Is There a Path to Victory in Ukraine?

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.