> In particular, why would crowdsourcing a foreign policy agreement be a good idea?

I think Internet's collective intelligence could be higher than that of any person on a well defined task.

> Would you crowdsource the plan for your open heart surgery?

Desperate situations, call for desperate measures. If I did, I would ask for "qualified heart surgeons to contribute" the same way I asked about "people with the understanding of geopolitical situation".

There are people that are not in the political administrations of the warring sides that have called the situation much more correctly than the administration. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

Well, maybe - but as long as it is led by people who know the political circumstances and are willing to dig deeper.

For comparison, there was a Post-WW1 Middle-East map, which took into cultures and ethnicities. It took a lot of work to interview communities: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/th... And? It was entirely ignored. Not for another meritocratic approach. Instead - with the "cutting pies" approach, where the great powers divided the territory among themselves.

I think you are over estimating the actual negotiators. Most (if not all) are politicians not hostage negotiators. And this is even a different game.

Even if the winning open heart surgery plan was drawn up by a couple of brilliant surgeons, I'd still expect the person wielding the tools to prefer their own plan, and probably for the best

With a prior referendum I believe no war would ever start.

Politicians, by the other hand, may know more than us but that knowledge may or may not be used in our interest.

However, from the perspective of Ukraine, Russia cannot be trusted. This is due broken security assurances made less than 30 years ago [1]. Actually, If I were to speculate, I am not sure any other country in the world will trust Russia or any other 'big state' on 'security assurances' after this conflict.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

> hello i'm from the tech industry. today i'm going to explain how to solve all problems with whatever it is you do! based on my experience of writing software! which means i'm qualified to solve any problem in any field. i have checked this with zero people

Nice idea though.

It is not as if Russia and Ukraine were two bitter enemies, locked in a death-match.

Ukraine is extremely close to Russia historically, culturally, etc, but they chose democracy, and were moving more and more toward a western style open and free society.

It seems that was too much for the Putin regime in Russia. Ukraine must now be brought back into the fold, and never again be allowed to stray.

Honestly, the relationship seems to be more like an abusive marriage than two independent states.

Is a peace treaty even really possible, or meaningful, with that underlying grievance? Perhaps only if Ukraine promises never to stray ever again, and to always be there when Putin demands it, etc. Or if Putin is brought to his knees with sanctions or other means.

- some fine tuning in the administration of Luhansk and Donetsk

- restoring flow of drinking water into Crimea that Ukraine stopped after annexation

- committing not to host NATO nuclear weapons

Ukraine is a pivot, not the prize.

Putin wants Ukraine, and the Luhansk/Donetsk "peacekeeping" situations were largely manufactured to give a pretext to explain the trucks crossing the border -- which let's be honest he abandoned within less than 24 hours.

The abusive partner analogy again: it's like when (usually a) woman agrees to sacrifice some freedom (her male friends, not socialising with a particular female friend, not going to the gym on her own) because it "unnerves" her partner. It's never asked in good faith, and it always prefigures more sacrifice down the line.

Putin has manufactured these things you think Ukraine could consider compromising on.

Putin isn't seeking a peace (as between nations) treaty with Ukraine at all. This is about adding to his recreated historic Russia, and on that basis to push forward for a new accommodation with the west.

If this war ends with a peace treaty it will do so because it eventually escalated to a nuclear standoff with NATO. That's the only umbrella under which Putin could ever agree a "retreat".

> Honestly, the relationship seems to be more like an abusive marriage than two independent states.

This is a good characterisation and it has been made before -- that Putin's approach is that of an abusive spouse. "Look what you made me do."

Lets give it a crack:

1. Immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian forces

2. Russia acknowledges criminal nature of the aggression and gives up the war criminals - Putin, his generals, top political leaders and oligarchs who approved and participated.

3. Russia compensates all the damage to Ukraine.

4. Russia returns Crimea and Donbass (with grace period for the people to relocate who want to stay in Russia and/or Ukraine agrees for Russian language to be a second official language there and some extended autonomy for those regions, may be gradually expiring in say 50-100 years, may be some UN force presence for the next 10-20 years)

5. Russia gives up nuclear weapons and agrees to the limits on military power so it would be suitable and sufficient only for pure defense.

6. Probably some changes to Russian Constitution like hard term limit for President, electability of regional powers, freedom of speech, judicial independence and other measures to make sure that a fascist regime like the current Putin's regime has no chances to arise again.

You speak as if Ukraine alone had demands to make, despite the fact that its territory is currently occupied and whatever leverage it had before the conflict started, it has lost already.

The only way to stop a conflict peacefully while your country is occupied is to make concessions. I understand you might think Ukraine must not make any concessions at all because Russia is on the wrong here... I agree Russia is bad and a bully in this story... but that doesn't matter if the objective is to stop the war. The objective, right now, is not to make justice, that's beyond anyone's reach by a long margin... it's to avoid further loss of life and Ukrainian infrastructure (which if destroyed, will take a full generation to be re-built, and will be paid for by several future generations).

