On August 6, 2024, in perhaps their boldest move of the war thus far, Ukrainian troops spilled across their border with Russia and into the Kursk Oblast. Since then, Ukraine’s reach has slowly expanded, with Kyiv claiming to control 92 settlements only two weeks later. As a result, the gamble appears to have paid off—well, so far, anyway. But to understand why Kyiv felt like rolling the dice in the first place, we may have to travel back in time, first to a curious conference one month before that, then to a report from one month earlier on what peace talks might look like in 2025, and ultimately to Kyiv’s experiences from an administration even earlier. Yes, today is the story of how the shadow of peace talks during a potential second Trump term may have inspired the Kursk offensive and whether the offensive has indeed “Trump-proofed” the war. Oh, and maybe there will be a super-cool video of artillery production. But we begin with a disaster in D.C. From July 9th to the 11th, Washington hosted the annual NATO summit, commemorating 75 years of the world’s most powerful alliance. The lines on pants were crisp that week, my friends, but the minds of European leaders were focused on what might happen the following year.(info:Later,inToday’sOutro…Wecrowna2024LinesonPantsChampion Although they were unwilling to say so publicly, they could tell that Biden’s tired debate performance from two weeks earlier was not just a bad night. They could also see Trump’s convincing poll numbers, and thus they were beginning to prepare for a return to a period of NATO-skepticism in the United States. Of course, the stakes would be much higher during a second Trump term, now that a full-scale war was taking place in Ukraine. That, in turn, led to a conference theme of how to “Trump-proof” the alliance. Now, much of that ended up being silly. One of NATO’s founding principles, enshrined in the preamble of the North Atlantic Treaty, is the protection of democratic ideals, even if NATO itself comes with some imperfections. But a core tenet of democracy is leader responsiveness to elections. Biden could not simply conjure an agreement mandating that the United States have firm commitments to NATO through 2028. Absent complicated agreements passing a supermajority in the Senate— something that was infeasible due to the razor-thin Democratic majority there— it would be Trump’s right to alter the United States’ role. Sure, there were things that could happen on the margins like investing in more weapons manufacturing facilities, which would reduce Trump’s marginal cost of continuing to provide aid and get more of those critical 155 millimeter artillery shells to Ukraine. But there was no magic spell to make Trump fall in love with NATO. The other half of Trump-proofing the alliance ironically addressed Trump’s main criticism of its members. If the United States was going to suddenly cut back on commitments to Europe, Ukraine included, then European countries would have to make up the difference. In that light, the big news that was supposed to come out of the summit was that of NATO’s 32 countries, 23 were now hitting the goal of spending 2% of GDP on defense, and the remaining nine countries had a plan to get there soon. So the way that Europe was going to Trump-proof NATO was by … doing exactly what Trump wanted them to do all along— that is, make Europe primarily responsible for European defense, which would thereby free up U.S. resources to move to the adversary that Trump really wanted to focus on: China. But that was not the big news story that actually came out of the summit. As if to underscore all of those concerns from before, Biden was about to introduce the leader of Ukraine to give some remarks. But rather than welcome President Zelensky, he instead welcomed President Putin. For a short time, that became the story that dominated the news cycle. But then, in a press conference apparently intended to allay Democrats’ concerns, Biden opened up by telling everyone why he picked Vice President Harris for her position … … but called her Vice President Trump instead. As a result, Biden’s poll numbers began to plunge. On May 12, the betting odds for any Democrat to win the White House stood at an even 50%. After the debate, it dropped to 39%. A few days after the NATO summit ended, it sunk all the way down to 27%. Unsurprisingly, a panic started in Washington’s Democratic quarters. Meanwhile, the polling situation also presented a conundrum for Kyiv. Publicly, Zelensky has remained tight lipped about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. He has even invited Trump to Ukraine to discuss why the once and potentially future president cannot resolve the problems with Russia. And then he invited him again. And again. And again. He is now even offering to speedrun the whole thing. And, well, that makes sense. Zelensky does not want to burn