According to Stavridis, the sooner Ukraine gains peace, the sooner reconstruction will begin, in which Ukrainians will overtake the Russians in terms of economic size

"Landfor Peace": Ex-NATO commander offers Ukraine a "Korean scenario"

Accordingto Stavridis, the sooner Ukraine gains peace, the sooner reconstruction willbegin, in which Ukrainians will overtake the Russians in terms of economic size

James Stavridis,the former commander of NATO's forces in Europe, has suggested that Ukraineshould follow the "Korean scenario" for ending the war with russia.In particular, it is about negotiating with the aggressor country to conclude aland-for-peace agreement. Stavridis wrote about this in an op-ed for Bloomberg .

Stavridissays that South Korea has transformed from a war-torn land into the 10thlargest economy in the world. However, this process was gradual. According tohim, the first postwar decade was a time of stagnation for Korea. Westernsupport and reforms helped to launch the economy.

Here arethree steps that Stavridis suggests for Ukraine:

Pressureon the West

Which leadsto the first lesson of the Korean War for Ukraine: to put pressure on the Westto get serious help in rebuilding, the article says.

"Today,Western firms see a similar economic upturn in post-war construction inUkraine: mass communications, electricity, water treatment, and new residentialbuildings will all be on the Ukrainian shopping list. An additional positivefor Ukraine's recovery is the potential availability of hundreds of billions ofdollars in Russian funds that are under Western sanctions", - Stavridissaid.

"Iron-clad"security guarantees

The secondcritical factor for Ukraine, according to Stavridis, is to receive ironcladsecurity guarantees. We are talking about NATO membership. This is similar tohow South Korea became a full partner of the United States under a treaty in1953.

"Today,Western firms see a similar economic upturn in post-war construction inUkraine: mass communications, electricity, water treatment, and new residentialbuildings will all be on the Ukrainian shopping list. An additional positivefor Ukraine's recovery is the potential availability of hundreds of billions ofdollars in Russian funds that are under Western sanctions", - Stavridissaid.

"Reconciliation"

The thirdand final lesson Korea offers for Ukraine is the need to accept "at leastfor a while" the russian occupation of Crimea and the land bridge betweenthe peninsula and russia.

"In asense, everyone will hate this outcome. But remember that Russian President vladimirputin would also hate such an outcome - it would mean that he has clearly andcompletely failed in his goal of conquering all of Ukraine, and he would haveto settle for battle-scarred and heavily mined parts of the southeast", -Stavridis writes.

The formerNATO commander in Europe is convinced that even the transfer of F-16 fighterjets to Ukraine will not be able to overcome the deadlock at the front.Therefore, "the sooner the major hostilities stop, the sooner theUkrainians will begin to rebuild."

Accordingto Stavridis, this is a realistic scenario that will eventually lead Ukraine tosuccess. However, he emphasizes that the final decisions should be made byUkrainians themselves.

"Ifsuch an agreement is reached, here is my prediction: despite the fact thatUkraine is much smaller in terms of population and land, in a few decadesUkraine will overtake Russia in terms of gross domestic product, totalagricultural production and, of course, what is vital, in terms of the level ofdemocracy in the society in which people want to live. I see nothing in Putin'stwisted policies that will change this depressing outcome for Moscow", -Stavridis wrote.

This isnot the first such statement

It is worthnoting that Stavridis's views to some extent echo the position of Anders FoghRasmussen, who recently proposed that Ukraine join the military alliance, butwithout the territories occupied by russia. This was discussed in the articleby The Guardian .

It wasnoted that Anders Fogh Rasmussen had been working for a long time with AndriyYermak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in particular,on the eve of this year's last NATO summit in Vilnius, which ended without aninvitation for Ukraine to join.

Thenewspaper emphasized that Kyiv was very disappointed with the July NATO summit,where, under pressure from the United States and Germany, the Alliance evadedannouncing a specific timeframe for Ukraine's admission to its ranks. Accordingto Rasmussen, the next NATO summit in 2024 should not again postpone the issueof Ukraine's membership in the bloc.

"It istime to take the next step and invite Ukraine to NATO. We need a new Europeansecurity architecture with Ukraine at the center of NATO," he said.

To ensurethat Ukraine's accession to NATO does not lead to a direct war between the blocand russia, Rasmussen suggested excluding from the agreement on joining theAlliance those territories currently controlled by russia. 

"Absolutecredibility of Article 5 guarantees would deter Russia from intensifyingattacks on Ukrainian territories inside NATO and thus free up Ukrainian forcesto go to the front line. To make Article 5 credible, russia must have a clearmessage that any violation of NATO territory will be met with a response",- he said.

InRasmussen's opinion, the implementation of this proposal is somewhat similar tothe introduction of a no-fly zone - russia would have to refrain not only fromflying over Ukrainian territory, but also from launching missiles at Ukrainiancities.

Rasmussenalso cited the example of West Germany, which joined NATO in 1955, but withoutthe territories of East Germany.