Escalation is Not a Substitute for Strategy

Let's Talk About Ukraine (Again)

It's a big news week around these parts! And of course, I'm talking about Ukraine. Sure, the former – and perhaps future – president was convicted of felony financial crimes in his New York trial. But I'm prepared to bet that by November, that will be largely forgotten, while we'll still be talking about the war in Ukraine.

The war underwent yet another escalation this week, as news emerged that the White House had given Kiev permission to strike inside Russian territory with US weapons. The news is a little more nuanced than it is generally being reported. The exception applies only to the area near the border where Russians have launched an offensive against the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and where fires from artillery and other shorter-range weapons may go back and forth across the border. One could quite plausibly argue that the Russians – in starting a new offensive right on the border – brought this one on themselves.

As far as we can tell from the reporting, however, the US still does not intend to allow Ukraine to use long-range strike weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. This remains a good policy, as shown by the Ukrainian drone attack on a radar used to detect incoming ballistic nuclear missiles last week. Nuclear experts have pointed out that this target had almost no military utility for the war inside Ukraine but could be highly destabilizing in the nuclear space. Yet Kyiv and Washington are at odds on the question, and an increasing number of European allies are pushing for this restriction to be lifted, along with other potentially escalatory steps such as sending advisors to Ukraine, or even Western troops for ‘behind-the-lines’ duty.

It’s really notable how much the debate on Ukraine has become driven by the news cycle — and how failures that should have been eminently foreseeable are now creating pressure for escalation rather than any recalibration in Western strategy.

What Does America Want in Ukraine?

I wanted to flag two recent articles that push on some of the bigger strategic questions at play here. A few weeks back with my colleagues Stephen Wertheim and Josh Shifrinson, I wrote an article for Foreign Policy in which we argued that America's fundamental problem in Ukraine is the lack of a coherent strategy, something the recent passage of the supplemental aid bill in congress did surprisingly little to resolve.

We argued:

The White House presented the supplemental as an all-or-nothing choice: Approve billions in funding or watch Ukraine go under. Such rhetoric contains eerie echoes of wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan, where the United States kept pouring resources into lost causes at least in part because no U.S. leader wanted to be held responsible at the final moment of failure. Throughout the Ukraine aid debate, key questions were left entirely unanswered: What is the United States trying to achieve in Ukraine given that total victory is not feasible? What is it willing to risk and spend to get there? The supplemental punts these uncomfortable questions down the road.

Instead, that vacuum is increasingly filled by talk of escalation:

After all, if the present trajectory is unfavorable and adopting more limited aims is ruled out, policymakers will seek the other logical solution: that of expanding involvement in the conflict. The West has gradually escalated over the past two years, as has Russia. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine and its Western supporters have pushed for ever more advanced weapons. From support vehicles to tanks, tube artillery to ATACMS, the cycle was consistent: As soon as the White House approved one system, pressure would mount to supply the next. A similar trend played out in Europe.

Though published weeks ago, this new escalation in the conflict — and the White House’s continued willingness to romp freely across its own red lines — only suggests that the substitution of escalation for critical thinking continues apace in Western capitals. That pressure is now focused less on specific systems and more on riskier forms of escalation: advisors or behind-the-lines direct military support.

Are We Letting Assumptions Dictate Strategy?

Over at Stimson, meanwhile, I put together a paper that takes a longer view, examining some of the most commonly heard arguments about the war in Ukraine. Many of these are assumptions rather than fact, and it’s a significant problem for US strategy that our understandings of the ways in which this war could develop are so blinkered.

Here’s a few of these assumptions:

#1: THE US CAN/CANNOT AFFORD TO CONTINUE FUNDING UKRAINE.

This is a question that cannot be answered easily; whether any policy choice is affordable or not depends on your own views about government spending, the national debt, and the priorities of the U.S. government. But here are some concrete facts about the costs of support for Ukraine and how it compares to other spending: In the first two years of the war, Congress appropriated about $175 billion related to the costs of the war in Ukraine, predominantly for arms. This amounts to approximately $60 billion dollars per year – if one assumes the most recent supplemental lasts about a year – and is equivalent to about seven percent of the annual U.S. defense budget per year.

