Fresno State professor: Russia’s war in Ukraine may end in a stalemate, and that’s OK
In Ukraine, a stalemate is brewing. The New York Times ran a recent headline, “How One Month of War in Ukraine Ground to a Bloody Stalemate.” The human toll of this stalemate is terrible. But a stalemate is better than a Ukrainian defeat.
History is full of stalemates. The Cold War stalemate was symbolized by the Berlin Wall. A stalemate still holds between North and South Korea. Israelis and Palestinians seem to exist in this kind of limbo. A line is drawn in the sand. And the antagonists stop fighting.
Stalemates happen everywhere. We see them in family fights, in business conflicts, and in domestic politics. Opposing forces deadlock. There is an impasse. No one wins. But no one loses. Resentment can linger for years across that line in the sand. But if the stalemate lasts long enough, the antagonists may forget what they were originally fighting about and find a way to move on.
Conditions in our own divided country can be understood as a kind of stalemate. Red states are opposed by blue states. No party is able to achieve the upper hand. The result is frustrating. But it has been brewing for decades. The baby boomers have been stalemated since the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement drove a wedge between left and right.
A dangerous stalemate reappeared recently with the threat of a nuclear war between Russia and the West. The perverse logic of nuclear deterrence aims to produce a stalemate. A nuclear war would be a lose-lose situation, known as “mutually assured destruction.”
If Russia used its nukes, we would be forced to retaliate. There would be rapid escalation. The result would be unimaginable destruction, including the possibility of “nuclear winter.” The global ecosystem would be destroyed by nuclear contamination, fire, ash, and dust.
The stalemate of nuclear deterrence seems acceptable in comparison with mutually assured destruction. But that stalemate only endures so long as each party understands the danger and is behaving rationally. The fear is that some madman with his finger on the nuclear button will grow frustrated and step across that fragile line in the sand.
In order to prevent that, it helps to remember that stalemates are honorable and reasonable outcomes. They are part of life. It’s OK not to win, so long as you don’t lose. This is a real possibility in a game like chess. In soccer and other sports, it is possible to play to a draw. Players of tic-tac-toe understand this as well. You can’t always win. But you can avoid losing and end up with a “cat’s game.” That’s what it is called when no one wins and no one loses. It’s as frustrating as a cat chasing its own tail. But it happens.
There is wisdom in aiming for stalemate. The idea can be used as a metaphor for life itself. One of William Faulkner’s characters described life as a “stalemate of dust and desire.” We arrive here naked. We end up as food for worms. In the middle, there are stories and adventures. We love and work, play and build. But one day the dust will cover our tracks.
The tragic truth is that no one wins the game of life. But you can avoid losing, if you play wisely. The goal is to avoid the worst outcome, to endure and keep playing. This is a useful strategy in chess and soccer, tic-tac-toe and nuclear war-gaming. Novice players are eager to win. They throw all of their energy into attacking. They forget to play defense. A skillful opponent can use your desire for victory against you and defeat you.
Stalemates are not optimal. But they limit damage. And so long as there is a stable line in the sand, there is the possibility of hope.
The hope that emerges from stalemate is modest and realistic. It is the hope for “détente,” a Cold War concept that means the slow and gradual easing of hostility. If the line in the sand remains fixed long enough, it may eventually fade in importance. At some point, the next generation may wonder what we were fighting about. And they may reach a hand of friendship across that fading line in the sand.