Ukraine’s winnable war Analysis by Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs has published an in-depth analysis of why the West should help Kyiv retake all its territory. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to conquer the country and erase the independence it had gained after the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades earlier. Given the vast disparities in size and strength between the belligerents, almost nobody gave the defenders much of a chance. Pessimists thought Kyiv would succumb in days or weeks. Optimists thought it might take months. Few believed Ukraine could ever beat back its attacker.

“A satisfying victory is likely out of reach,” wrote the Russia experts Thomas Graham and Rajan Menon in Foreign Affairs a month after the invasion began. “Ukraine and its Western backers are in no position to defeat Russia on any reasonable timescale.” Around the same time, the political scientist Samuel Charap agreed: “Ukraine’s brave resistance—even combined with ever-greater Western pressure on Moscow—is highly unlikely to overcome Russia’s military advantages, let alone topple Putin. Without some kind of deal with the Kremlin, the best outcome is probably a long, arduous war that Russia is likely to win anyway.” Three months into the war, the historians Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage argued that “a full-scale Ukrainian military defeat of Russia, including the retaking of Crimea, verges on fantasy.” Four months after that, the political scientist Emma Ashford upgraded a Ukrainian victory to a “dangerous fantasy.”

Just as Russia has surprised everyone by its poor military performance, however, Ukraine has surprised everyone, as well, punching far above its weight throughout the conflict. Russia’s attempt to take the capital was thwarted, and then its attempts to consolidate gains in the east and the south were disrupted. Russian troops were forced to withdraw from the Kharkiv region and Kherson. A brutal Russian air campaign against civilian infrastructure stiffened Ukraine’s will instead of breaking it. Recent Russian offensives in Bakhmut and elsewhere gained little ground at vast cost. And now, with Russian forces softened, Ukraine is launching a counteroffensive to take back more territory.

A common view of the war sees it as a military deadlock destined to end with a negotiated settlement far short of each side’s original goals. “Later this year, a stalemate is likely to emerge along a new line of contact,” argued the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and the political scientist Charles Kupchan in April, and at that point, the United States should nudge Ukraine into recognizing that “pursuing a full military victory” would be unwise.

“An end to the war that leaves Ukraine in full control over all its internationally recognized territory . . . remains a highly unlikely outcome,” asserted the political scientists Samuel Charap and Miranda Priebe in January, and so Washington “could condition future military aid on a Ukrainian commitment to negotiations” involving territorial compromise.

It is indeed likely that there will be a lull in the fighting after Ukraine’s coming offensive, as Kyiv consolidates its gains. But that will be only a pause in a still-fluid conflict, not the emergence of a deadlock. There has not been and need not be a stalemate, thanks to Western military support and Ukraine’s remarkable ability to transform it into battlefield success. The world has not witnessed such a fruitful strategic collaboration since Israel used Western assistance to achieve devastating victories over larger, Soviet-supported Arab forces in 1967 and 1973.

Because of the effectiveness of this partnership, there is no need to pressure Ukraine into a compromise peace. Instead, the United States and Europe should enable it to continue pushing Russian forces back to Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders. A true status-quo-ante ending to the war, reversing the gains Russia has made since its initial 2014 incursion, is not only possible but also the best option to shoot for. It would liberate Ukraine. It would establish a solid foundation for regional security. It would prove the liberal international order has a future as well as a past. And it would provide a winning model for post-hegemonic U.S. global leadership.

UKRAINE CAN WIN

The chief goal of Western governments over the past year and a half has been to help Ukraine stave off defeat. The United States, Europe, and other friendly countries have given large amounts of economic aid and increasingly powerful weapons to Kyiv, which has used them to keep itself in the fight. To avoid provoking Moscow, however, the West has kept a lid on the amount and nature of its help. It has avoided the possibility of direct clashes between NATO and Russian forces and eschewed direct attacks on Russia and its regime. And it has carefully chosen the weapons it sends, incrementally doling out some but not all the material Ukraine has requested.

