The Ukraine War has dragged on for nearly three years with no current end in sight. The United States' pledge to Ukraine's defense has grown increasingly costly and unpopular, and talks on both sides of escalation — and even the potential use of nuclear weapons, on the part of Russia — threaten to expand and inflate the conflict. Ukraine has defended itself admirably, but the time is now to set out a plan for negotiations and de-escalation.
In the above video, former CIA Russia Analysis Chief and Quincy Institute's Director of Grand Strategy George Beebe discusses the future outlook of the Ukraine War and the context and potential avenues for diplomacy with Russia.
Khody Akhavi is Senior Video Producer at the Quincy Institute. Previously he was Head of Video for Al-Monitor and covered the White House for Al Jazeera English, as well as produced films for the network’s flagship investigative unit.
Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, there have been ongoing diplomatic efforts to broker a peace settlement in the three-year-long war between Russia and Ukraine. So far, however, negotiations have failed to bridge the stark divide between the two sides.
Two of the key contentious issues have been post-war security guarantees for Ukraine and the political status of Ukrainian territory claimed or annexed by Russia. Specifically, regarding territorial sovereignty, Ukraine and Russia have rejected the United States' proposal to “freeze” the war along the current line of conflict as a de facto new border. Ukraine has refused to renounce its claims of sovereignty over territories occupied by Russia (including Crimea, which was annexed in 2014). Russia, in turn, has demanded Ukraine’s recognition of Russia’s territorial claim over the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions, which Russia annexed in 2022.
For advocates of a peace settlement, the behaviors of Ukraine and Russia may appear irrational, prolonging the war in the pursuit of costly, even unrealistic objectives. Ukraine, especially amid a possible reduction in U.S. support, appears unlikely to successfully repulse Russian forces from its sovereign territory. Russia, in turn, has achieved only incremental, costly successes in its recent military advances. Despite losing some ground, Ukrainian forces still control substantial territory in the four regions annexed by Russia.
As Harvard professor Graham Allison already observed during the early stages of the war, if future military operations are likely to alter the final territorial boundaries only marginally, the warring parties may be better off settling the war at present. So why don’t they?
Applying the prospect theory may help better understand the psychology of Russian and Ukrainian leaders. The prospect theory, derived from behavioral economics and psychology, explains why policymakers may be inclined (or disinclined) to certain policy decisions. The theory assumes people, including policymakers, assess their circumstances relative to a psychological reference point, determining whether they are operating in a domain of "gains" or "losses." If people perceive the circumstance as below the reference point, they are less likely to accept the status quo. Instead, people are more prone to engage in risk-seeking behaviors to improve their present circumstances.
Negotiating a war settlement faces a challenge when belligerents perceive themselves to be in the domain of “losses.” Leaders are averse to settlement terms that would consolidate their present losses, including territorial losses. For Ukraine, the territorial reference point is the restoration of its sovereign border before Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Though Ukraine has supported a temporary ceasefire, it has opposed a formal settlement that entails international recognition of a newly drawn border between Ukraine and Russia. Not only are Ukrainian leaders averse to permanent losses of their sovereign territory, but they also face domestic political pressure, as some polling shows that a majority of the Ukrainian public is opposed to territorial concessions as a condition for peace.
Though Russia may appear to have achieved significant territorial gains (occupying nearly 20% of Ukraine’s territory), the Russian government perceives its failure to prevent Ukraine’s geopolitical alignment with the West (even without formal NATO membership) as a “geopolitical loss.” While continuing to demand Ukraine’s “neutrality” and “disarmament,” Russia appears most determined to attain international (and Ukraine’s) recognition of its annexation of Crimea and Ukraine’s four southeastern provinces as compensation for Russia’s losses. The territorial expansion would also serve as a display of a public victory in justifying the “special military operation” that was launched under the pretext of protecting the self-determination of the Russian-speaking populace and regions in Ukraine.
For the Trump administration, impatient for a quick end to the war, the challenge lies in convincing Ukraine and Russia to accept a territorial border that falls below their respective reference points. Ukraine would not retake Russian-occupied territories, while Russia would not achieve complete control over its claimed annexed territories. A commonly proposed strategy is for the United States to apply coercive pressure on both parties. The U.S. suspension of support for Ukraine, increased sanctions on Russia could shift the balance on the battlefields, increasing tactical dilemmas for each side to decide between accepting the current conflict line or risking greater territorial losses and rising military/economic costs.