Critics would argue that this is a bargain: the ability to attrite the Russian military for less than ten percent of our annual military spending is a great deal. They are undoubtedly right when talking about 2022, and perhaps even 2023. Where this assumption becomes more problematic, though, is in the long run. Spending seven or eight percent of the defense budget per year on Ukraine will add up significantly over time, contributing not just to spending levels, but also – as we learned during the war on terror – ramping up the national debt. This level of cost repeated over five to seven years is far less sustainable than a one-time addition to the defense budget; it’s also a cost with diminishing marginal gains.

Opportunity cost is perhaps the most relevant metric here. Depending on where you land on the political spectrum, perhaps you would prefer to spend this money on domestic programs, or on returning money to taxpayers. But even if we were to assume this money would get spent on national security regardless, seven or eight percent of the defense budget per year to Ukraine is a significant opportunity cost for money that could potentially be spent elsewhere on improving U.S. capabilities or readiness. This amount of money could double the budget of the State Department, for example, purchase multiple aircraft carriers, or fund four of the new ballistic missile submarines needed to modernize the nuclear triad.

#3: EUROPE IS NOW SPENDING MORE THAN THE UNITED STATES IN UKRAINE

For the first year of the war, it often seemed that European states were not contributing as much – particularly in military aid to Ukraine – as the United States. It is also true that these states were simultaneously bearing the brunt of refugee costs and the energy crisis, both of which were indirect results of the war; though experiencing inflation, the United States has not been impacted as severely by these costs. In direct aid, however, it has taken some time for Europe to catch up. Today, Europe and the United States are nearly neck-and-neck in the amount of aid spent on Ukraine. Where the difference emerges is when one looks at total commitments to Ukraine, where Europe leaps ahead in the amount of money pledged to Ukraine in coming years. Yet this is mostly budgeting chicanery: where the European Union (EU) and some European states can promise future aid over a longer time horizon, the White House cannot preauthorize spending without congressional approval. Comparing future U.S. and European commitments, therefore, is an exercise in comparing apples to oranges, one which has the effect of inflating perceptions of European commitments to Ukraine. About $65 billion of these pledges from Europe, moreover, are loans, not grants, and come with the expectation of future repayment.

Another way in which such perceptions are often inflated is by comparing contributions to Ukraine as a percentage of GDP, a choice which has the effect of catapulting small European states in the Baltics and Scandinavia up the table of contributors. But though these efforts are laudable, they are still small by absolute standards. These states are also closest to the conflict; it is unsurprising that they would feel compelled to contribute more to Ukraine’s defense. These states typically do not have security concerns in other regions and can focus all their spending and efforts in Eastern Europe. Indeed, the data shows that when controlling for distance, U.S. contributions still stand far ahead of the pack.

#5: ANY RUSSIAN GAINS IN UKRAINE WILL RESULT IN A BROADER WAR

This argument has become more prevalent in recent months, partly due to the congressional fight over the supplemental, as proponents of further aid have sought to emphasize the potential negative repercussions of Russian gains in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zelensky has been particularly forward-leaning on this point: he told a CBS news team in March 2024 that if Ukraine falls, then Putin will want “Kazakhstan, then the Baltic states, then Poland, then Germany. At least half of Germany.” The message is clear: any Russian gains in Ukraine will embolden Putin, who will come for NATO member states next, sparking a broader war. Americans who make this case often focus on Europe as a whole, either on the economic costs of instability on the continent or embracing George W. Bush's infamous post-9/11 dictum: ‘We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.”

Few would dispute that a proxy war – in which Ukraine fights Russia on behalf of the United States – is better than a direct conflict between NATO and Russia; U.S. troops are not dying in Ukraine, and the risks of nuclear escalation remain far lower than they might in the event of direct conflict with Russia. But it does not necessarily follow from this that the logical result of failure in Ukraine would be a Russian attack on NATO. Indeed, something that has been very clear in the last two years is that NATO’s Article 5 does appear to have significant deterrent power. Russia has been careful not to cross the line into direct, attributable attacks on NATO territory or troops, even as it has disregarded other norms and rules of international conduct.