Much of this is simple prudence, reflecting standard aspects of war in the nuclear age. It makes sense to keep Western intervention indirect and to limit the theatre of combat, and those restrictions on the fighting should be maintained or even enforced more strictly, so as to prevent any more attacks on Moscow.

But Ukraine’s demonstrated ability to put military aid to good use makes it sensible to relax the restrictions on that front, given how much reward can come from minimal added risk. As US President Richard Nixon pointed out to his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, when supplying military aid to Israel during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, “Look, Henry, we’re going to get just as much blame for sending three [planes], if we send 30, or a hundred, or whatever we’ve got, so send them everything that flies. The main thing is—make it work.”

Rather than limiting conventional military aid to Ukraine, accordingly, the United States and Europe should increase the flow: more armour, artillery, and ammunition; improved air defences; squadrons of fourth-generation jet fighters—the conventional works, for as long as it takes. Such a course is not only the right thing to do. It is also the best way to end the war, either by teeing up the possibility of a durable negotiated settlement or by allowing Kyiv’s forces to gain positions that they could defend indefinitely with continued assistance.

Many consider this policy option futile, dangerous, or distracting. Russia cannot be beaten, they say, because it will always have more resources to throw into the fight and an insatiable will to avoid defeat. Attempts to force Russia backward and retake Crimea could lead to nuclear escalation. And a focus on Ukraine and Russia comes at the expense of other, more important problems, such as Taiwan and China. All these concerns, however, are overblown.

A TEST OF WILLS

“Where are you in the war?” I asked a senior Ukrainian military official during a recent trip to Ukraine sponsored by the Renew Democracy Initiative. “Toward the end of the first half,” he replied. And in the second half, they’re coming out hot.

At first, Western aid was sharply curtailed.

“We asked, ‘Can we have Stingers?’” Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov recounted. “We were told, ‘No, dig trenches and kill as many Russians as you can before it’s over.’ People thought our victory was impossible.”

But as Ukrainian forces held out and continued to fight, the United States, European countries, and other friends of Ukraine eventually supplied a vast array of ever more sophisticated weapons. The Stingers came, and the HIMARS, and the Patriots, which I watched shoot down Russia’s supposedly unstoppable hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. Now, Reznikov said, Ukraine has “Bradleys, Strykers, Abrams, Leopards, and more.” And, eventually, the armour will be supported by F-16s.

The fresh, well-equipped, highly motivated Ukrainian brigades taking part in the offensive, meanwhile, are facing tired Russian forces with low spirits, little personal investment, and mediocre leadership. Like the Arab countries that fought Israel half a century ago, Russia has more manpower and materiel than its opponent but isn’t putting them to good use. “Russia has a huge set of tools but no understanding of how to employ them effectively,” the senior Ukrainian military official said. “There is nothing surprising about their war. They are using the classic Soviet approach; nothing has changed.”

And Russia has no strategic plan; ever since the initial invasion failed, it has been improvising, with its commanders increasingly at odds. Moscow’s resources are becoming constrained through attrition and sanctions, and at this point its forces are no longer capable of significant offensive progress. The Ukrainians will be attacking elaborate fortifications, and the Russians are likely to be better at defence than offence. But this offensive should nevertheless make major gains and continue Ukraine’s track record of changing outsiders’ views about what outcomes are ultimately possible. (Earlier in the conflict, I was among those who thought it made sense for Ukraine to shoot for the 2022 status quo ante rather than the 2014 one.)

Officials in Kyiv do not believe this campaign alone can end the war.

“Our goal is the full expulsion of Russia from Ukrainian territory,” said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “If the offensive achieves that, it will be the last. If not, there will be more. If our weapons supplies get cut off, Ukraine will just shift to lower intensity war. We won’t give up; we won’t accept territorial losses.” Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former world heavyweight champion boxer, echoed the point. “The goal is the 1991 borders, including Crimea. Maybe this year, maybe not. We can hope, but just have to keep going. It’s only a matter of time before Russia breaks.” Like the Russians, the Ukrainians see the war as not just a test of arms but a test of wills and are convinced they have the advantage in both.