The drawback of the coercive strategy, however, is that belligerent countries may choose to withstand U.S. pressures, rather than to abandon their territorial demands. To increase the likelihood of a war settlement, the Trump administration should also engage in a parallel strategy, allowing ambiguity regarding the future political status of the disputed territories.
While establishing the military demarcation line and the surrounding demilitarized buffer zone (which may be monitored by international, even European peacekeepers), the settlement should avoid requiring either Russia or Ukraine to formally renounce their territorial claims. Instead, political governance over the disputed territories (four regions plus Crimea) should be deferred to future post-war negotiations. Such ambiguity would allow Russia and Ukraine to provisionally accept the military demarcation line, yet continue to advocate, domestically and internationally, for their territorial claims.
The ambiguity over territorial control can pose a significant challenge to the maintenance of a war settlement. Ukraine and Russia are likely to remain committed to future territorial “liberation” — prolonged diplomatic impasse could incentivize hardline factions in both countries to pursue coercive, even military means to achieve their objectives. However, it is debatable whether requiring formal territorial concessions, even if successful, would then significantly increase the prospects of a durable peace. As Germany did after the Versailles Treaty, the USSR after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, a country forced to formally cede territory to an adversary may still seek to revise or overturn the settlement in the future.
The ambiguity over territorial status, while frustrating for those who seek a conclusive settlement outcome, offers two potential hopes for sustaining a peace settlement. First, it provides hope for the country that the current losses can be recovered with the changes in future geopolitical circumstances. Ukraine may retain hope that future political change within Russia would increase prospects for territorial recovery, similar to the Baltic states’ eventual achievement of independence after the USSR’s dissolution.
Second, even if the territorial status remains unresolved, there is an alternative hope that the countries’ reference point may shift over time. The domestic politics may eventually come to accept the status quo as the new reference point. As an example, shortly after the Korean War armistice, the South Korean government initially advocated for a militant “pukchin”(advance northward) reunification strategy. Today, though affirming the goal of reunification, contemporary South Korean politics display greater restraints and caution toward inter-Korean relations.
Should Ukraine’s pro-Western alignment, Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s territory, become entrenched, future Ukrainian and Russian governments may continue to perceive each other as adversaries but display greater restraints in destabilizing the new de facto status quo.
Critics may question whether Ukraine or Russia could be persuaded to accept a settlement (assuming other contentious issues are resolved) with an open-ended question on their core territorial claims. The two countries, especially Russia, are unlikely to accept such terms willingly, necessitating increased pressure from the U.S. and the West.
Nevertheless, the prospect of a war settlement is more likely with the inclusion, rather than the exclusion, of territorial ambiguity. This approach accommodates the two countries’ aversion to conclusive acceptance of their present losses. Such a settlement framework may appear manipulative and be accused of postponing the key conflict issue to future uncertainty.
However, after three years of Russia-Ukraine War, the United States and the international community face a difficult strategic choice: to continue the risks and costs of a prolonged war for a more conclusive territorial outcome or convince the two countries to accept the risks of a peace with an inconclusive territorial settlement.
Sea-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missiles, or SLCM-Ns, were considered unnecessary for U.S. national security for years. But now, the Navy’s pushing to bring SLCM-Ns back — even if doing so costs taxpayers billions.
Indeed, U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe told House Armed Services Committee members on May 7 that the Navy was fast tracking the development of the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile - Nuclear, known as the SLCM-N, along with the Trident II D5 Strategic Weapons System and hypersonic missiles.
Speaking at the “Nuclear Forces and Atomic Energy Defense Activities Programmatic Updates” hearing, Wolfe depicted SLCM-Ns as vital for modernizing both the U.S. nuclear infrastructure and the Navy's deterrence capacity.
SLCM-Ns bring “another option to our decision makers to deter our adversaries. It is an underlay for our triad and certainly it brings a regional weapon and a deterrent that we just don’t have today,” he told the committee.
SLCM-N proponents say the missiles are vital for national security and for maintaining a modern nuclear arsenal with greater availability and regional presence. In fact, critics say, a renewed proliferation of SLCM-Ns today could heighten prospects for nuclear conflict while doing little to meaningfully bolster deterrence.