Indeed, despite the significant flows of arms and equipment from NATO countries into Ukraine, Russia has taken no steps to interdict them outside of Ukrainian territory. This suggests something important: attacking a NATO member state is a distinct proposition from attacking a non-member state. Even if Russia did have the intention to seize other parts of Eastern Europe, the calculus for starting such a conflict would be very different.

Perhaps the most problematic form of this argument is the notion that Russian victory in Ukraine could destabilize Europe and undermine trade with one of the biggest economic partners of the United States. Europe is indeed a major trade partner for the United States, and stability in Europe remains a substantial strategic interest for the United States. But it is disingenuous to link smaller failures in Ukraine to the fate of Europe as a whole. Two years of war in Ukraine have not destabilized Europe economically, and the focus of EU-U.S. trade tensions is mostly in other areas. The war itself remains the primary drag on growth. The Cold War example is also instructive: the United States and its European partners held out against the Soviet Union for decades, prospering economically, even when Ukraine was an integral part of the USSR.

#9: UKRAINE CANNOT SURVIVE IF IT DOESN’T TAKE BACK ALL ITS TERRITORY

If there has been one constant throughout the last two years, it has been the fixation of Western policymakers on Ukrainian territorial integrity, which manifests in assertions that Ukraine cannot survive or thrive if it doesn’t return to its 1991 borders. Such statements imply a second, unstated assumption: that a return to these borders will inevitably produce a more durable peace settlement. Both these notions once again contradict scholarly understandings of war termination.

Within rationalist models of war, another big obstacle to ending a conflict is what political scientists call indivisible interests. In brief: there are certain issues that may be so important to one side or the other that they are unwilling to compromise, or – perhaps more commonly – there are issues on which one cannot compromise for a variety of reasons. Only one person can be king of a country, for example, and many cities cannot easily be divided in two. Resolving an indivisible issue requires the wisdom of Solomon; one cannot simply ‘split the baby.’

Political science literature suggests that indivisibility is perhaps less important than one might assume. But even so, the war in Ukraine features several indivisible issues. Ukraine can either join NATO or remain neutral, for one; it cannot be half-in and half-out of the alliance. Ukraine cannot both embrace a fully Western identity as a state and remain within Russia’s sphere of influence. And some of the concessions that Russia has demanded in Ukrainian domestic politics are incompatible with the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state, such as poorly defined Russian demands that Ukraine ‘de-nazify’ its government.

But it is important to note that the one thing in this conflict that is not indivisible is territory. Indeed, much of what Ukraine and Russia are currently fighting over – at least in territorial terms – is almost irrelevant to big picture questions of Ukraine's economic viability, or its integration into the Euro-Atlantic system. This contrasts strongly with Russia’s attempts earlier in the war to seize the port of Odessa, something which would have undermined Ukraine’s economic viability. Whether or not Ukraine takes another twenty miles of territory in the Donbas, however, the conflict’s underlying issues will remain unaddressed. This should cause us to question the idea that reclaiming territory is the most effective way to peace.

There are ten assumptions tested in the report, including whether aid to Ukraine boosts the U.S. economy, whether a ceasefire in the conflict is even possible, and the idea that Ukraine cannot be secure in the future without Western security guarantees. You can read the whole thing here at Stimson’s website.

The war in Ukraine is liable to continue for some time. There is no good way to tell if Moscow is serious about its offer of negotiations, or if it is simply manipulating Western public opinion. And though it would probably be wise for Kyiv to appear willing to talk, there is little appetite in Western capitals to seek peace when Ukraine is obviously at a disadvantage – even if it remains unclear whether that situation will improve or worsen over time.

But escalation is an increasingly dangerous option, particularly as policymakers consider relatively extreme steps such as sending troops into Ukraine directly.

Unfortunately, it also appears to be increasingly likely.