Dec 25: Nataliya Bugayova, The High Price of Losing Ukraine: Part 2 — The Military Threat and Beyond
By Nataliya Bugayova as published in ISW on 22 Dec 2023
The High Price of Losing Ukraine: Part 2 — The Military Threat and Beyond
By Nataliya Bugayova, ISW, 22 Dec 2023
Allowing Russia to win its war in Ukraine would be a self-imposed strategic defeat for the United States. The United States would face the risk of a larger and costlier war in Europe. The United States would face the worst threat from Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a victorious Russia would likely emerge reconstituted and more determined to undermine the United States — and confident that it can. A Russian victory would diminish America’s deterrence around the world, emboldening others with an explicit or latent intent to harm the United States. A Russian victory would create an ugly world in which the atrocities associated with Russia’s way of war and way of ruling the populations under its control are normalized.
Most dangerous of all, however, US adversaries would learn that they can break America’s will to act in support of their strategic interests. The ground truths of this war have not changed: Russia still explicitly intends to erase Ukraine as a concept, people, and state; Ukraine’s will to fight remains strong; Russia has made no operationally significant advances this year; and Ukraine’s will combined with the West’s collective capability (which dwarfs Russia’s) can defeat Russia on the battlefield.[1] US interests still include preventing future Russian attacks on Ukraine and helping Ukraine liberate its people and territory. Supporting Ukraine is still the best path for the United States to avoid higher costs, larger escalation risks, and a greater Russian threat. What’s changing is Americans’ perceptions of their interests, not the interests themselves. That American perceptions are changing is not an accident. It is, in fact, precisely the effect the Kremlin has been seeking to achieve. The Kremlin’s principal effort is destroying America’s will by altering Americans’ understanding of their interests, and this effort appears to be working. If Russia wins in Ukraine because of the collapse of Western aid, it will be because Russia has managed to shape Americans’ understanding of reality such that the United States willingly chooses to act against its interests and values without realizing that it is doing so. Russia will have manipulated America into abandoning its own interests in a fight it could and should have won. That’s a dangerous lesson for China, Iran, and other US adversaries to learn. America’s security now and in the future, in Asia and the Middle East as well as in Europe, depends on remaining solidly connected with our strategic interests and values and demonstrating that we will not fall prey to efforts to manipulate our perceptions of those interests.
A self-imposed defeat in Ukraine will confront the United States with the real risk of another war in Europe with higher escalation risks and higher costs.
The United States risks needlessly choosing a path antithetical to its interests and values when it can still help Ukraine succeed.
GREATER RUSSIAN THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES
A Russian victory in Ukraine would present the West with a reconstituted and emboldened Russia that is more determined to undermine the United States. There is no going back to the pre-2022 status quo. The United States is on track to be blindsided by Russia’s transformation — again.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has permanently changed Russia. It has cemented an ultra-nationalist ideology that believes in expansion by force and that is inherently anti-Western. A Russian victory in Ukraine is a certain path to another Putin or worse.
The Kremlin is rallying Russians for a long-term fight with the West. The anti-Western narrative will become the foundation of the Kremlin’s next national myth if Russia wins.
The Kremlin explicitly intends to reconstitute its large-scale warfighting capability — an effort that disproportionally depends on whether Russia keeps or loses its gains in Ukraine.
Russia would absorb — not just control — any areas of Ukraine and Belarus it seizes, expanding Russia’s military footprint and resource base.
The Kremlin is likely to pursue an outright absorption of Belarus and areas of Ukraine it manages to seize for two reasons. First, Ukraine and Belarus are core to Putin’s vision of the Russian world and also to Putin’s accelerated effort to reverse the Slavic demographic decline to prevent a looming social cohesion crisis in Russia. Second, unlike in the pre-2022 world, Putin may assess that the only way to solve the Ukraine and Belarus problem for good is to absorb any areas Russia manages to control.
A Russian victory in Ukraine would increase the likelihood of military action against other Russian neighbors.
The Kremlin would resume its presently constrained effort to expand its global military footprint and broader influence. The Kremlin still intends to expand its foothold in the Arctic and establish control over the Northern Sea Route, pursue broader influence and military basing in Africa, and it has maintained its campaign in the Balkans.
The Kremlin would get closer to a real opportunity to break NATO. A key Russian threat to NATO is the risk of the Kremlin manipulating NATO into disavowing its principles.[36] NATO will be discredited if Russia keeps its gains in Ukraine and its defense guarantees will be undermined. NATO’s Article 5 — the commitment to mutual self-defense — is not a magic shield. The future of NATO is bound up with the future of Ukraine much more tightly than most people understand.
[Kaja Kallas on Russian negotiation tactics]
BREAKING THE U.S. WILL TO ACT
Russia targets what it perceives to be the US center of gravity — America’s will to act. The Kremlin is using its information-based warfare together with military operations to persuade the United States to choose inaction in Ukraine. If Russia succeeds, it will not only result in catastrophic consequences for Ukraine, but also establish that the Kremlin’s reflexive control[37] is an effective asymmetric warfare capability against the United States — for other US adversaries to use if they can master it.
