China has departed from its early public neutrality regarding the war by reaffirming its partnership with Russia and effectively calling for a compromise peace — as have others, including, evidently, our European allies. The pressure is mounting on President Biden, who until now has brooked no dissent from Ukraine’s demand for the full restoration of its pre-2014 borders.
A slippery slope filled with a series of bad choices awaits the Biden administration. A compromise peace, which much of the world apparently desires for various self-interested reasons, inevitably would begin with negotiations. Unless Russia is allowed to continue its territorial gains during the negotiations, a ceasefire would be required — and historically, these involve freezing the existing territorial division between combatants for the duration. As we have learned from Korea, the Middle East, and other such arrangements, these temporary demarcation lines often evolve into de facto permanent borders.
Russia has made strategic territorial gains, so such an outcome would be disastrous for Ukraine — and humiliating for the United States. Yet, since European leaders and the U.S. so far have refused to supply the arsenal of modern weaponry that Ukraine has said it needs to survive, it is difficult to see any other scenario unfolding.
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