Russia is somewhat weakened by the Western World's sanctions, but Ukraine is on its knees right now and quite frankly on its last few breaths as an independent nation, despite everyone rooting for them (there wouldn't be 60km of Russian tanks just outside Kyiv otherwise, with the other largest cities except Odessa already surrounded by the Russian army, and already badly damaged).

When a bully has a knife to your throat you don't get to make demands, unfortunately.

I am not sure bravery is something to be admired when you know that the cost of your bravery is your country being completely destroyed and whatever you were fithting for simply being bombed out of existence. Ukrainians will live on, and the less destruction there is now, the better equipped they will be to react appropriately when the time comes, but the time just isn't now.

If Ukraine's goal is to exist, concessions of any kind at all to Putin make that harder. It's not "because Russia is wrong" that I don't think they should make concessions. It's because, if they make concessions, Russia will try again, because it worked.

Also, I think you're massively overestimating the strength of Russia's position here.

If everyone thought like that, no negotiation would ever result in agreement.

>Ukrainians will live on, and the less destruction there is now, the better equipped they will be to react appropriately when the time comes, but the time just isn't now.

That was the logic of 2014, and it was right, it worked, it gave them time to unify and to build better army. Now though Putin is intended to finally solve the "Ukrainian question".

definitely you aren't from Russian nor Ukrainian culture, and thus can't really "appreciate" the 2 last speeches of Putin where he took whatever gloves were still on. His approach here is more like Hitler's to Slavic than Jews - ie. some share of population will still be allowed biological existence while stripped of cultural identity and denied any self-governance.

>He seems to take issue with Ukraine's existence as a separate country, not just simply with its pure existence!

he denies existence of Ukrainians as a separate ethnicity, in his proclaimed view Ukrainians are just a version of Russians not capable of governing themselves, etc. while you can see his deep hate to the Ukrainians.

>they've only used around 75 aircraft out of thousands that they have at their disposal

thousands? you're really no aware what is going on. Russia has pretty small number of actually flying combat ready aircraft, and those 75 is all what they could use without leaving the rest of the country completely naked.

>whatever it is Putin wants, there has been zero evidence he's looking to eliminate the Ukrainian people

you can't listen to his speeches, so you are trying to get the best interpretation possible. Unfortunately Putin isn't going for such an interpretation. In a few days there have already been 1M people who left Ukraine, and will be many more. The resisting will die - he was clear about that, you can find the transcript. And whoever left in depopulated country will be converted to "Russian", and there will be no more Ukrainians there.

Forcing people out, and killing or converting the rest, all that on the base of ethnicity - that is textbook ethnical cleansing and genocide.

Listen, I have Ukrainian/Belarussian family, pls address my arguments and avoid personal attacks like that.

> he denies existence of Ukrainians as a separate ethnicity, in his proclaimed view Ukrainians are just a version of Russians not capable of governing themselves

That's like saying the USA denies the existence of Texas because it sees Texans as Americans (noticing that Texas was annexed from Mexico not a very long time ago, in case you don't know it). It's ridiculous. I don't agree that Ukraine should be annexed by Russia, that's not what I am saying - what I am saying is that Putin appears to consider Ukrainians as Russians and that's why he wants to, if not annex Ukraine, keep it under Russian's sphere of influence.

> thousands? you're really no aware what is going on.

Yes, according to all data I've seen, e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/russia-ukraine-mil...

Maybe you have "insider" information we don't?!

> The resisting will die - he was clear about that

What do you expect in a war? The resisting to be assisted?!? Does that make any sense to you?

> Forcing people out, and killing or converting the rest, all that on the base of ethnicity - that is textbook ethnical cleansing and genocide.

It sucks people have to flee to be safe, but this is not happening for the reasons you think it is. It's happening because Ukraine has only one choice on a fight with Russia: to use urban warfare (people have been calling it protracted war) because in open combat, the Ukrainian military would've been destroyed much more easily - which means that they know their only defense is to mix with civilians and they know well what's going to happen. Do you deny the Ukrainian military is hiding in the cities, which is why Russia is attacking the cities? Or you believe that even if Ukrainian forces came out on the field and stayed out of cities, Ukrainian cities would still be bombarded anyway? If you could prove the latter, I would believe you that there's some evil ethnical genocide going on, but fortunately, the only cities being attacked so far appear to be the cities where Ukrainian military is intentionally bringing the fighting to (I am sure they don't like to do that either, but they made a choice and will have to live with that choice).

it wasn't a personal attack. It is just a statement of an obvious and important fact wrt. your obviously low level of awareness. And i was right - you have family from that context yet you aren't from that context yourself.

>Yes, according to all data I've seen, e.g. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/russia-ukraine-mil...

