The two most violent ongoing conflicts, in Ukraine and the Middle East, came to defining moments last week, though neither one is likely to be resolved anytime soon.
As we will discuss in a forthcoming analysis of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy visited the US and met with President Biden, as well as with the presidential candidates for the two sides, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. The purpose of Zelenskyy’s visit was to illustrate his peace plan, which is understood to include the following points: First, Ukrainian accession to NATO, to be completed over a reasonable period of time. Second, increased sanctions on Russia. Third, a peace conference to be held in November, which Russia should also be invited to attend. Fourth, the possibility for Ukraine to hit Russian targets deep in Russian territory.
The first and second points are not particularly new. The third point, a peace conference to be held in November, is new, but it will not have much traction unless Russia is constructively engaged, which seems pretty unlikely considering that a preceding peace conference, formally called the Summit on Peace in Ukraine, was recently held in Bürgenstock Resort in Switzerland, on 15–16 June 2024 and didn’t succeed.
The fourth point is the most controversial. While it is clear that Ukraine will benefit massively from the possibility of attacking the military sites from which missiles against Ukraine are sent by the Russian army, it is also clear that Ukraine’s allies are reluctant to provide permission for such attacks, which could be read by Russia as an indirect attack by NATO countries on Russian territory, and so could trigger a nuclear response .
Russia has just updated its nuclear doctrine in response to these developments: the new doctrine says that Russia is justified in using tactical nuclear weapons in response to threats to the integrity of Russian (or Belarussian) territory, even if such threats are conducted through conventional, rather than nuclear, weapons.
Perhaps the main achievement of these meetings was that Trump said that he has a good relationship with President Zelenskyy, as good as he has with Putin, and that “it takes two to tango.” One hopes that if Trump is re-elected in November, this means that he won’t just “sell Ukraine to Russia” to end the war, but will instead have a more balanced approach. In any case, the war will continue to rage on until a new US President is in place in January 2025.
Regarding the other open conflict, the news of the week is the killing, by the Israeli army, of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. This means that the entire first line of command of the Iran-backed militia/political organisation has been eliminated, and its ability to attack Israel severely compromised. In a statement released last Saturday, Biden said that Nasrallah’s “death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.”
As discussed in our recent analysis, the operations by Israel in Lebanon and the West Bank represent an extension and expansion of the conflict, which may be a prelude to further escalation and potentially to a regionalisation of the war, if Iran and Israel were to return to direct military exchanges. For this conflict too there is no end in sight for the foreseeable future, and definitely not before a new US President is installed in 2025.
