The Ukraine crisis is almost a year old and Russia is winning. The separatists in eastern
Ukraine are gaining ground and Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, shows no signs of backing down
in the face of Western economic sanctions.
Unsurprisingly, a
growing chorus of voices in the United States is calling for arming Ukraine. A
recent report from three leading American think tanks endorses sending Kiev
advanced weaponry, and the White House’s nominee for secretary of defense,
Ashton B. Carter, said last week to the Senate armed services committee, “I
very much incline in that direction.”
They are wrong.
Going down that road would be a huge mistake for the United States, NATO and
Ukraine itself. Sending weapons to Ukraine will not rescue its army and will
instead lead to an escalation in the fighting. Such a step is especially
dangerous because Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and is seeking to defend a vital
strategic interest.
There is no
question that Ukraine’s military is badly outgunned by the separatists, who
have Russian troops and weapons on their side. Because the balance of power
decisively favors Moscow, Washington would have to send large amounts of
equipment for Ukraine’s army to have a fighting chance.
But the conflict
will not end there. Russia would counter-escalate, taking away any temporary
benefit Kiev might get from American arms. The authors of the think tank study
concede this, noting that “even with enormous support from the West, the
Ukrainian Army will not be able to defeat a determined attack by the Russian
military.” In short, the United States cannot win an arms race with Russia over
Ukraine and thereby ensure Russia’s defeat on the battlefield.
Proponents of
arming Ukraine have a second line of argument. The key to success, they maintain,
is not to defeat Russia militarily, but to raise the costs of fighting to the
point where Mr. Putin will cave. The pain will supposedly compel Moscow to
withdraw its troops from Ukraine and allow it to join the European Union and
NATO and become an ally of the West.
This coercive
strategy is also unlikely to work, no matter how much punishment the West
inflicts. What advocates of arming Ukraine fail to understand is that Russian
leaders believe their country’s core strategic interests are at stake in
Ukraine; they are unlikely to give ground, even if it means absorbing huge
costs.
Great powers react
harshly when distant rivals project military power into their neighborhood,
much less attempt to make a country on their border an ally. This is why the
United States has the Monroe Doctrine, and today no American leader would ever
tolerate Canada or Mexico joining a military alliance headed by another great
power.
Russia is no
exception in this regard. Thus Mr. Putin has not budged in the face of
sanctions and is unlikely to make meaningful concessions if the costs of the
fighting in Ukraine increase.
Upping the ante in
Ukraine also risks unwanted escalation. Not only would the fighting in eastern
Ukraine be sure to intensify, but it could also spread to other areas. The
consequences for Ukraine, which already faces profound economic and social
problems, would be disastrous.
The possibility
that Mr. Putin might end up making nuclear threats may seem remote, but if the
goal of arming Ukraine is to drive up the costs of Russian interference and
eventually put Moscow in an acute situation, it cannot be ruled out. If Western
pressure succeeded and Mr. Putin felt desperate, he would have a powerful
incentive to try to rescue the situation by rattling the nuclear saber.
Our understanding
of the mechanisms of escalation in crises and war is limited at best, although
we know the risks are considerable. Pushing a nuclear-armed Russia into a
corner would be playing with fire.
Advocates of
arming Ukraine recognize the escalation problem, which is why they stress
giving Kiev “defensive,” not “offensive,” weapons. Unfortunately, there is no
useful distinction between these categories: All weapons can be used for
attacking and defending. The West can be sure, though, that Moscow will not see
those American weapons as “defensive,” given that Washington is determined to
reverse the status quo in eastern Ukraine.
The only way to
solve the Ukraine crisis is diplomatically, not militarily. Germany’s chancellor,
Angela Merkel, seems to recognize that fact, as she has said Germany will not
ship arms to Kiev. Her problem, however, is that she does not know how to bring
the crisis to an end.
She and other
European leaders still labor under the delusion that Ukraine can be pulled out
of Russia’s orbit and incorporated into the West, and that Russian leaders must
accept that outcome. They will not.
To save Ukraine
and eventually restore a working relationship with Moscow, the West should seek
to make Ukraine a neutral buffer state between Russia and NATO. It should look
like Austria during the Cold War. Toward that end, the West should explicitly
take European Union and NATO expansion off the table, and emphasize that its
goal is a nonaligned Ukraine that does not threaten Russia. The United States
and its allies should also work with Mr. Putin to rescue Ukraine’s economy, a
goal that is clearly in everyone’s interest.
It is essential
that Russia help end the fighting in eastern Ukraine and that Kiev regain control
over that region. Still, the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk should be given
substantial autonomy, and protection for Russian language rights should be a
top priority.
Crimea, a casualty
of the West’s attempt to march NATO and the European Union up to Russia’s
doorstep, is surely lost for good. It is time to end that imprudent policy
before more damage is done — to Ukraine and to relations between Russia and the
West.
John J.
Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is
the author of “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.”
Thanks to The New
York Times
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