A Loss in Ukraine Would Grievously Harm America

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has posed a direct challenge to the national sovereignty of an independent country, just as it continues to lead to extensive suffering, especially due to the attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Yet beyond these direct consequences for Ukraine and the Ukrainians, the invasion represents nothing less than an assault on the established international order, an effort to redraw recognized state borders through the use of force. Such a threat is also a challenge to the United States, as the primary guarantor of that order — one of many reasons why Washington has interests in the outcome.

The specifics of Moscow’s goals have remained ambiguous. Some statements by President Putin provide evidence that one maximalist war goal includes the complete obliteration of Ukraine as an independent polity altogether, far more than limited effort to adjust borders or to support the Russian population exclaves in the Donbas. The ultimate outcome may be less — something in between — e.g., seizing the Black Sea coast while leaving a landlocked Ukraine as a pseudo-independent state surrounded by Russia. In any case, the abrogation of international legal norms is profound.

In addition, the violation of Ukrainian national sovereignty — whatever the ultimate outcome — goes against the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, when Ukraine surrendered its Soviet-era nuclear arms in return for security guarantees from Russia, the US, and the UK. Consequently, a further casualty of the war pertains to nuclear non-proliferation. In the future, no state will be inclined to give up its nuclear weapons in return for diplomatic guarantees that can turn out to be worthless, as Ukraine has had to learn.

One grand achievement of the late 20th century was the establishment of a zone of international law guaranteeing the national sovereignty of the states across the larger European space. The lessons of two world wars and the Cold War seemed to have been learned. This is no longer the case.

Russia has shown that international borders are again just as vulnerable as was the Polish border to the German invasion of September 1939. An awareness that Europe must prepare for war, if hopefully to prevent it, has begun to spread across the continent, as evidenced by German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech to the Bundestag of February 27, 2022.

If the Federal Republic of Germany can begin, albeit sluggishly, to overcome its historical pacifism, so can others. Poland has emerged as a particularly strong military power. More NATO member nations are moving toward devoting the 2% of GDP to security, to which they obligated themselves in the Wales Pledge of 2014, and Sweden and Finland have joined the alliance.

To be sure, Russia has not been able to achieve victory. The limits of its military power have been exposed, and the domestic stability of the Putin dictatorship is far from guaranteed. Nonetheless, Ukraine has not been able to deliver a decisive counter-blow. Russia might yet win. It is therefore prudent to consider the geostrategic consequences of a conclusion that involves Russian gains.

A Russian capture of the coast from Crimea to Transnistria would turn the Black Sea into a Russian-Turkish condominium, leading to stronger ties between Ankara and Moscow, and therefore loosening Turkey’s ties to NATO.

Russian domination in Ukraine would also strengthen Moscow’s hand in Central Asia, while accelerating its partnerships with Iran and China, the new anti-American axis. Furthermore, if Russia prevails in Ukraine, one should expect Moscow to pursue interests in the already flammable Balkans, at which point the European order will be further undermined.

Would the fall of Kyiv lead to another Sarajevo and the historical conflagration indelibly associated with the name of that city? That is a worst case scenario, but in the era of great power competition, in which Putin himself has engaged in nuclear saber-rattling, there is reason enough to face up to the really-existing dangers.

Leaving aside the values considerations — the human rights violations and war crimes faced by the Ukrainians — and even leaving aside the international law implications of the Russian invasion, it is vital that the United States take very seriously the expansionist ambitions of a revanchist Russia intent on asserting itself throughout parts of the formerly Soviet world and, in particular, into the heart of Europe.

Conquering Ukraine is a steppingstone to undermining NATO and the Atlanticist security structure. It is therefore hardly surprising that the US has decried the invasion and provided Ukraine with considerable aid to counter Russia.

Yet this support has been insufficient. Initially the American public rallied to support Ukraine, and that popular support seems initially to have pushed a cautious Biden administration to lean into aiding Ukraine more vigorously. But the war has dragged on, and some war-weariness has set it in. Biden himself has failed to make effective use of his bully pulpit to make the strong case for supporting Ukraine, with the result that public opinion has begun to flag, with isolationist strands on the left and the right gaining ground

In addition, unspoken limits to military aid have become evident. Ukrainian requests for specific systems have first been turned down as impracticable, only to be granted belatedly. In other words, for all the American verbal willingness to support Ukraine, the arms provided have been sometimes too late, sometimes too little, and sometimes too old.

For a while it seemed that the Biden administration was only providing sufficient support for the Ukrainians to keep them fighting but not enough to achieve victory. This hesitation reflects indecision in the administration concerning the risks in achieving a clear Russian defeat. Does Washington prefer vacillation to victory? There is no evidence of a commitment to win the competition with Russia — in the sense of former President Reagan’s spirited formula “we win, they lose.” It is Ukraine that is paying the price for this timidity toward Moscow.

It is useful, if worrisome, to consider US policy at this point toward the Ukraine War against the backdrop of the conclusion of the Afghanistan War. The differences are obviously enormous; most importantly, Afghanistan involved an international effort led by the US, at enormous cost in blood and treasure. President Trump was therefore focused on bringing that war to an end, and his administration agreed on a process with the Taliban to wind it down . There is an argument that President Biden was not obligated to carry through with that Trump-era agreement because the Taliban had not lived up to the terms it had promised. Nonetheless Biden did choose to withdraw the American troops in a way that the world has come to recognize as an embarrassing defeat.

Losing in Ukraine — like the loss in Afghanistan — would represent an enormous blow to American credibility as a force for security and stability across the world. The implications for Taiwan and other western Pacific nations will be clear. It is this geostrategic map that shows why it is vital for the proxy forces of the West in Ukraine to prevail, just as they must in Gaza.

The US is fortunate to have partners willing to fight for their own defense, but it is crucial for Washington to provide support. Insufficient backing will have grievous implications for American interests.

Russell A. Berman is a Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor at Stanford University. He previously served as Senior Advisor on the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State under President Trump. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.