any bridges with Trump. Maybe burn some bridges in Crimea, but not with a potential president. Zelensky’s reasoning, of course, is that there is a good chance that Trump will win, and he wants to be on friendly terms should a President Trump call him again. But everyone could see the signs. There is plenty of Ukraine skepticism coming from the Trump camp. And the addition of JD Vance as vice president to the ticket, a man who has been a vocal skeptic indeed of Ukraine funding, only solidified the perception. And although it is tempting to chalk up the ceasefire promotion to the idiosyncrasies of Trump, the foreign policy establishment that he would likely appoint still thinks of the situation as a battle of limited resources. Put simply, they want to divert spending toward deterring China, which is a reasonable choice, even as East Asian partners want more aid for Ukraine. Back in Kyiv, military planners contemplated the constraints that they were looking at. A wait and see approach would do no good here. As tempting as it would be to hold out until November 5 and get confirmation of Trump’s victory, the weather would simply not allow for it. You see, while everyone in America is preparing to eat some turkey, early to mid November is the last call for rapid arms movement. By that point, the rain sets in, and mud flows everywhere. You may have some hope of things freezing over within the following two months, but the relatively mild winters over the last three years suggests that such a strategy would be a bad idea. And so Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky sat down at the drawing board in early July. Syrsky had come into the position five months earlier under controversy. Actually, one might say it was a controversky. He replaced Valerii Zaluzhny, who at the time was perhaps the most popular person in all of Ukraine. Skeptics believed that Zelensky saw Zaluzhny as a political threat and wanted to get him out of the spotlight. Meanwhile, Zelensky cited a need for fresh eyes on the war, leading Zaluzhny to eventually shift to ambassador to the United Kingdom. But over those first five months, Srysky’s fresh eyes were still yielding the same old outcome. Ukraine was slowly losing ground in the East when he came in … and Ukraine was slowly losing ground in the East afterward. It was almost as if Ukraine was proving the exact point that skeptics in the United States were making, and things could only get worse once Trump cut off the aid flows. This was the genesis of the Kursk offensive. Syrsky had been busy throughout the war. In 2016, he became the head of the shadow conflict in the Donbas. Post full-scale invasion, he was the commander for the Battle of Kyiv and also the Battle of Bakhmut, and he was the architect of the 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive. It is as if you say his name and he appears at every major confrontation. But for Syrsky on the spot, it was the Kharkiv counteroffensive that provided the blueprints for Kursk. It was also borne out of a time when Ukraine needed to convince the West that the war was not in a stalemate, not only in Washington, but also London, and Paris, and Tokyo. Worldwide funding from the G7 and beyond was necessary to win, and battlefield success was a prerequisite for that. Moreover, Kharkiv too required some sleight of hand. Ukraine strategy’s first forced the Kremlin to commit its defenses to Kherson, which then left Russian troops unprepared for a rapid attack on positions further north. Within a few weeks, Ukrainian troops had pushed Russia almost entirely out of the oblast, and they also managed to take back Kherson City afterward. Returning to 2024, Syrsky wanted to move on from the trench-to-trench and treeline-to-treeline fighting that had dominated the past year and a half or so of the war. One slight problem: half of the frontline was a huge river, and the other half featured Surovikin-approved fortifications. As such, Ukraine had to search elsewhere to attack—and the solution, strangely enough, was to look at another country. Syrsky put three oblasts on the table as options: Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod. Kursk ended up being the winner, likely because intelligence indicated that it had the weakest fortifications of the three. Fast forward two months, and we all know what happened next, with this as the most recent extent of Ukrainian control into Russia. That takes us to the central question for today: does the offensive “Trump proof” the war? To answer that, we first need a better idea of what might happen if Trump raises his right hand for a second time. After all, you cannot judge whether a strategy counteracts a plan if there is no plan to compare it to. And even Russia is skeptical here, pointing out that Trump also promised peace in the Middle East in his first term. though at least there were the Abraham