On Sovereignty, Diplomatic Authority, and the Conditions of Peace
An aggressor state may interpret the state it attacks as an instrument of rival powers, discounting that state’s own assessment of its security and political future. Within this interpretation, international mediation can appear to extend the influence of the very order the aggressor contests. Its insistence on negotiating on its own terms may therefore concern both the substance of a settlement and the authority of those seeking to frame, supervise, or guarantee it. Understanding this distrust does not establish the truth of the aggressor’s account. Nor does it diminish the attacked state’s agency or justify the aggression.
For the attacked state, the first question is whether the proposed settlement offers credible protection against renewed violence. Resistance to the aggressor’s terms may arise from an assessment of what those terms would require it to surrender, what guarantees they provide, and what would happen if they were violated. International involvement can therefore serve a purpose the attacked state itself considers necessary: making its security less dependent on the assurances of the power that attacked it.
The choice of a diplomatic framework also concerns the principles and long-term relationships the attacked state seeks to uphold. In Ukraine’s case, the question extends beyond territorial integrity to the freedom to determine its political future and maintain its chosen international relationships. Its insistence on international legal standards, independent verification, and credible security guarantees can express those commitments. Provisions governing a settlement’s implementation must nevertheless be distinguished from the legal processes through which responsibility for war crimes and other international violations is established. An agreement to stop fighting does not, by itself, resolve questions of accountability.
Allied support introduces a further pressure. The attacked state may fear that accepting particular concessions would weaken its international standing or jeopardize assistance on which its security depends. Its partners may support its diplomatic judgment, but they may also narrow its options by conditioning assistance or treating compromise as a departure from shared principles. The question is whether those relationships preserve the attacked state’s ability to assess a proposal and make its own decision.
The parties may consequently disagree about what makes diplomacy trustworthy. The aggressor may distrust a process overseen by powers it regards as partial; the attacked state may distrust a settlement that leaves compliance dependent on the aggressor’s goodwill. What one side regards as interference, the other may regard as protection. This difference does not imply equal responsibility for the conflict or equal legitimacy of their demands. It identifies a procedural obstacle: the safeguards one party seeks may be the conditions the other refuses.
Neither direct negotiation nor international endorsement resolves that obstacle by itself. A process free from external oversight can still be dominated by unequal bargaining power. An internationally endorsed agreement can still lack the means to secure compliance. Approval establishes political support; verification helps establish whether obligations are being observed; enforcement concerns what follows when they are breached. The credibility of a settlement depends on how these functions operate in practice.
The task of diplomacy is to construct a procedure through which terms can be examined without allowing military coercion or external expectations to displace the attacked state’s judgment. Addressing the aggressor’s distrust cannot give it exclusive authority over the process; protecting the attacked state cannot reduce it to the recipient of decisions made by its supporters. A credible framework must preserve meaningful participation, provide workable safeguards, and retain a practicable path to ending the fighting.
A negotiating framework must ultimately enable the authorized representatives of both states to reach agreement on the settlement’s terms, provisions, and implementation. International mediators and guarantors can facilitate that agreement and support compliance, but their endorsement cannot substitute for the parties’ own consent and commitment. Mutual acceptance is therefore necessary, though insufficient, for legitimacy: the settlement must also respect applicable legal obligations and preserve the meaningful agency of those whose future it determines. Its durability depends on whether the commitments accepted at the negotiating table can be sustained in practice.
Peace becomes more credible when those whose future is being negotiated retain the power to judge its terms—and when their security does not depend solely on promises they have reason to distrust.