>Maybe you have "insider" information we don't?!

it is well known to everybody - 1300 total aircraft out of which only half at best is capable of flying, usually even less than that. So taking 75 to Ukraine already really hits Russian defense capability elsewhere.

>It sucks people have to flee to be safe, but this is not happening for the reasons you think it is. It's happening because Ukraine has only one choice on a fight with Russia: to use urban warfare (people have been calling it protracted war)

it is a very low morale propaganda statement of victim blaming, right from German Nazi playbook.

>because in open combat, the Ukrainian military would've been destroyed much more easily

The frontal combat like in Hostomel airport shows that Ukrainian military is fully capable of strong wins over Russian forces in key strategic battles.

> which means that they know their only defense is to mix with civilians and they know well what's going to happen.

you're using the main point of Russian propaganda - "human shield", "nazis hiding behind regular people". And that is lie. And extremely disgusting morale position - "You're making me to kill your civilians". Again German Nazi come to mind as they practiced that a lot.

I hope you just aren't aware, and not spreading those lies intentionally. You can see the videos on YouTube and Telegram - one of the main tactic by Ukrainian forces right now is to attack the convoys. It is obvious tactic at that stage. If Ukrainian forces were hiding behind civilians the Russian propaganda would have a lot of videos for that. They don't.

>Do you deny the Ukrainian military is hiding in the cities, which is why Russia is attacking the cities?

I definitely deny that. Russia is attacking the cities to take them. And Ukrainians, regular civil Ukrainians including, are fighting back throwing Molotovs and shooting RPG at Russian armor and hunting down Russian soldiers.

>Or you believe that even if Ukrainian forces came out on the field and stayed out of cities, Ukrainian cities would still be bombarded anyway?

this is what happening. Just watch those Harkiv bombing videos or any other Ukrainian city bombing.

>the only cities being attacked so far appear to be the cities where Ukrainian military is intentionally bringing the fighting to (I am sure they don't like to do that either, but they made a choice and will have to live with that choice).

that is clear Russian propaganda and blackmail - stop defending your cities or your people will die. "They made a choice" - how can you even write that, as that is again straight out of German Nazi playbook. Ukrainians definitely didn't bring the fight to Kiev, nor to any other of their cities. It were Russian airstrikes and tanks which brought the fight there.

Honestly, man, it is unbelievable that any reasonable man, like i'd suppose you're would bring in so much clear Russian propaganda which is right out of Nazi playbook.

Each informal proposal could have maximum of 10(?) items/lines to be easy to reason about. Russians/Ukranians/Other people could vote, results would be percentual. (e.g.: 56% of Russian voters, 32% Ukranians and 65% other voters agree with this proposal).

I believe, the real negotiators would take a look as source of ideas, the media has been fundamental in this war.

Simplistically, as an outsider, I would propose:

1. Immediate cease fire.

2. Crimea and separatist territories get independence and are free to join Russia.

3. Ukraine joins EU.

4. Ukraine stays neutral and out of NATO.

"A day will come when you — France, Russia, Italy, England, Germany — all you nations of the continent will merge, without losing your distinct qualities and your glorious individuality, in a close and higher unity to form a European brotherhood, just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, all our provinces are merged together in France." -- Victor Hugo (1849)

Put in octagon may be 50-100 maximum people, those who ruling the world and leave them there to fight as gladiators until only one left. If you can find a way how to corner them in octagon, I will commit much more than $1000... but time will pass and there would be another "leaders" who will want exclusive world power, so it is circle of live... unfortunately

Let's look at the opening negotiating positions. Russia wants the effective end of Ukraine as a sovereign state. Ukraine... doesn't. Well, so much for finding compromise there.

The goal of war is to make the situation such that one side realizes it can't achieve its political aims. Here again, both sides have reasons to be hopeful. From Russia's perspective, an operation that wins successful control of much of the country would hopefully make Ukraine realize that its existence as a sovereign state is already de facto impossible, so it might as well commit to that in a peace treaty. But Ukraine can point out that the war has not been going well for Russia, and the longer the war drags on, the less likely Russia will be able to reach that culminating point. Wars can simmer on for decades without concluding if things stalemate--the Korean War is 70 years long without a peace treaty and still ticking.

If your concern is that nuclear weapons would be involved, then this initiative is even more useless. There is no geopolitical reason for Russia to be firing nukes (and NATO isn't going to militarily intervene in large part to avoid giving anybody a reason to fire nukes), so if those start coming, Russia is already not acting with concern for geopolitics, so the foremost geopolitical expert is utterly useless here.

https://peaceagreement.org/new

Sometimes change is painful

You can edit your text above, or I can edit it for you and fix the formatting to fit HN conventions a bit better (I'm an admin here.) If you want me to do that, let me know.

The blockchain can revolutionize peace or even armistice talks, allowing for traceability of signatures, terms and military positions.

This is the point we have reached with NFTs.