Accords… Anyway, absent a detailed policy proclamation from Trump himself, the best that we can work from is a plan drafted by two Trump-era officials, who met with Trump in June to discuss it. One was Mike Pence’s National Security Advisor and retired lieutenant general, and the other was the Chief of Staff for Trump’s National Security Council. The point is, they are not randos from the Internet. But it also is not official Trump policy. Make of that what you will, because I am about to both compliment it and point out a critical shortcoming. According to their white paper from April, the basics of the plan are as follows: First, there will be a ceasefire that follows the current frontline. A demilitarized zone will then be built around it, akin to what has divided the Korean Peninsula for three-quarters of a century. Ukraine will not legally concede claims to the four oblasts that, by Russian law were annexed in 2022, nor will it concede claims to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. This effectively punts the long-run question about the occupied land to a post-Putin world. NATO will suspend further discussion of having Ukraine join, though this is effectively meaningless because a new member would need unanimous support from all 32 countries, and Turkey and Hungary at a minimum would veto that even without a ceasefire agreement. Russia will receive limited sanctions relief, with a return to normal relations on hold until Ukraine is happy with Russian concessions— which, again, means punting that question until a post-Putin world. Ukraine will continue to receive regular military aid from the West to deter any changes to the agreement. To convince Ukraine to sign the ceasefire, the United States will cut all military aid if it continues to fight. Meanwhile, if Russia refuses to sign, the United States will rapidly expand arms shipments to Ukraine. Conceivably, this will be easy to do because Democrats have wanted more funding for Kyiv all along, and Trump (who is president in this timeline) will tell Republicans in Congress to get on board—or else. Okay, so now that we know what the plan looks like, let’s talk about whether it is any good. Now, my Western audiences can probably be split into two preference orderings. There is the prevailing sentiment currently in place in Washington, that views continued war as better for Ukraine in the long run than a ceasefire, and a ceasefire being better than a poorly-implemented ceasefire. Then you have the Trump-affiliated national security establishment that views a ceasefire as better than continued war, and a continued war as better than a poorly-implemented ceasefire. Do you see the common ground? There is consensus among the groups that a ceasefire is better than a poorly-implemented ceasefire. So, for now, let’s put aside the politically contentious question of how continued conflict should rank among the options in light of the Kursk offensive and ask purely whether this is a good ceasefire or a bad ceasefire. Put differently, I am the engineer capable of telling you whether your bridge can span the gap and get traffic across it, but my job is not to tell you whether to actually build the thing. Besides, I am sure the comments section will be a fun place to discuss the preference ordering… In any case, the proposal makes coherent sense, unlike a bunch of the other poorly specified solutions to the war. To start, that list from earlier is fairly normal in terms of what ceasefire agreements look like. I made passing mention of the Korean War a moment ago: both sides fought for a while and then came to terms of a settlement without a military victory or resolution of the substantive agreement. Indeed, all it takes for peace to form is a recognition of the fact that war is costly, and it would be better for both sides to mimic the expected outcome of fighting without having anyone else die in the process. The deal also understands the need for long-term enforcement mechanisms. There is a common assertion in Western circles that Ukraine cannot accept a deal because Putin will just restart things later. However, those same criticisms fail to explain how continued war would change that. Ukraine is not going to have the Kursk offensive extend into Moscow and forcefully remove Putin from power. Now, it is possible that heavy losses will lead to some sort of political turnover in the Kremlin. But, at the same time, that is not something that Ukraine should be banking on. And if Ukraine succeeds in militarily expelling Russia from the east, that still would not stop Putin from trying again if he really wanted to. The belief that long-term compliance is destined to collapse also completely fails to recognize a basic conclusion of lines-on-maps theory. You know, peace summits always come with a lot of pomp and circumstance, and maybe some good food. Mmm, on second