Interview by Gudrun Dometeit

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In your opinion, was there an opportunity at any time to end the Ukraine war earlier?

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This is difficult to assess because we do not have all the necessary sources at present and for the foreseeable future. I would still say that if Europe had supported Ukraine earlier and more consistently, there would have been a better chance of breaking the military logic and making Russia realize that it cannot achieve its goals on the battlefield. This would bring a political solution closer. But they're all subjunctive. At some point, however, it will be precisely these questions: Where did Europe in particular take a wrong turn?

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You mean exclusively military support...

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Yes — let's just think how long it took from the promise of 5,000 helmets to the first German tank deliveries. Plus months of discussions about long-foreseeable ammunitions crises... Europe hasn't even kept what it promised Ukraine. Opportunities have been missed there.

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That is a frequently made argument. At the same time, some military officials have stated that this war could not be won militarily for Ukraine due to the fundamentally different balance of forces, and that stronger support would only lead to a prolonged war of attrition.

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From Ukraine's point of view, a victory would not have meant a triumphal parade in Moscow, but the defence of the political sovereignty and territorial integrity of its own invaded country. Anyone arguing from the point of view of the balance of power would then have had to call on Ukraine to surrender, and this is what happened after the Russian attack began.  But despite its overwhelming superiority, the country defended itself with Western support, so that Russia has not achieved its original goals even after three years. But now the West's support is up for grabs, especially as the United States is distancing itself after last Friday's scandal. Half-hearted support is basically the worst option, because it demands enormous sacrifices and in the end still leads to a de facto defeat, while the aggressor ultimately achieves its war aims through violence. This is a devastating signal for other conflicts.

US President Donald Trump obviously believes that the time is right for peace negotiations. He wants to conclude an agreement by Easter. Is this realistic, or will it simply be a ceasefire, which in history has proven to be only a tactical break from the war? He has also publicly exposed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Is he not harming his own peace efforts?

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Russia has already achieved three decisive war aims through the unilateral concessions of the American leadership — regardless of what comes out of the negotiations. The USA recognizes the Russian conquest of Ukrainian territories. They also reject Ukraine's membership in NATO, and they accept that only Moscow and Washington are negotiating with each other, so that Ukraine is not a subject of the talks, but only an object. This not only fundamentally shakes the basic principle of territorial integrity under international law, but also of state sovereignty. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are likely to prepare a document that sets out these aspects. And Trump's admissions on Friday make it extremely unlikely that there will be any further security guarantees for Ukraine, while Russia is already rejecting European troops in Ukraine. There is therefore a risk that the security situation in Ukraine will remain precarious despite unilateral concessions. In any case, Europeans will not be able to replace the USA as a military actor for the foreseeable future. From historical examples, we know that there is a risk of precarious peace in such constellations, such as in Korea. Russia could turn the border with Ukraine into a bleeding border or retest the West's defense readiness elsewhere in the post-Soviet region. At the same time, we know that a humiliated losing society is looking for revision and will try to seize the next opportunity to recapture lost territory or weaken the occupier. As a historian, it is difficult for me to recognize the basic conditions for a stable peace from this perspective.

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It would probably also be the first peace agreement to be negotiated in such a short period of time...

In history, there have been such staged moments of signing contracts with handshakes and politicians who then announced that it was a sign of peace. This doesn't have to have anything to do with political and military reality.

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Would such a document have any binding effect at all if one of the two warring parties, in this case the victim of the aggression, is excluded from negotiations?
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Even on the way to the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed in 1919 between the German Reich and the victors of the world war, primarily France, Great Britain, the USA and Italy, the defeated parties were not invited to formal negotiations when the victors met in Paris, drew up the peace treaties and then issued an ultimatum to the defeated parties to sign. The situation was different at the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15, when the defeated France was deliberately included.  They were not fighting against the French, but against the military tyrant Napoleon. Whether a staged peace really holds is only known in retrospect. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger already knew when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 after signing the peace agreement with North Vietnam that it would only be a breathing space in which US soldiers could be withdrawn before South Vietnam was overrun by the North. What is now being staged as peace could soon be a waste of time.

