Is 'as long as it takes' the right strategy for the U.S. or Ukraine?

The stalemate in the war Russia could provide a diplomatic endgame

Photo by Harold Mendoza on Unsplash

The Republican vote this week to block a $105 billion military aid package, primarily for Israel and Ukraine, without additional aid border security measures makes it highly unlikely for new funding to be approved by the end of the year.

In my view, it’s a rather cynical move to hold a pressing national security issue hostage to another totally unrelated one, especially after Republicans themselves said they wanted “clean votes” on single legislative issues. Plus, there were already billions of dollars in this supplemental package for border security.

That doesn’t mean we don’t need a genuine debate about immigration policy. We do. Though it probably wouldn’t be productive to have it as lawmakers are trying to catch their flights home for the holidays.

But the debate we needed to have before this vote — and didn’t — was on the aid to Ukraine and Israel itself. 

Let's focus on Ukraine, for now. It’s an understatement to say denying Ukraine this aid would be a bad look for the U.S. and would have negative implications beyond the war. It would embolden foes like China as it Beijing weighs a move against Taiwan and sends a message to all U.S. allies that America is not a reliable partner.

More immediately, it could also embolden Putin to expand the war. President Zelensky continues to argue that the US would pay a higher price in blood and treasure if Russia attacks a NATO ally, which we would be forced to defend. The US has beefed up NATO’s eastern flank to avoid such a scenario but, if Putin decides to take that chance, Zelensky wouldn’t be wrong.

The White House believes the war will end at the negotiating table and, as such, has tied Ukraine aid to strengthening Kyiv’s bargaining position. Both the US and NATO had high hopes for Ukraine’s summer offensive, only to have their hopes dashed when Ukrainian troops were not able to retake significant areas of territory.

How another $60 million will tangibly change the outcome is a legitimate question to be asking.

The same debate is taking place in European capitals. Since the war began, President Biden has done an admirable job of maintaining transatlantic unity, but that unity is starting to wobble. The war isn’t only eroding the West’s military readiness and depleting its weapons stockpiles: It’s hurting the global economy and causing food shortages worldwide.

Ukraine's dismal counteroffensive performance is causing a lot of finger-pointing. Earlier this week, the Washington Post published an extensive report about divisions between the US and Ukraine about how to conduct the summer's counteroffensive.

In March, at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, Philip M. Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, said:

“This war will end the way that the West wants it to end. Western policy will absolutely determine whether Ukraine wins or is defeated.” 

He predicted Ukraine’s success would be determined by the quality of its arms, and if Washington gave Ukraine only enough support to simply remain on the battlefield, the war would end in a stalemate.

That’s where we are now. Russian troops have sufficiently dug in enough not to lose the war but, given the current levels of Western support, neither can it defeat Ukraine.

Retired Col. Alexander Vindman, whose testimony as a then-aide to President Trump’s National Security Council helped lead to the president’s first impeachment trial, argues in his Substack, Why It Matters, that “actions by Washington and its European allies “have all the rhetoric of an existential crisis, without the urgency to match.”

Comparing the conflict to the height of the Cold War, Vindman called Ukraine the “pivot point” for U.S. national security. He argued the US and its allies must continue to provide Ukraine with enough military support to not just liberate Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea, but to secure a complete Russian defeat.

“Such an outcome would deter Russian adventurism for years and other would-be aggressors worldwide from using military means to achieve their political objectives,” he wrote.

In a cosmic sense, Putin has already lost. His goal was to pull Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence. Instead, the country is united around a strong pro-Ukrainian anti-Russian identity. There is no going back. What Putin may want now is a consolation prize: the areas he annexed: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Mykolayiv, and Zaporizhzhya Oblasts.

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as President Obama’s senior director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, believes Ukraine should use any further US and Western aid to rebuild and fortify the some-80 percent of the country still under its control, rather than continue offensive operations which are using up massive amounts of equipment and killing large numbers of Ukrainians to little avail.

“It’s time to reassess and recalibrate,” he told me. “‘As long as it takes’ isn't a strategy. It just doesn't add up now.”

In the Spring issue of Foreign Affairs, Kupchan and former CFR President Richard Haass proposed Ukraine’s Western supporters seek a diplomatic endgame: A ceasefire in which  both Ukraine and Russia pull back their troops and heavy weapons and create a demilitarized zone. Ukraine would temporarily forgo an attempt to retake the land and people seized by Russia until a diplomatic breakthrough was possible, probably when Putin was no longer in power.

“This formula thus blends strategic pragmatism with political principle, they wrote. “Peace in Ukraine cannot be held hostage to war aims that, however morally justified, are likely unattainable, “ They wrote. “At the same time, the West should not reward Russian aggression by compelling Ukraine to permanently accept the loss of territory by force. Ending the war while deferring the ultimate disposition of land still under Russian occupation is the solution.”

Delicate conversations to this effect are already taking place among more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. But Kupchan feels the idea of a ceasefire is still somewhat taboo.

“There is a feeling that the future of the West is at stake and everyone needs to protect it and the rules-based order,” he says. “That’s all well and good, but strategy has to aim not just at the desirable but at the attainable.”

Loose Change:

This week, the State Department revealed US negotiators made a recent offer to Russia to secure the release of detained Americans Wall Street Journal Reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, but Moscow rejected the American proposal. Both Gershkovich and Whelan are US citizens and considered by Washington to have been wrongfully detained, on espionage charges that the men and the U.S. government deny. Russia arrested a third American, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva, in October, who is being held on charges for failing to register as a foreign agent, even though she was visiting Russia to care for her sick and ailing mother. The US hasn’t yet designated her “wrongfully detained,” which is an opaque process that deserves examination.

There is another conversation to be had on aid to Israel, and growing calls in Congress to put conditions on the use of US weapons to minimize civilian casualties. It’s bound to be a controversial debate, but with the administration’s concern about the civilian toll becoming both more dire and more public, it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Those will be the subjects of future posts.