Can Ukraine, Syria Impasses Drive U.S.-Russia ‘Grand Climb-Down’?

When diplomats want to explore a way out of a crisis, they like to talk about striking a "grand bargain” and try to avoid the word "climb-down,” which tends to imply an acknowledgement of failure or defeat. Nevertheless, Russia and the United States, trapped in costly confrontations over Syria and Ukraine, may need to agree to a sort of "grand climb-down” that allows the two powers to get out of unsustainable positions as painlessly as possible.

Moscow and Washington both begin 2015 stuck with the consequences of poor strategic bets.

Russia’s intervention in Ukraine now looks like a truly disastrous mistake, as Western sanctions and the collapse of the price of oil have converged to undermine its economy. Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to spout defiance at the West, but some of his closest allies are urging compromise. At some point, Putin may have to choose between his global ambitions and his continued political survival. He is likely to plump for survival.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is still trying to balance its long-standing insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must resign, which was based on a fundamental misreading of his resilience in 2011 and 2012, with its current focus on the battle with the so-called Islamic State (IS).

Most analysts believe that Assad is not only militarily secure but also commands the only forces inside Syria capable of doing any real damage to IS, even if he is also guilty of exploiting the group to create a common cause with the West. At some point, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration may have to choose between continuing its often half-hearted efforts to oust Assad and a deal to finish off the Islamists. It may ultimately have to opt for a deal.

These are uninviting prospects. An obvious retreat over Ukraine would undermine Putin’s appeal to Russian nationalism. Acquiescing to Assad would do further damage to Washington’s frayed ties with powers like Saudi Arabia. After a period of open competition, neither the U.S. nor Russia is likely to offer the other an unconditional "win” in Europe or the Middle East. But they might just tie their climb-downs together

Russia could link a guarantee to refrain from fresh mischief in eastern Ukraine, where fighting diminished last month, to an American promise not to pursue Assad’s overthrow. This would permit both the U.S. and Russia say that they had scored a qualified success.

Putin, with Crimea still firmly in his grip, could maintain that he had asserted Russia’s status as a great power in both the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.

Obama could claim to have demonstrated America’s continued commitment to European security, while easing the suffering in Syria and increasing the chances of defeating IS.

Such a compromise could open the way toward lifting sanctions against Moscow, thereby reducing pressure on the European economy as well as Russia’s. Secretary of State John Kerry has emphasized other areas, such as the future of Afghanistan, that may provide common ground. There are glaring ethical objections to making a Syria-Ukraine bargain, which would symbolically reward both Putin’s aggression and Assad’s slaughter of his own people. But, morals aside, would it work?

The main objection to the whole idea is that it is just all a little too easy. It does not factor in the hellishly complex politics of the Syrian war. As Anne Barnard has reported, some rebel groups that cooperate with the U.S. may actually be under the control of Islamist factions, while Assad and his clique resist talk of a political settlement. Iran would have to bless, or at least accept, any deal. While Russia has used its supposed leverage over Assad as a source of influence since the Syrian war began and renewed its offer to mediate last month, its ability to deliver a real peace agreement is untested and uncertain.

Nor could the U.S. simply impose a bargain over Ukraine. Some European governments with strong economic ties to Russia, such as Italy, might welcome a compromise. But strategically vulnerable ones, like Poland and the Baltic states, would be suspicious of any new U.S. "reset” with Putin. The Ukrainian government would share these concerns, to put it mildly. The Obama administration might find that the price of a tentative modus vivendi with Moscow was weakened relationships in Europe as well as the Middle East.

From an American point of view, therefore, an attempt to resolve tensions with Russia over Syria and Ukraine in one fell swoop is appealing in neither principle nor practice. It currently makes more sense to let the Ukrainian government and rebels try to resolve their differences—potentially establishing the basis for a settlement and limiting violence for now, despite continuing tensions—while bombing IS in Syria without making any formal arrangements with Damascus.

Washington has suffered a good deal of reputational damage over the past year as it has muddled through both crises. But it has not been paralyzed, as recent diplomatic successes with China and Cuba have demonstrated. The long-term harm of a misguided bargain with Russia might be greater than that of another year of improvisation.

Yet events may push Washington and Moscow toward a comprehensive compromise. Further turmoil in the Middle East or fears of further political upheavals in Ukraine or Russia itself could change American calculations. Other factors, including frictions over nuclear arms control, could also prove to be game-changers. Syria’s use of chemical weapons in 2013, which forced Russia and the U.S. together to avoid a spiraling crisis, showed how fast the unhappy couple can switch between confrontation and diplomacy.

A "double climb-down” by the two powers over Syria and Ukraine would probably be messy, unpopular and perhaps merely a temporary expedient. It is not a neat solution that can be designed to satisfy the highest standards of diplomacy. But real-world settlements very rarely are. Russia and the U.S. could yet stumble into such a dodgy bargain in 2015.

worldpoliticsreview.com