Prospects for ending war: global players' stakes

This vector can be focused on sustainable development, technological innovation, renewable energy, poverty alleviation, and epidemic prevention. But for this to happen, humanity needs clear rules in international politics, security guarantees, predictable democratic systems of governance, and the dominance of humanistic values and principles. For this to happen, Putin must lose in Ukraine and his regime must be dismantled.

Otherwise, humanity finds itself on the path of growing chaos, a game without rules, in which not the stronger, but the one who is more cynical, cruel and deceitful wins. It is clear that under these conditions, the remaining collective resources will be plundered, the weak and poor will be left to their fate, war and dictatorship will become the norm, and any global programs based on mutual trust and goodwill will lose their relevance. Political tensions will take the form of armed conflicts and economic decline, followed by poverty, disease, environmental disasters, and depopulation.

In fact, we are already seeing all of this in the Ukrainian Donbas, 'liberated' by the invading Russian forces from common sense and normal life. Syria is also a 'good' example. If there had been no one to stop Putin a year ago, this black hole would have grown to the size of the whole of Ukraine and threatened to swallow up new victims. Moldova, the Baltic States, and Georgia would have automatically entered Moscow's zone of 'special interests', with Central Europe, Central Asia, the Baltic, Black Sea, and Caspian regions next in line. However, it is not the details that are important in this case, but the general trend.

The global dimension of this war is obvious to everyone. Therefore, on the first anniversary of Russia's attack on Ukraine, the main actors decided to define their positions. Biden made his statement in Warsaw, Putin spoke to his own State Duma, and finally, China used the rostrum of the UN General Assembly.

Xi Jinping's initially announced speech with a landmark peace plan was replaced at the last minute by a vague mixture of platitudes presented by the Deputy Permanent Representative of China to the UN.

Europe's position has been stated before and has been consistent enough throughout the conflict to not be a big surprise. Ukraine's position is also kind of known. Instead, the position of America and China, as the two main players, as well as the position of Russia, from which everyone is waiting in vain for signs of 'recovery', are crucial for understanding the future prospects.

When the American expert community faced the problem of modeling situations during the Cold War with the USSR, the famous mathematician John Nash, who worked for the RAND Corporation, suggested using poker rather than chess, as was traditionally done in strategic developments, to analogize geopolitical confrontation. After all, in politics, as in cards, players try to deceive each other and are forced to make decisions under conditions of incomplete information.

In the current geopolitical game, we can say that Washington has decided to raise the stakes, Moscow wants to stay on its own, and Beijing is missing a move.

Based on these decisions, you can draw conclusions about what cards the players are holding and how the game might end.

Moscow's position is obviously the weakest. Russia has long wanted to get out of the game, but it still cannot accept the price of its defeat. Therefore, it is waiting for some turn of fortune in its favor with a holy conviction that the tactic of endless bluffing is a win-win. After all, Putin can afford it, since he has already lost almost everything he could lose in foreign policy.

The Americans, as we have seen, are well aware of what cards their opponents are really holding, so their confidence is a good signal for us. The spectacular appearance in Kyiv and the historic speech in Warsaw are steps taken by President Biden that show that the Democratic White House administration clearly sees the possibility of a Ukrainian victory and is confidently betting on it in the prospect of the upcoming 2024 presidential campaign.

Beijing's significant silence may mean that under the current circumstances, China sees no winning options for itself, but hopes that the situation may yet change in its favor. If the Chinese had any plan to intervene more actively in the course of events, it apparently had to be abandoned following the results of Foreign Minister Wang Yi's foreign trip. Consultations with European leaders, as well as negotiations in Moscow, ended in failure, in the sense that the Chinese representative was convinced that the positions of the parties to the conflict remained unchanged.

So, what are the prospects for the war's main stakeholders in the second year of the war?

Putin's regime expects that if the war is prolonged, it will be able to maintain minimal economic stability, patriotic mobilization within Russia, control over the newly occupied lands of the northern Azov Sea and most of Donbas, and the honorary title of the main enemy of the West and America in the eyes of the 'anti-imperialist' forces of the global South.

In reality, all of these 'gains' will be instantly devalued as soon as the fighting ends, as they will not be able to prevent Russia's further degradation. The only way for Putin to somehow break the current deadlock is to try to get out of the game through some convincing 'gesture of goodwill'. Leave the Azov region, for example (Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions). But the regime can hardly afford it, given all its 'referendums' and patriotic concerts. And the opposite side is unlikely to be satisfied with this.

The United States hopes for the success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, but the main bet is on diplomatic pressure and sanctions on Moscow, which should deprive Russia of its main resources and geopolitical ambitions based on them over the next few years. Therefore, Washington's plans undoubtedly include the liberation of the occupied territories by the Ukrainian army, but the list and pace of operations will depend on strategic interests. Among them: to avoid the risk of nuclear escalation, to retain leverage for further economic and political pressure on Moscow, and to obtain maximum concessions from the Kremlin in areas not directly related to the current war.

In parallel with suppressing Putin's resistance, Washington would also like to weaken China as its main competitor as much as possible. To do so, it would be appropriate to tie Beijing to supporting Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine.

In turn, China is trying to minimize the damage and risks from a war in which it was not interested from the beginning, but at the same time is looking for winning combinations for its own entry into the game.

Such an entry could have been an effective peace initiative that would have received support, if not from the parties to the conflict, then at least from the international community. However, the preemptive diplomatic strike by the United States (accusations of possible supplies of lethal weapons to Russia) and the unanimity of the international community in condemning Russian aggression do not leave room for such initiatives.

Beijing has only one strategic opportunity: to mediate in a situation where Moscow wants to surrender.