. Even the winners can’t dictate everything. Unconditional surrenders almost never happen.

In other words, wars are ultimately won by breaking the will of the enemy, and do not end until that point. That means a political solution of some sort has to be found. It does not appear that Putin’s will is close to breaking, so the only alternative if you want the war to end any time prior to his willingness to capitulate you will need to give him something that will allow him to claim a victory. The “off ramp.”

If Russia were a normal country the situation would be very different, but as a nuclear power Putin has a trump card that we cannot allow to be played. If nukes are used, all bets are off. It is very difficult to see how a third world war gets avoided, although the scale of destruction would be impossible to predict.

Needless to say, nuclear war should be avoided. Ukrainians may wish to kick every Russian all the way back to Moscow, string up Putin as the US did to Saddam Hussein, and extract reparations. That is unlikely to happen. I think we can reject this particular suggestion from President Zelenskyy:

NEW – Ukraine's Zelensky calls on NATO to launch "preemptive strikes" against Russia to "eliminate the possibility" of a Russian nuclear strike.pic.twitter.com/gj6mSRZfFF

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) October 6, 2022

Not to put too fine a point on it, Zelenskyy’s suggestion makes sense from his point of view, but hardly from ours. It is clarifying for the rest of us. Nuclear war is a real possibility, and our ally in the war would rather we start it than Putin.

I find it bizarre that so many people  seem rather blasé about the possibility of a nuclear war. Either they know something we don’t, or they just assume that it couldn’t happen because it never has in the past. Perhaps they have inside knowledge that generals are holding a gun to Putin’s head, but I doubt it.

In fact, New York City just produced a PSA on how to survive a nuclear attack. This strikes me as ominous.

And President Biden just acknowledged that things don’t look so rosy:

☢️ Biden warned the risk of nuclear "Armageddon" was at its highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, as Russia hinted at the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering major setbacks in its invasion of Ukraine.

Follow the latest on our live blog ⬇️

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) October 7, 2022

I share Ukrainian officials’ desire to see Russia punished harshly for their open aggression. Ukraine may not be the ethically purest country on earth, but Putin’s invasion and the subsequent conduct of the war make clear that Russia is entirely in the wrong.

But in practical terms that matters only so much. The war has been devastating not only for Ukraine, but for most people on Earth. It has helped fuel food and energy price increases, will undoubtedly lead to food insecurity and perhaps starvation of some of the poorest on the planet, and is set to damage or even devastate the European economy. It certainly hasn’t been fun for us either.

And with each subsequent day the threat of the war expanding grows. Russia’s defeats on the battlefield are satisfying to see and may indeed lead to a better settlement for Ukraine, but they may also spark a wider war that will devastate major parts of the world. That is too high a risk to ignore.

So while I think Musk’s solution may be naive, his pointing out that the war needs a rapid solution is smart. He certainly hasn’t revealed himself to be a Putin puppet, as so many have suggested. Rather, he is making the rather obvious case that a compromise now is better than a nuclear war later.