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With regard to Trump's actions against Russia, there is often a comparison with the Munich Agreement of 1938, when the European powers decided to annex the Sudetenland, which had been part of Czechoslovakia, by Germany. The leadership of Czechoslovakia agreed at the time in order to avoid sacrifices. Does the analogy make sense?
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Comparisons don't mean equations. They help us to understand the present tense better, but not in the sense of a blueprint. With regard to the Munich Agreement, I would first disagree with you, because the Czechoslovak Government was simply forced to sacrifice its territorial integrity and sovereignty in view of the willingness of the British and French governments to make concessions to Hitler. It did not stay with the Sudetenland; a few months later, the so-called “rest of the Czech Republic” was liquidated. President Emil Hacha was summoned to Berlin at the time and put under such physical pressure that he signed the document trembling and collapsed. The signal from 1938/39, combined with many other red lines that the German government had crossed since 1936, gave Hitler the conviction that Western democracies would ultimately not defend the new states of Eastern and East-Central Europe founded after 1918. And despite all the differences, this also contains a message for the present. Placing down an aggressor determined to act aggressively through unilateral concessions can lead him to look at the next red line.
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How can you prevent this from happening? In difficult situations, Kissinger has at least tried to resolve conflicts through shuttle diplomacy. But you get the impression that diplomacy has had its day, particularly in the Ukraine war.
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With the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648, the long-term professionalization of diplomacy began. Its function was and continues to be to stabilize a chronically unstable world as much as possible. To do this, diplomats must recognize the moment when the continuation of military logic alone no longer offers answers and political solutions can be sought. One of their decisive tasks is to seek confidence-building measures in the transition between war and peace, for example through an exchange of prisoners, a buffer zone or a temporary ceasefire in advance of a ceasefire. Diplomats are also experts in communication and networking. I am also certain that efforts have long been made to establish such channels of communication behind the scenes in the Ukraine war. However, in view of the scandal last week, the Europeans' room for manoeuvre must be assessed more soberly.

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It is not the first time that Americans have resolved conflicts on the European continent or taken the initiative to do so. US chief diplomat Richard Holbrooke negotiated the Dayton Agreement to end the Bosnian War in 1995. Why is it obviously so difficult for Europeans to get to grips with problems on their own territory?

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The countries of Europe have excellently trained diplomats, and there are also important institutions such as the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe). But we are a long way from a homogenous European foreign policy, and that applies even more to security and defense policy. Europe is simply not speaking with one voice, just think of the openly Russia-friendly policies of Hungary and Slovakia. In addition, Europe's geopolitical status has declined in the long term, first after 1945 as a result of the Cold War between the two superpowers and decolonization. Since the turn of the millennium, there has been the economic and political rise of China and other players, such as India, Brazil and South Africa. In addition, the majority of Europe's political elites relied on a peace dividend after the end of the Cold War. Especially in Germany, which saw itself as a frontline state of the Cold War, the focus was on a welfare state understanding of security, while the idea of national defense was increasingly receding. This explains the focus on foreign missions, the abolition of compulsory military service and the structural equipment deficiencies of the Bundeswehr. Europe's pacification model, which required the US transatlantic security guarantee, has now reached its limits. And although the reorientation was announced long before Trump — albeit not in the dramatic escalation as it is now — Europe has not yet found a credible answer to it. Barack Obama has also told Europeans that the USA would focus much more on the Pacific and the conflict with China in the long term. At the end of Trump's first presidency, the governments of Europe relied on the fact that this was a kind of historic industrial accident and that everything would get back on track with a new president. But the USA will never again be the same transatlantic power as it was after 1945.
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In your latest book, you emphasise the importance of knowing the exact causes of a war for the type of peace settlement. Are we discussing the correct or complete causes in the Ukraine-Russia war? What do you think of the argument that Ukraine is also defending Europe's freedom? This turned the conflict from a bilateral to an international dispute.