THE NUCLEAR BOGEYMAN

Many outside observers worry about what Russian President Vladimir Putin might do before such a break occurs, such as resort to the use of nuclear weapons. “Some Western analysts suggest that the United States and NATO should call the Kremlin’s bluff—they should more forthrightly back the Ukrainians and drive Russian forces out of Ukraine,” wrote the political scientist Nina Tannenwald in February, characterizing this as “a cavalier approach to the risk of nuclear escalation.”

A proper approach to the risk, she claims, would recognize that the “shadow of nuclear weapons” constrains Ukraine’s options and means that “a good outcome for Kyiv will be more complicated to attain, and invariably less satisfying.” Charap and Priebe concurred: “Russian nuclear use in this war is plausible,” they wrote, and trying to prevent it should be “a paramount priority for the United States.” Putin is determined to fight to the bitter end no matter what the cost, asserted the scholars Rose McDermott, Reid Pauly, and Paul Slovi, and “is a man whom humanity will wish it had kept away from its most dangerous weapons.”

That is certainly true already. But humanity has survived those weapons being in far worse and less stable hands, from the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to the Chinese tyrant Mao Zedong to the brutal Kim dynasty in North Korea, and there is no reason to believe the pattern of post-1945 nuclear nonuse will change. The Ukrainians themselves, who would bear the brunt of any nuclear attack, know all about the supposed Russian redlines but are significantly less concerned than their American and European counterparts about crossing them.

“Professionally, I’m obliged to worry about nukes,” said the senior Ukrainian military official. “But I don’t see a high probability of it.” Kuleba, for his part, believes that “nuclear deterrence worked in the past, and it will continue to do so.” Reznikov was even more blunt: “I’m sure the nuclear threat is a bluff. Their weapons are out of date, and Moscow can’t be sure they’ll work. The Chinese and Indians have told them not to use nukes. And there is no place to use them. Battlefield use would hurt them as well as us, and general use would provoke retaliation and end any chance of negotiations.”

Washington sees the absence of Russian nuclear use so far as a triumph of its risk management. Kyiv sees it as confirmation that the threat was minor to begin with. The Ukrainians have inflicted hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties in the war and have suffered almost as many themselves.

They don’t think Moscow is holding back effective military options or limiting its brutality; they see an enemy that is desperately throwing into the fight whatever it thinks might work. In Kyiv’s view, the conflict has stayed conventional because nuclear weapons are not particularly useful instruments of war, especially for close-in fighting over neighbouring territory and friendly populations that Moscow is ostensibly trying to rescue. Nothing about that will change because of Kyiv’s conventional military successes. And even the execution of Moscow’s nuclear threats would not necessarily reverse the trend of the fighting and lead to a Russian victory.

The Ukrainians, in short, see a gap between the objective realities of the Russian situation and the Kremlin’s recognition of it. The next several months of fighting should reduce that gap, and then things will get interesting.

HOW TO PLAY THE ENDGAME

“This won’t be the last battle of the war,” the senior military official said. “Russia will need to suffer more to concede defeat. And the war won’t end even when we attain all the 1991 territory. Because we’ll still have an enemy neighbour. The end of this war is not just pushing out Russia and reclaiming our territory, but convincing Russia not to think about trying it again a few years down the road. We have no intention of leaving this war to our children.”

What might have seemed mere bravado a year and a half ago now sounds like a plausible strategic plan. When this offensive is over, Ukraine will probably have broken through Russian lines, regained significant chunks of territory, and put itself in a position to credibly threaten the remaining Russian-held areas over the long term, including Crimea. From there, Kyiv’s friends should prepare it to launch future offensives that could regain Ukraine all its internationally recognized territory. Depending on the timing of Russia’s decision to cut its losses, this could lead to any of three scenarios, which might be called “Egypt 1973,” “Korea 1951,” and “Korea 1953.”