How SLCM-Ns came out of retirement
Initially proposed by the first Trump administration in 2018, SLCM-Ns mark the return to the realm of nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles — despite policymakers’ repeated gripes that the program was ultimately unnecessary for national security.
Indeed, the Navy retired its previous TLAM-N missiles, where nuclear-armed Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles were placed on ships and submarines, in 2013 following a 2010 Obama administration recommendation that the program be retired.
Specifically the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) stated that the SLCM-N system “serves a redundant purpose,” as “one of a number of means to forward-deploy nuclear weapons in time of crisis.”
Similarly, deeming that the already expansive range of non-strategic nuclear capacities rendered SLCM-Ns unnecessary, the Navy also moved to shelve the Trump-era SLCM-N initiative in 2022. The Biden administration’s policy statements regarding the FY2023 and FY2024 National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA) further posited that SLCM-N programming "would divert resources and focus from higher modernization priorities."
Despite these repeated objections, Congress continued to fund the SLCM-N and its associated warhead.
Wolfe’s witness testimony indicated that the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) was standing-up a SLCM-N program office, established in March 2024, and was “conducting the assessments needed to deliver a weapon system that meets Warfighter needs.”
Meanwhile, experts warn the Navy’s push for this cruise missile could bolster prospects for nuclear conflict and provoke other logistics- and security-related issues.
“The nuclear-armed sea-launched nuclear cruise missile is especially destabilizing because an adversary would have a hard time telling a nuclear armed one from the non-nuclear missile, making an accidental nuclear exchange more likely,” the Quincy Institute’s William Hartung told RS.
“This is a big deal, and [a] major reversal for the Navy, which for years said it did not want nor need this weapon,” Geoff Wilson, Distinguished Fellow and Strategic Advisor for the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center, explained.
Wilson supposed that introducing nuclear warhead-studded missiles to vessels and territories unprepared to receive them could also complicate Naval logistics while possibly frustrating relationships with allies.
“How much thought has gone into how these weapons will change the missions of these boats, which would now be barred from making port calls in key allied nations like Japan, which does not allow U.S. nuclear weapons into its territory?” Wilson asked.
The SLCM-N could also scuttle other diplomatic ventures with adversaries. “The focus on the SLCM-N seems to undermine President Trump's stated interest in having nuclear arms control and strategic stability talks with Russia and China,” Jennifer Kavanagh, Senior Fellow and Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities, told RS. “It will be hard to convince Moscow and Beijing that Washington is serious about these negotiations if it is simultaneously surging the development of a new nuclear weapon.”
And Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz) depicted SLCM-N as a strategic mishap in the event of a war with China. At a May 20 Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing, he suggested the cruise missile's placement on Virginia class submarines could bludgeon the submarines’ traditional warfighting capacities.
“The likelihood that we have to use the conventional [warfighting capacity]…of a Virginia class submarine in a conflict with China is rather high, if we got into a conflict. The probability that we would use the nuclear systems aboard this [Virginia class] submarine are actually rather low. So, we're going to sacrifice the exquisite capability of this platform [by attaching an SLCM-N to it], and it's going to become a little less capable,” Kelly mused. “It could be significant.”
Breaking the bank
The SLCM-N push calls for billions of taxpayer dollars amid already runaway military budgets, where the DoD, already proposing a whopping $1 trillion defense budget for next year, also intends on spending almost a trillion more on other nuclear weapons in the years to come.
“Last year Congress authorized $322 million for SLCM-N. The continuing resolution added at least $150 million to the program, and the new ‘reconciliation’ bill currently in front of Congress would add $2 billion to the program over the next four years,” Wilson explained. “That is a lot of money for a weapon the Navy said it didn't want consistently over the last two administrations.”
“This has all the makings of a ‘Washington warhead’ that will do little to improve U.S. deterrence or international strategic stability,” Wilson concluded. “I sincerely hope that Congress will change course and exercise some actual oversight into [the] strategic rationale behind the program.”
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Top photo credit: The Lockheed Martin Corporation on display during the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition(ADEX) 2023 at the Seoul Air Base on October 18, 2023 in Seongnam, south of Seoul. (Photo by Chris Jung/NurPhoto)
President Donald Trump announced some $200 billion in potential arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar a week ago — this is huge potential business for major U.S. defense contractors like RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics, all of which deploy armies of lobbyists in Washington each year to influence such contracts.