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The impressive dynamism of Ukrainian civil society with its demands for self-determination and democratisation developed long before the war. They were not an argument for dragging the Americans and Europeans into a war. Rather, this development was bound to worry Russia's autocratic regime because a different political development model was emerging in its immediate neighbourhood. Incidentally, as a historian, you can only make a balanced judgement about the prehistory of the Ukraine war if you know all the possible sources. Without justifying Russia's aggression in any way, such an analysis also includes the question of where the West sent out the wrong signals or underestimated the subjectively perceived humiliation of Russia in terms of its political effects.
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‍If you compare the complexity of the Ukraine war with other conflicts in history, is it particularly difficult because there are so many geopolitical effects associated with it, for example on China's policy towards Taiwan?

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Many other conflicts are woven into the war in Ukraine. Not just because of China, Iran or Turkey. The votes on UN resolutions on the war in Ukraine made it clear how strong old conflicts over the colonial heritage of Europeans continue to have. Countries in the Global South argued that Europe was much less interested in wars in Asia or Africa. It also deals with economic sanctions, energy issues and a conflict of values in which Putin repeatedly points to Russia's civilizational mission against what he sees as a decadent West. In such a situation, it is the task of diplomacy to soberly calculate what a ceasefire or a peace agreement can and cannot achieve at all. Anyone looking for peace should implement realistic expectation management. This can also mean accepting the status quo for some problems and betting on changing it perhaps only in five or ten or thirty years. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the hope prevailed that the World War was the “war to the end of all wars.” In doing so, the peacemakers provoked expectations that could not be met in reality.
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You have emphasised the problem of unilateral concessions to the detriment of Ukraine. But there are also calls not to make any concessions to Putin. Doesn't saving face apply to all parties to the conflict? The Second World War was, among other things, a consequence of the peace agreement after the First World War, which many Germans regarded as humiliating.

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It is completely legitimate to rule out concessions to Putin on the basis of his war crimes and to rely on Russia to self-criticize its neo-imperial policy. But for such a policy, Ukraine should have been able to defend itself effectively. There is hardly any basis for such a development anymore, since the USA is openly moving towards Russia, Trump even adopts the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric of the Kremlin and wants to force Ukraine to back down. US President Woodrow Wilson argued in 1917, who did not want to negotiate with autocratic monarchs. For him, peace negotiations required regime change and the establishment of democratic governments. The so-called “realistic school” represents the opposite of such positions, which combine peace with regime change. Its representatives argue primarily with specific conditions for action and national interests. It would mean assuming a Pacific orientation on the part of the USA and a future conflict with China, so that it would now be a matter of ending the conflict in Ukraine as quickly as possible and leaving the subsequent costs to the Europeans. The realists would argue that the assumption that Russia could be forced into a situation like Germany or Japan after 1945 is simply naive. There is much to suggest that such positions are now gaining the upper hand.

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Is there such a thing as a just peace?

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Historically, there were more or less successful compromises, more or less keeping face, but never completely symmetrical. The basic problem can be described as a dilemma: Expectations of what peace should achieve have increased more and more in modern times, while after 1945 the number of wars that end with classic peace treaties and the binding effect of international law decreases. In ancient times, peace was primarily the absence of military, escalating physical violence. Augustine's appreciation began as early as late antiquity, because for him peace was always also an expression of closeness to God. Since the Thirty Years' War, the rise of international law began, supplemented in the 19th century by humanitarian norms such as in the Geneva Conventions and international criminal law. Since the First World War, the idea that peacekeeping also includes democratic participation and social justice has come to the fore. Another problem: Can modern political regimes even survive defeats? After a long war, far-reaching unilateral concessions can quickly appear as a betrayal of the victims. If President Volodymyr Zelensky were to confront his country with a humiliating peace, many Ukrainians would have to ask themselves whether it was worth the many sacrifices. Such a peace can end with the question of legitimacy and quickly destabilize a defeated country.
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If you were to develop a scenario for ending the war in Ukraine, what would it look like?  What would be the relationship between diplomacy and military strength?

