History is unkind to the people who lose wars. Rather than go back to their corners and renew a war after having become refreshed, as happened for hundreds of years between France and England, regimes and monarchs are overthrown, something new happened after the English Civil War: the King was executed. That had not been the original war aim of Parliament. The French king was killed after the French Revolution and the French Emperor deposed after the Franco-Prussian War and a new republic was established. The Kaiser lost the First World War and he was deposed as well, and there was regime change in Germany, all unexpected, and Hitler was a suicide when the Allies were taking control of Germany even though Claus von Staufffenberg thought that if he had successfully assassinated Hitler a year before, Germany might still have retained some German conquests in a subsequent negotiation with the Allies. Not likely, given the carnage of the war. Some revenge was necessary. Germany had gotten off lightly after World War I with reparations as had the reparations paid by France to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War.
There are exceptions. The British lost their first empire when America won its independence, but it readily started up a second empire in Africa, India and elsewhere that made it greater than it had been before with no discontinuity of its regime. The United States has also been fortunate in that it either didn’t lose wars or had few consequences after having lost a string of them in Vietnam and in the Iraq War and in Afghanistan, even though then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger was concerned that the United States might unravel because the Vietnam War unraveled. The United States even had the genius or misfortune of allowing the regimes in the Confederacy to reassert themselves and regain control of the domestic policies in their states less than a generation after the American Civil War. But that is not the way of war apart from the English speaking people.
The question arises as to the outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Thomas Friedman predicted on the first day of the invasion that this would be Putin’s best day for the rest of his life, and this seems to be the case. In the less than a month so far of the war, the Russian army has bogged down, capturing a few cities but most of the Ukrainian cities, including those in the east of the country, holding out even though surrounded. Ukraine accomplished through war what had not previously existed or suspected, that there was a nationalism throughout the country so that even if Putin decapitated the government, he would not be able to occupy the country and so he would have to leave anyway. Moreover, there were surprises other than Russian army incompetence to explain what is happenng in the war. Airplanes are less important than experts would have thought because both Ukraine and Russian jets are vulnerable to land to air missiles and columns of tanks and other vehicles are subject to defensive weapons sent by the United States and NATO. The most effective Russian armament is long range artillery and the only solution to that is to destroy the convoys bringing those artillery shells, something not yet accomplished. Some retired generals speaking on cable say that Russia has to resupply arms, food and gasoline in ten days or so from now to keep up the war and there is a question of whether Putin has the resources to do so. Even if he does resupply his army, the best he can hope for is street to street fighting for a month or more, by which time the sanctions regime may well cripple the Russian economy. No way out for Putin.
But what if Putin decides to cut his losses and pull back after negotiating a truce with Zelensky? That is not so easily done. Putin may think that a fig leaf for his withdrawal would be a Ukrainian agreement to say it won’t join NATO and leave it independent and also gobble up the eastern region of the country, which he could have achieved anyway through negotiations before the war commenced. But that is too late now, Ukrainians unwilling to give Putin a reward for having waged his war. Moreover, there are two additional problems for an endgame that consists of a negotiated settlement. First, Ukraine might well insist on an indemnity to pay for rebuilding what had been destroyed. But that might be in the hundred billion dollar range so far and NATO might insist on the cost coming from Russia rather than its own countries since Putin started it, even though Europe would have gotten off easy for rebuilding Ukraine after Ukraine had been the battleground for the confrontation between Europe and Russia. But the Europeans are not likely to see it that way. The United States had rebuilt Germany but that way was particularly far sighted and Europe might not be willing to pay the bill for a now ended war in Ukraine.
Then there is the problem of the United States lifting its sanctions against Russia and recommencing trade and other commercial relations with Russia. That guarantee would have to be part of a Ukrainian-Russian peace treaty. Future promises of the United States are, however, uncertain. Congress might nix the deal or Biden drag his feet until it becomes clear that Russia will be readmitted to the international order until Putin retires to a dacha, should he be allowed to survive, Putin always aware that the next meal might be a poisoned one. Not a happy outcome and so all the more reason for Putin to keep the war going hoping that something will turn up to give him more maneuvering room. That is a desperate but not unreasonable issue even if a cruel one because it means fighting on in a hopeless cause, but that often does happen in warfare.