thought, maybe we should be holding this in Paris. But wherever you are, what ultimately really matters is the actual terms of a settlement, and good peace agreements are self-enforcing. Bad ones are not. As always, the goal of a settlement proposal is to roughly match the deal with what the expected outcome of war would be, which, let’s suppose, is this. So a settlement close to that might be this. Then the disincentive for Russia to restart the war later is that it would still get this by fighting, except now it is paying costs to get close to the same thing. If we reflect those costs with the space between the white and red lines, the settlement line is better net costs. It is the same reason why war has not restarted on the Korean Peninsula. It is not because North Korea started to see eye-to-eye with South Korea. Far from it, despite the occasional hug. Instead, what has stopped North Korea from restarting the war is that a lot of North Koreans would die in the process, and all of North Korea would go dark. Okay, the latter does not mean much, but I suspect that Kim Jong-un prefers Pyongyang still standing. However, where you can run into trouble is if you conflate an end of a war with an end of the substantive disagreements. Like a moment ago, imagine that Trump sets the deal in yellow close to the expected outcome of war in white, with the distance between the white and red lines again being Russia’s costs. Now think about what the West retracting military aid would do here. Primarily, it renders Ukraine less able to resist Russia. Visually, that means that the expected outcome of the war will begin to drift to the west. Note that the figurative and literal red line drift along with it. And with enough aid cut, eventually the red line will move past the terms of settlement. At that point, yes, the Kremlin will aim to change the terms of the agreement and will start a war if Ukraine does not consent to the modifications. Going back to Korea, there is a reason why the United States still maintains a sizable commitment on the peninsula. It is not because having the world’s most dangerous golf course there is cool. Now, obviously, it is cool, but that is also not the point. Rather, it is because Washington cannot let its commitment wane without disrupting the balance of the settlement. Recognizing that, the peace proposal for Ukraine understands the need for arms flows to be a part of the deal’s enforcement mechanism. The final bit is that it attempts to solve the problem of trying to bring Russia to the table. You see, the main discussion coming from Trump affiliates has been to tell Ukraine to settle along the current line of control, or it will lose its military aid—and not much more fleshed out beyond that. But that is why there is a question mark in the logic. As we have discussed before, the main effect of this is to shift the balance of power in Russia’s favor. But therein lies the problem. The Kremlin would not want to settle at the current line of control if the United States would cut aid otherwise, because once aid is cut the expected outcome would shift far to the left, well beyond Russia’s red line. The solution is the aforementioned threat to massively increase military aid to Ukraine if Russia refuses those terms. You can see how these threats could help resolve whatever bargaining friction is causing the war to continue. For example, if both sides have optimistic expected outcomes of the war, you can see how the Russia’s minimum demands to stop the war might exceed the most that Ukraine is willing to give up. Conditional aid renders that optimism irrelevant. If Ukraine does not accept the current line of control, then it no longer receives the aid that gives it a relatively good expected outcome. At that point, returning to the line of control would look really attractive. And if Russia does not accept the line of control, then the influx of U.S. aid cancels what it thinks it might get otherwise. This is the basic theory behind peacemaking operations more generally—you use conditional threats and promises to override the problem causing the war. There is a practical problem here, though. For the United States to rapidly expand aid, it needs the capacity to do so. And right now … it just does not have it. The factories that the United States has activated over the last year are simply not enough— though holy cow does the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant produce cool media. You know what, let’s just say with this video until the end of the section. Where was I right? Right. Money. Money, of course, can solve the capacity problem over the long run. And, again, presumably Trump telling Republicans to pass such a defense bill will make it relatively easy to accomplish, unlike the last time that Congress tried it. But if Russia believes that the extra aid will not arrive until after the war is