In the Yom Kippur War, the United States helped Israel gain the upper hand against Egypt and Syria and then used that threat for diplomatic leverage. As Kissinger put it to Nixon, “The strategy now diplomatically is to go for a cease-fire and manoeuvre to link it loosely to a permanent settlement. For pressure, we will begin a massive supply effort and stop it only with a cease-fire.” When the Israelis reached the Suez Canal and encircled Egyptian forces there, Washington brokered a deal that stopped the fighting, allowed the Egyptian forces to escape, and segued to broader peace negotiations, ultimately producing a settlement that has remained the bedrock of regional security ever since.

Russia has more manpower and materiel than its opponent but isn’t putting them to good use.

Like the Egyptians in 1973, a sensible government in Moscow today might respond to the prospect of imminent military catastrophe by accepting reality and agreeing to serious negotiations, trading an end to the fighting and recognition of Ukraine’s gains and future security concerns for, say, a new Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty that allowed Moscow to continue basing its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. It seems unlikely that the current Russian regime would make such a deal, but it is not impossible.

Even a credible threat to retake all Ukrainian territory, however, might not be enough to induce a true change of heart in Moscow, in which case it will be necessary to execute the threat, with Washington and its partners continuing to support Ukraine until its forces reach the 1991 borders. This would trigger the two hypothetical scenarios that echo the Korean War, both of which start with the restoration of the territorial status quo ante.

When North Korean forces attacked across the 38th parallel in June 1950, the United States backed South Korea and led a United Nations operation “to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.” The fortunes of war shifted back and forth in the months afterward, but by the early summer of 1951, the frontlines had begun to stabilize around the belligerents’ original positions, and the Truman administration decided that would be a logical place to end things.

As Secretary of State Dean Acheson framed the U.S. position in June, “Our aim is to stop the attack, end the aggression . . . , restore peace, providing against the renewal of the aggression. Those are the military purposes for which, as I understand it, the U.N. troops are fighting.” On June 23, the Soviet ambassador to the UN, Jacob Malik, suggested in a radio address that both sides agree to an armistice at the 38th parallel, and direct cease-fire negotiations between the belligerents began two weeks later. After two more years of fighting, an armistice was finally signed that froze the war along almost the exact same line of contact.

In Ukraine, this Korea 1951 scenario would involve Kyiv retaking all its territory and then continuing to hold it against renewed enemy attacks, fighting an open-ended war to secure its gains but being prepared to stop whenever the Russians are. Eventually, that could evolve into the Korea 1953 scenario, in which all sides agree that enough is enough and move to codify the outcome in a negotiated settlement that secures the territorial status quo ante. At that point, Ukraine’s friends could help it survive and thrive over the long term, offering a path to eventual membership in both the EU and NATO and locking Ukraine securely into Europe once and for all.

The fighting must continue until Moscow accepts that it cannot achieve territorial gains by military force.

The root cause of the war is Russia’s refusal to accept the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its willingness to take its former empire back by force. That problem will be fully solved only when Moscow accepts that its empire is gone for good and readjusts to life as a normal country rather than an international predator. Until that day comes, a Korean-style armistice would not be a bad model for Ukraine, as Charap recently noted: “In the nearly 70 years since, there has not been another outbreak of war on the peninsula. Meanwhile, South Korea emerged from the devastation of the 1950s to become an economic powerhouse and eventually a thriving democracy. A postwar Ukraine that is similarly prosperous and democratic with a strong Western commitment to its security would represent a genuine strategic victory.”

What Charap misses, however, is that this does not suggest rewarding aggression by leaving Moscow with significant territorial gains in Ukraine, because North Korea was not allowed to keep chunks of South Korea. The Korea analogy does not strengthen the case for starting negotiations now—on the contrary, it bolsters the argument for pushing Russian forces back across the prewar dividing line, fighting them off from there until they accept a draw, and then securing the line so they don’t cross it again.

