What Would Relations with Post-War Russia Look Like?
Rose Gottemoeller joined Ryan in Washington. They discussed how the West might think about relations with Russia once the war with Ukraine ends, as well
Read original article ↗Diplomacy is a zombie dance performed by cadavers wearing donor-funded suits.
The premise assumes the same establishment that blundered into this conflict can architect its resolution. Neither the hawks nor the isolationists care about geopolitical stability beyond their next fundraising cycle. This discussion ignores how defense contractors and energy cartels already hold the leash on post-war policy.
Your tax dollars are currently being laundered into a future you were never invited to vote on.
Asking what post-war Russia looks like without asking who holds power inside Russia is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Gottemoeller and the foreign policy establishment imagine diplomacy as a reset button, but oligarchic structures and militarised state capitalism do not dissolve at a peace table. Western elites want stability, not justice, because instability threatens their own financial entanglements with Russian capital. Normalisation without democratisation simply launders imperial power under new branding.
No framework built for great-power comfort will ever centre the Ukrainian working class that bled for it.
Reopening to Moscow now is rebuilding a bridge while the river still floods.
Gottemoeller’s post-war reset talk risks teaching the Kremlin that aggression purchases a seat back at the table. The West would lose the hard-earned discipline of deterrence, sanctions credibility, and NATO’s renewed seriousness if it treats “after the war” as a diplomatic housekeeping exercise. Russia’s rulers must first prove restraint through borders respected, treaties kept, and armies withdrawn.
Institutions die when violations carry no lasting price.