decided, then the threat might not solve the problem after all. Okay, now let’s examine how the Kursk offensive changes this, beginning with the land issue. A common thing that I hear is that a ceasefire will not be feasible as long as Ukraine holds Russian territory. Well, that is true in a literal sense. But it is also not very imaginative. Let’s assume that Ukraine can keep its flag planted on some amount of Russian territory through January 2025. This becomes increasingly plausible every day that Ukraine expands the offensive, especially when you remember that rain will be here in a couple of months to inhibit any Russian counteroffensive due to heaping piles of mud. You also get the sense that Ukraine will be there for a while from inside of Russia, based on where Russia is building its new defensive lines and the Kremlin’s public framing of this as a “new normal.” Now, we will not have a ceasefire along these lines, but only because it does not make any sense. Russia values Kursk more than the Donbas, and Ukraine values the Donbas more than Kursk. As a result, both would be better off if they made an exchange. However, it is worth noting the scale here: Ukraine has claimed about 1250 square kilometers of gains, but Russia controls more than 100,000 square kilometers of internationally recognized Ukraine. Thus, we are talking about a shade over 1% of trade. Given that, it would be easy to amend the U.S. plan to call for such an exchange. In turn, the offensive is a win for Kyiv—it ensures that the ceasefire will look better for Ukraine now than it would have looked a month ago. But if Ukraine believes that a military outcome would be much better—and its assessment is right— then the Kursk offensive has far from Trump-proofed the war. Nevertheless, the offensive may still have a great impact, though it will have to come from invalidating the premises of the proposal. Indeed, the proposal pitches the need for a ceasefire based on the war having reached a stalemate, with not much movement happening but a whole lot of destruction. Well, the Kursk offensive has demonstrated that this premise is false. And you can see the movement of the narrative, with a Republican Senator recently visiting Kyiv and saying that the operation was “bold, brilliant, and beautiful” and that Ukraine should “keep it up” in Kursk. If that is the political climate in the United States come January, Trump may have to take a pragmatic approach and swap negotiations for a different policy. It also may reduce the chances of reaching that point at all. While Kyiv was worried about what was happening to Biden during the NATO summit, so too was the Democratic Party. Ten days after the summit concluded, top-level Democrats had convinced Biden to withdraw his nomination. The fight afterward did not last long. Vice President Kamala Harris quickly became the de facto nominee, and a long-absent enthusiasm returned to the Democratic base. In short order, Harris erased Biden’s deficit in the polls, and the election is effectively a toss up at this point. Now, international relations issues tend to be secondary factors for voters— “it’s the economy, stupid” still reigns supreme. But Ukraine-Russia is the main foreign policy issue of the day, with Israel-Hamas a close second. The Kursk offensive is evidence that the Trump-associated policy is not the right one. Even if that shifts just 0.1% of voters to Harris, that may be enough to give her the election if it comes down to just three razor-tight states. Oh, that’s Pennsylvania, Michigan, and, well, Wisconsin. Anyway, it would be Trump-proofing by invalidating the question entirely. Ukraine could then begin negotiations when it wants to begin negotiations. Meanwhile, if the question is “which book do you want to buy?” you can invalidate that one by simply purchasing both. Check the video description for more information about them. And if you enjoyed this video, please like, share, and subscribe, and I will see you next time. Take care. Ah, the lines on pants. I admit, I got distracted on this one. I was going to discuss it immediately after the summit, but then we had an assassination attempt, Biden’s withdrawal, actual assassinations that were seemingly supposed to spiral into a larger war but yet still somehow have not, and then the whole Kursk thing happened. Suffice it to say I have been distracted. But it is now time to crown a 2024 Lines on Pants champion. And the nominees are: Joe Biden, USA, in his final performance. the perennial contender, Justin Trudeau, Canada. Edi Rama, Albania. And Pedro Sanchez, Spain. More than 18,000 of you lines on mapsamaniacs voted. And the winner is… Edi Rama, Albania! There is just something that people love a single, strong line and lines of wrinkles everywhere else, combined with the cool comfort of casual streetwear. Until next year, gentlemen, I am William Spaniel, signing off.