The Urgency of Deterrent Modernization and the Ukraine Quandary
By Peter Huessy, Senior Fellow, National Institute for Deterrent Studies and President, Geo-Strategic Analysis
President Reagan spent his political career working to end the USSR. If we failed to defend Ukraine, we would be helping Putin recreate the USSR or a new Russian empire, which seems to be a really dumb idea. Yet too many are supporting the narrative that Ukraine’s sovereignty is irrelevant to US security, even as the US fails to move at the speed of relevance in “providing for the common defense.”
But on the flip side wanting to defend Ukraine doesn’t mean the path to victory is open. Most troublesome however has been the sense that the US and Ukraine have no achievable plan to kick Russia out of Ukraine. The US instead primarily has emphasized the need for restraint in order to prevent any escalation of the conflict that would include the use of nuclear weapons. Which Mr. Putin has serially threatened to use. With the recent use against Ukraine of what is apparently a Russia ICBM but with a conventional warhead, Putin is reminding everyone that there are a lot more very deadly missiles where that one came from!
However, it must be emphasized one cannot under any kind of rules based order change international borders, using military force, whether a cross border tank invasion as in Korea in June 1950 or guerrilla terror wars against the Republic of Vietnam. That is why the US and a wide coalition kicked Saddam out of Kuwait, why Thacher kicked Argentina out of the Falklands, why Truman sent Americans to Korea and a series of US President’s sent Americans to Vietnam. Whatever the era, it is what tyranny does whether the USSR during the Cold War, Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany in WWII or Russia, the CCP or Iran today.
On the other hand, when the United States pledged to protect Ukraine sovereignty in 1994, we did not take sufficient measures to fulfill that promise and it was unclear how serious the US and British pledge was. .
In 2008, Russia invaded Moldova and Georgia and the United States did very little in response. In 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine and the United States response was not to come to the defense of Ukraine but actually to place an arms embargo against Ukraine. Our assistance consisted of sending Ukraine blankets
Ukraine poses zero military threat to Russia. Similarly, the NATO border states with Russia—such as Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania– are no threat as they do not have the necessary offensive force structure to invade a country and hold territory the strength or size of Russia. Now NATO does have the joint forces that are designed to deter an attack on the territory of any of its members. In that respect NATO is very much a defensive alliance. But it stands against Russian hegemonic power in Europe.
Unfortunately, there is not an apparent strategy for victory by Ukraine on the table, nor does there appear to be such a strategy in development. It also appears that Russia, using just conventional arms, cannot swallow all of Ukraine no matter how many North Korean soldiers are sent into the cauldron of military conflict. Though some observers think the conflict has begun to tilt in the direction of Moscow.
For three years, Mr. Putin has threatened the United States with an escalation using nuclear weapons, especially should the United States and NATO supply Ukraine with weapons capable of striking into Russia. The US has provided such missiles but the Putin threats have been so frequent they have now begun to make Europe, NATO and the United States to not take them seriously.
And by assuming the Putin threats are only bluff, the US may assume our current deterrent capabilities are sufficient and lose a sense of urgency to robustly modernize our nuclear deterrent, especially our less than sufficient theater nuclear forces.
Now Mr. Putin has recently lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. His new doctrine includes the right to attack with nuclear weapons any nation which is allied with another nation that does have weapons such as the alliance of Ukraine and the USA
He also expanded the doctrine to allow attacks against not just Russian assets within Russia proper but also Russian interests outside of the homeland.
Given the current apparent inability of either country to obtain victory, on the table being widely discussed is a ceasefire and move to an armistice which might include the creation of a demilitarized zone. A key issue may be whether Mr. Putin will take an off ramp if offered by the United States. Or whether Putin will continue the conflict even while the Russian economy struggles.* And continue multipole Russian attacks against other NATO countries involving cyber, assassinations and infrastructure sabotage.
What kind of future deal might be negotiated? Russian territorial occupation of areas it has conquered; some sort of buffer zone to separate armed forces; a long delay if not prevention of Ukraine’s entry into NATO; and some sort of security guarantees for Ukraine short of such membership.
Russian expert Stephen Blank with the FPRI sees this kind of a deal as a disaster. Ukraine would be surrendering its territory and as such begin the dismembering of its territory. Putin’s aggression would be rewarded, and the beginning of the unraveling of NATO would start, a long sought Soviet and now Russian objective. And future efforts to support a NATO member subject to criminal Russian aggression may be difficult to achieve given such an outcome of the Ukraine conflict.
Deterrence is serious business, especially at the nuclear level. And our robust nuclear deterrent is designed to deter at all levels of conflict because it is regional conflicts that most likely could escalate to the nuclear level. And as military leaders have told Congress, “nothing holds” when nuclear force is introduced into a conventional battlefield. Probably exactly what President Yeltsin had in mind when he signed a 1999 decree calling for the development of small, low yield, battlefield nuclear weapons. There is a now a greater urgency than ever for the United States and its allies to revive, sustain and improve our deterrent across the board, especially the nuclear deterrent that has prevented great power conflict now for 79 years.
