Argument for yes: it's going to be a stalemate or phyrric victory anyway with very high probability. The button breaks us out of a defect/defect equilibrium and increases total utility. "There never was a good war or a bad peace" - Ben Franklin
Argument for no: those darn outgroup don't deserve one inch of our ingroup's soil and making the ingroup suffer is worth it to make the outgroup suffer more and liberate our ingroup comrades in outgroup-occupied territory. Obviously ingroup are superior fighters who will prevail.
Ok haha I'm not even trying to pass an ideological Turing test there. The real argument would be something something deterring other dictators from invading things by making it costly and the costs already realized in the form of sanctions and war and being hated by everyone are not enough relative to the tiny territorial gains because something something. Possibly the geopolitical argument is window dressing for the outgroupy one.
1,000People are also trading
It's not at all in the spirit of the question, but a key concern for me is "do the participants in the war all get mind-wiped to go along willingly with the detente, or does this become some sort of trigger that shifts the conflict to insurgency / terror-tactics / non-state-sponsored R v U violence."
I think the spirit is "yeah, mind-wiped" - and so I'm forced to choose between a deontological argument of "mind-wiping others is not ok, no pushie" versus a utilitarian argument of "will someone think of all the dying people, pushie!!"
In that sense I gotta go no push.
No mind wipe is inherent in the question. If it helps, suppose super-advanced aliens in giant FTL spaceships arrive and say to the respective heads of state “you kids stop fighting, or else” and successfully intimidate both countries into making peace and abiding by it. Hobbes’ leviathan, international style. Then the aliens go away after doing nothing else but they leave behind probes to monitor compliance.
@JonathanRay ok would you mind restating the title as "push the button, and aliens anally probe everyone in Russia?" this is updating me strongly in the push direction
@MattCWilson also if I push the button a second time can I ask the aliens to help me with someone else?
@JonathanRay Ever? Permenant peace along that border as long as they remain states? The question, and the arguments for & against, are dramatic simplifications.
@DanW yes assume the button somehow forces both sides to cease fire along the status quo border for as long as they exist. This is simpler than real world geopolitics because we don’t actually have any mechanism to do that IRL.