The Kremlin is engaged in several lines of effort in support of this objective:
1) Russia seeks to undermine Americans’ belief in the value of action as such. Putin needs the United States to choose inaction in Ukraine, otherwise, Russia cannot win. This model has worked for Putin domestically, where the Kremlin has established inaction as a default response by Russian citizens to external and internal stimuli. Putin convinced Russians that an alternative to him is either worse or too costly to fight for.[40] The Kremlin seeks to convince the United States that Ukraine’s victory is unattainable, too costly or not in America’s interest.[41]
2) Russia seeks to undermine the perception of US credibility, power, leverage, and righteousness around the world to diminish America’s ability to inspire others to act. Even when preoccupied in Ukraine, Russia is investing in anti-US narratives, often supported by physical means, from Africa to South America.[42] The Kremlin is also targeting US allies and partners — a core pillar of US power — while simultaneously investing in an anti-US coalition in support of the same effort.
3) The Kremlin is targeting global will to act. Putin is working to create an international order that would simply accept, and never fight, Russian principles — such as the Kremlin’s claimed right to own Ukraine and commit atrocities inside of Russia and globally at will. [43] Russian officials frame this effort as Russia’s goal to “architect a fair global future.”[44]
If Russia wins in Ukraine, US adversaries will learn that the United States can be manipulated into abandoning its interests in a winnable fight.
Altering America’s will is no small thing. America is an idea. America is a choice. America is a belief in the value of action. US domestic resilience and global power come in no small part from people and countries choosing the United States and from Americans preserving their agency to act with intent. An adversary learning how to alter these realities is an existential threat — especially when ideas are that adversary’s core weapon.
Allowing Russia to win in Ukraine would result in a reshaped global order that favors US adversaries and normalizes the following ideas:
Russia (and other states strong enough) deserves its perceived sphere of influence, regardless of its neighbors’ will.
Predators can redraw borders by force and victims must justify their right to exist.
Western international institutions fail to fulfill the very missions they were built for.
Russia can treat people in areas it controls any way it wants, including subjecting them to perpetual atrocities.
The United States will face an international environment in which moral relativism further resurges and values further erode, fueled by arguments to the effect of if Russia won, maybe they were not that bad, maybe it wasn’t a black and white issue after all.
These principles are antithetical to the rules-based international order, which remains a pillar of US prosperity and security.
AN UGLY WORLD
Russia winning in Ukraine would result in a world accepting of the Russian way of war and of life. Billions of people are watching this war. They will not remember the nuances. They will remember the results, including the principles that humanity collectively confronted or tolerated. If Russia wins, many horrific practices that the Kremlin is trying to justify will be normalized. To name a few:
Atrocities as a way of war that are not only not condemned but are often lauded by the Russian media, such as Russia’s deliberate attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.[48]
Brutality as a way of life — both as a means to control civilian populations and to discipline warfighters, like the horrific practice of late PMC Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin having his own men executed with sledgehammers and ‘Prigozhin’s sledgehammer’ then becoming a lauded symbol within the Russian nationalist community.[49]
A playbook for ‘disappearing’ or ‘digesting’ a nation through an identity and statehood eradication campaign that Russia is undertaking across occupied Ukraine, including forceful deportation of children.
If Russia wins, it will refocus its information efforts on rewriting history and launching narratives for why the abovementioned actions were justified through its information sphere of influence.
WHAT TO DO
The cost of failure for the United States in Ukraine is higher than the risks implicit in helping Ukraine win.
There will always be a risk of escalation, including when Putin invades Ukraine again if Russia is allowed to freeze the lines.
The West needs to recalibrate its perception of escalation based on the experience of the past two years. The Kremlin has shifted its multiple stated ‘red lines’ and has not changed its response even to direct attacks on its prized Black Sea Fleet, as well as drone strikes and operations deep into Russia.
The risk of nuclear war is inherent in any attempt to resist the aggression of any nuclear-armed state. It will be manifest if Russia attacks Ukraine again or if it threatens or attacks NATO. It will be present if China attacks Taiwan. An American policy that refuses to accept any risk of nuclear use anywhere is a policy of permanent and limitless surrender to nuclear-armed predators. Such a policy will encourage their predation and it will also encourage other predators such as Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
CONCLUSION
A Russian victory in Ukraine would create a world fundamentally antithetical to US interests and values with an empowered anti-Western coalition. US deterrence power and geopolitical standing will diminish. The cost of protecting the homeland and operating globally will rise, as will the number of national security issues the United States will have to tackle. More states and groups will challenge America at home and abroad. Latent adversarial intent is more likely to transform into action — which is how we got here in the first place, when Russia perceived the West to be weak.
The asymmetry goes both ways: Ukraine is the lynchpin on which the future of Russia’s power hinges. Russia’s ability to reconstitute; to maintain and increase its control and influence over its neighbors; the power of the Kremlin’s global narratives and ability to manipulate US will and perceptions; and the strength of Russia’s coalitions, including with US adversaries, all depend on whether Russia wins or loses in Ukraine. Helping Ukraine win would not only prevent Russia from erasing an independent nation and save the Ukrainian people from Russian atrocities and murder but would also land an asymmetric blow to the Russian threat and the anti-US coalition.
As long as Ukraine remains committed to defending itself against Russia’s aggression, the best course of action for the United States is to commit to the path of helping Ukraine win.