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History shows that strong mediators with a robust mandate have an important role to play when it comes to stable exits from a war. Such a mediator, who is prepared to intervene militarily if necessary in order to secure the terms of a ceasefire or a peace agreement, increases the probability of a successful peace. Especially if the mediators remain engaged in the region — such as the USA after the Second World War with the Marshall Plan for Europe. Or like the neighbors in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt now. Peace is not a moment, but a process that requires persistence. In the Ukraine conflict, there are no such strong mediators to be identified.  

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‍What do you think Donald Trump is?

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He sees diplomacy as another field of dealmaking — and last Friday showed that he uses every conceivable disruption to assert his interests. None of this has anything to do with the role of the USA as the supremacy of a Western community of values, which has grown over decades. As a fair mediator, he has thus discredited himself in a breathtaking manner. Europeans must act now, which means that they must simultaneously make themselves independent of the USA and fill the security vacuum that already exists in Europe. If the EU does not achieve this as a whole, then there must be a core group of states, a coalition of the determined. But even if this were successful, the problem remains a transitional phase, in which American technological and weapons technology superiority can hardly be compensated for. All of this suggests that if the USA withdrew largely and soon, Ukraine would be forced to make extensive concessions: i.e. surrender of territory, violated sovereignty and only a very precarious security promise. As a result, Ukraine would then have to be massively armed by the Europeans in order to become a kind of Israel in Eastern Europe and effectively deter a future attack by Russia. However, Israel's deterrent effect has always required a security guarantee from the USA — but there will be no such guarantee for Ukraine.

What are Ukraine's prospects?

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In any case, Ukraine should be able to react to a fragile ceasefire with many local breakpoints. Because Russia does not need to continue the major escalation to destabilize its neighbors. This could also include financed militias abducting people across the border, or a terrorist attack. Without security zones and tens of thousands of soldiers, such local crises can quickly escalate again. Such a situation would probably lead to new waves of refugees.

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That is not a particularly optimistic outlook.

We should now communicate to the public that not all things can be solved at once so as not to create expectations that cannot be met with the best will.

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Speaking of public. In your opinion, what influence do the media have on the duration of the war or the nature of the peace agreement? Trump has obviously staged the dispute with Zelensky in front of cameras.

Their importance can hardly be overstated. Not least because politicians today, with the results of their ceasefire or peace negotiations, must also face the votes of the many public spheres — including social media. At the end of the Thirty Years' War, there was a protected space for peacemakers, where they could be sure that negotiations would not become public. Even at the Congress of Vienna, the princes and diplomats largely kept to themselves. In Paris 1919, the end of secret diplomacy was announced, and hundreds of journalists were accredited. This is how a practice developed that we know today: revelations, the deliberate involvement of the press, the piercing of information. US President Wilson let the media know that he was about to leave in order to increase pressure on France. Through deliberately developed narratives, the press became a separate factor in peace negotiations, also because the breakthrough of democracy meant that politicians had to face elections based on the results of the peace negotiations. This constellation has given media ever greater importance over the course of the 20th century. Today, we are witnesses of virtually every political event and can immediately comment on it. This in turn has a direct effect on politicians who incorporate reactions to their position into their behavior. It is no coincidence that Richard Holbrooke had the negotiators brought to an air base in Dayton in order to seal them off as far as possible and limit contact with media as much as possible in order to force an agreement.

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Is total public opinion more likely to harm the rapid search for peace?

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It certainly doesn't make it any easier. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson quickly recognised the danger that public negotiations could lead to an extensive loss of control. He therefore reduced the number of negotiators more and more, even though he was criticised by journalists for acting like the secret diplomats of the 19th century. Experience since the beginning of the 20th century has shown that the media dynamic almost always raises expectations of a peace agreement.

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Jörn Leonhard is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Freiburg. His most important publications include: Pandora's Box. Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs, 6th ed. 2020; Der überforderte Frieden.Versailles und die Welt 1918-1923, 2nd ed. 2019; Über Kriege und wie man sie beendet. Ten theses, 2nd ed. 2024.

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