Die for Donbas?–Demented

Vladimir Putin’s Russia has massed large forces on the border of Ukraine, and there are widespread fears that he is planning an invasion. This has led to calls from many in the United States (and to a lesser degree in nations that are actually closer to Ukraine) to deploy military forces–read, American military forces–to Ukraine, and to contest any Russian invasion if it comes to that.

This call to die for Donbas is demented.

It is useful to deconstruct the dementia by breaking the problem into two pieces: (1) whether defending Ukraine is in the strategic interest of the United States, and (2) what would be the costs of of doing so?

The red line that is apparently motivating Putin is the possibility that Ukraine will be admitted to NATO. Put aside whether a Ukraine in NATO would objectively pose a strategic threat to Russia, or whether this is a Putin phobia or part of Putin’s romantic desire to gather Russian lands and reunite brothers divided by a perfidious West. What matters is that he, and most of the Russian establishment (especially the security establishment) believes it. Putin has said repeatedly that it is a red line. We have to accept this as a fact.

If keeping Ukraine out of NATO is a strategic imperative for Putin, is putting Ukraine in NATO a strategic imperative for the United States?

Absolutely not. NATO’s mission from its founding was to keep Russia out of Western Europe. It succeeded. Adding Ukraine to NATO will not advance that objective.

So adding Ukraine would represent mission creep: redefining the part of the world that we want to keep Russia out of. Is it desirable that Ukraine remain independent? Probably, but mainly for Ukrainians. But it’s hardly a major strategic interest of the United States. How would American security decline if Ukraine was in Russia, or in Russian orbit? Hardly a whit.

So the stakes for Russia are high and the stakes for the United States are minuscule. It is never advisable to enter into a contest with such an imbalance of stakes.

And as I’ve written before, expanding NATO by adding countries that increase the alliance’s obligations without increasing its capabilities is idiocy. Indeed, it’s worse than that. Adding countries like Ukraine degrades NATO’s capabilities. As I’ve also written before, it is crippled by the need for unanimous decision making: adding members with divergent interests and concerns only magnifies the difficulties of achieving coherent action. It is inimical to the unity of command (something Russia possesses, by the way, and NATO already does not). Moreover, as (yet again) I’ve written before, adding countries that are unduly prone to Russian influence is a particularly stupid way to strengthen an alliance against Russia. (Hell, Putin might want to rethink his opposition to Ukraine in NATO just for that reason. I’m reminded of a story–the source of which I can’t trace so this is based on memory–that Napoleon actually rejoiced at the news that another country had joined a coalition against him, precisely because he knew this would undermine its unity of action.)

It is said about Mexico “so close to the United States, so far from God.” Well, it can be said about Ukraine “so close to Russia, so far from God.” It’s a tragic fate. But addressing that tragedy (which is only one of many tragedies around the world) does not advance American interests.

In addition to being far from God, unlike Mexico Ukraine is also very far from the United States. Which brings us to the second issue: the cost of defending Ukraine, even if it were deemed to be a potentially desirable object of American policy.

Soviet military strategists spoke of the “correlation of forces.” The correlation of forces is decisively on the side of Russia with respect to Ukraine.

Distance is of course a major factor. Ukraine is on Russia’s doorstep. It is thousands of miles and oceans away from the United States, and is even distant from deployable NATO forces in Western Europe. If Russia decided to move tomorrow, the invasion would be over before NATO could do a damn thing about it. And if NATO were somehow able to deploy forces before Russia moved in (which generously assumes that Putin would stand idly by to let such a deployment occur rather than using it as a pretext to launch an invasion) it would be operating at the far end of a very long and vulnerable logistical tail, whereas Russia would be operating with a short and relatively invulnerable one. This makes about as much sense as Custer charging into a huge Sioux and Cheyenne camp on the Little Big Horn, and would probably have a similar result: though Custer could be excused because of his ignorance about just how large the forces he was facing were, whereas NATO commanders could have no such excuse.

The choice would therefore be between abject defeat and a huge escalation that creates the potential for unimaginably horrible consequences.

And for what? (See above re the negligible stakes for the US and NATO.)

I should also note that the United States has a doleful record when it comes to attempting to defend and prop up dysfunctional and corrupt nations–and make no mistake, Ukraine is a Sovok sewer of corruption. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. In each case, vast amounts of American treasure and huge numbers of American lives were expended in the futile hope of creating functioning states out of dysfunctional ones. And the dysfunctions made the mission impossible, and moreover deeply damaged and corrupted the American military (cf. the Afghanistan Papers).

Uber realist Bismarck memorably said that the Balkans were “not worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” America needs to be uber realistic, and recognize that not only is Ukraine not worth the healthy bones of a single Texan Marine, it would cost many, many such skeletons.

This is a time when it is imperative to take a tragic view of history. Too often in the 100+ years the United States has taken a missionary, progressive, romantic, and idealistic view instead. It has always worked out horribly.

Can we finally learn our lesson?

A couple of political notes. First, there is a report today that the Biden administration is advising Ukraine to concede extensive Russian control over the Donbas. In light of the above, that is wise. But can you imagine the hue and cry if Trump had said that. Perhaps we are lucky Trump is not president–he would have been under much greater political pressure to intervene in Ukraine than Biden will be.

Relatedly, the call to defend Ukraine with Americans is an illustration of the Russia mania that has beset the American political “elite” in the past 5 years. It truly is a mental illness.

Second, it is no coincidence comrade, that the crisis is coming to a head when Nordstream II is ready for operations and Europe is desperate for energy. The former potentially allows Russia to have its Ukrainian cake and its gas revenues too. The latter makes the EU (aka the Fourth Reich) acutely vulnerable to Russia and therefore far less likely to intervene in any way–including sanctions, for that matter. (This also means that the US could not depend on Germany and other NATO nations for meaningful military support, even assuming that the Broomstick Brigades of the Bundeswehr have any to offer.)

For this the blame lays squarely on perfidious Germany and on Angela Merkel in particular. And ironically, exactly what Trump warned them about, and which Merkel and the rest of the European establishment dismissed haughtily, is coming to pass.