A new bipartisan bill dropping this week will impose some of the strictest bans to date to make sure former government officials aren’t lobbying on behalf of those big companies or foreign countries to get their share of this massive federal pie. In fact, the legislation will make it a crime to do so.
House Foreign Affairs Committee colleagues Reps. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) are planning to introduce the No Revolving Doors in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Act, which aims to tackle a space that has been growing exponentially due in part to major current conflicts in Israel and Ukraine and the desire of partner countries to arm up and enhance “deterrence.”
The Davidson/Jacobs bill will impose a three-year moratorium or “cooling off period” on any lobbying by former Pentagon or State Department officials associated with FMS during their time in government on behalf of new employers in the defense industry and/or foreign actors who have contracts or are seeking contracts for foreign military sales.
“We must keep these deals free from conflicts of interest — they are too critical in protecting our national security. By enforcing a three-year lobbying ban, we close the door on undue influence within this critical process,” Davidson said in a statement.
The DoD currently has a blanket one-year cooling off period for lobbyists (two years for highest ranking officers) but critics have long complained that the rules are inconsistently enforced across departments and there are persistent loopholes that are easily exploited.
“Unfortunately, the loopholes that keep the revolving door spinning allow former civil servants who were involved in foreign military sales to immediately work for the defense industry or foreign actors once they leave the executive branch,” said Jacobs. For example, the definition of “lobbying” is fungible, with former officials instead hired as “consultants” who can do everything to influence their former employer without triggering official lobbying rules.
But the new bill makes it a penalty for former government officials to engage “knowingly” with “any communication or appearance before any officer or employee of any Federal department or agency or Congress to influence such foreign military sales.”
Davidson — who also wants to compel the Pentagon to pass a financial audit — told RS that the new lobbying measure stems from the House Foreign Affairs Committee's foreign arms sales task force and that there's momentum to pass it, whether as a stand alone provision or as part of a bigger bill like the NDAA.
"This is a time where some of this kind of legislation can actually have a chance to move," he said. "You have people that work for the government, do the sales, and then right after they do the sales they wind up working for defense contractors. And you could see an obvious conflict of interest there."
To say the revolving door is a problem is an understatement, especially with the major contractors that stand to benefit the most from these major deals. The aforementioned Trump deal includes $1 billion worth of drones from RTX (formerly Raytheon) for Qatar. Meanwhile General Atomics stands to make $2 billion from selling Qatar its advanced MQ-9B aircraft.
Meanwhile, most of the nearly 2,000 former DoD employees (both civilian and military) who went to work in the defense industry from 2014 to 2019 went to major prime contractors and mostly in those companies’ weapons divisions. According to the GAO in 2021, the most, 315, went to work for RTX.
Over 80 percent of retired generals after 2018 went to work for the arms industry as board members, advisers, executives, consultants, lobbyists, or members of financial institutions that invest in the defense sector, according to a more recent report by the Quincy Institute. Since 2019, defense contractors have spent over $216 million directly lobbying the federal government, according to OpenSecrets.
These dynamics produce two major conflicts of interest: weapons companies have an edge paying former Pentagon and State Department officials big bucks because they know they can influence their former colleagues making decisions in the highly competitive foreign sales space. Second, officials still on the job at these agencies can feather their post-retirement nests with prospective defense companies by helping them game the system while they still have direct influence over government contracts.
While he wasn’t working for a weapons company, Adm. Robert Burke was convicted just the other day of bribery for accepting a job with a $500,000 salary and stock options while he was still working for the Navy. He did this in exchange for help to steer contracts to Next Jump, a technology services company that did work with the military.
Bill Hartung, who wrote the Quincy study, said the Davidson/Jacobs bill was a good start.
“It doesn't address the loopholes that apply to the huge numbers of folks who leave DoD to go to industry each year — over 1,700 in one recent year, according to GAO. But it addresses a critical issue and could serve as a model for strengthening revolving door strictures on other officials leaving DoD to work or industry,” he noted.
A third potential risk that the bill hopes to address is undue influence from foreign countries that hire former government employees as lobbyists and consultants, creating a situation where countries that shouldn’t be getting our weapons because obtaining them may not be in the U.S. national security interest, have a Washington conduit that makes it happen anyway.
“It should go without saying,” said Jacobs, “U.S. arms sales should be made to promote U.S. national security, not to get ahead professionally or cash in.”
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