Put simply, the fighting must continue until Moscow accepts that it cannot achieve territorial gains by military force. Until that psychological turning point is reached, Ukraine and its backers will have little choice but to keep frustrating Russia militarily. When Russia is ready to accept such an outcome, sanctions and other restrictions could be lifted. Before then, it will exhaust itself further in vain, stagnating on the international sidelines, hemmed in by a strong defensive line running from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea—a new iron curtain pulled down not to keep captured countries in but to keep their would-be capturer out.

It took defeat in two world wars before Germany got the message that aggression didn’t pay. It might take defeat not just in Ukraine but also in a second Cold War for Russia to learn the same lesson. Until then, the wall must be guarded. Just like the last time. A satisfactory outcome could take years to achieve, and the costs for Ukraine and its Western partners will be high. But the costs of not doing so would be even higher and come not just in Ukraine but throughout Europe and around the world.

THE WAR AFTER THE WAR

For the larger conflict to end, Russia will have to continue evolving. So will Ukraine. Domestic democratisation is the war’s second front, and the struggle there will continue long after the guns in the East and the South are silent. The providers of foreign aid are right to care about corruption and accountability. The Ukrainians do, too. In November 2013, the Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nayyem wrote a Facebook post calling on people to join him in the streets to protest Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s abandonment of an emerging partnership with Europe. This sparked what came to be known as the Maidan revolution, a mass popular uprising that toppled Yanukovych’s regime. A decade later, Nayyem, now a member of parliament, is the head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development and one of the key figures managing Ukraine’s reconstruction. “This war is the ultimate Russian response to Euromaidan,” he says. “It is the continuing and culmination of Ukraine’s fight for independence and freedom. We are escaping from our past, and the corruption is part of that. Reform is crucial, not just reconstruction. If our domestic promises aren’t fulfilled, after victory you’ll have another Maidan.”

Klitschko agrees. “Rebuilding buildings is not enough. It’s important to build the rule of law and democratic institutions. We need judicial reform, military reform, procurement reform. People expect a new and better country after the war.”

On this front, the Biden administration and other Western governments should embrace war skeptics and their concerns, matching generous aid with strong protections on how it is used. It is rare to hear foreign aid recipients begging for conditionality, but that is what Ukraine is doing. Be truly good friends, they say; support us but hold us to high standards.

FINISH THE JOB

As for the notion that this war represents a distraction from other, more urgent and important Western national security concerns, nothing could be further from the truth. Thanks to the conflict, NATO is sapping its enemy’s strength and learning invaluable lessons about the nature of modern combat—from the amount of material required to the importance of mixing commercial and military technology to the need for constant innovation and agile weapons development.

Battlefield success is the ultimate advertisement for any weapons system, and Ukraine’s performance means the demand for cutting-edge Western artillery, armour, and air defences will only grow. The war has revealed dramatic shortcomings in the Western defence industrial base, but luckily in time to fix them before the situation becomes truly critical for its own security. Those who complain that there are not enough munitions to defend Ukraine, Taiwan, and the United States simultaneously are right. But the solution to the problem is not cutting off Ukraine; it is producing more stuff.

Doing so will require the reform of sclerotic institutions and inefficient procurement practices, this time in Washington rather than Kyiv. The Department of Defense will have to mentally reclassify the conflict in Ukraine and learn its lessons; it is not a nuisance but a warning. Meanwhile, supporters of the war in both the administration and Congress will have to secure enough long-term funding to restore domestic production lines for crucial materiel ranging from guns to tanks, shells to drones, missiles to planes. This war is the most urgent and important issue on the national security agenda, and Western governments need to treat it as such.

The Taiwanese, like the Ukrainians, understand that their security is best served by forcing Russia to return to the status quo ante, no matter what the costs. “I think pushing back on aggression is the key message that will help to deter any consideration or miscalculation that an invasion can be conducted unpunished, without costs, in a rapid way,” Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States, told reporters recently. “We must ensure that anyone contemplating the possibility of an invasion understands that, and that is why Ukraine’s success in defending against aggression is so important also for Taiwan.” China hawks in Washington should agree, rather than portraying the Ukrainian conflict as the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy.

However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world’s policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it’s time to finish the job.