No one could make the case against supplying weapons to Ukraine better than my good friend Rajan Menon, a professor of political science at City College of New York. So, if his best shot falls short, then it’s safe to say that there is no sound argument against America’s provision of military hardware to Ukraine.
That best shot appeared last week as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. And it falls far short of what it sets out to be—a persuasive critique of a report released by the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that argues for US supplies of weapons to Ukraine. Here’s Menon’s first charge:
The group assumes that sending Ukraine arms will send Russian President Vladimir Putin a clear message. … They assume that Putin will recalculate and wind down the war once he sees that the United States is serious about backing Ukraine and that victory will be costlier, bloodier, and more uncertain than he’d anticipated. Well, that’s one possibility. But it’s not the only one. Putin’s main defense for his war has been that the West is actively undermining Russia’s security by drawing into its orbit what from the Russian standpoint is a critical country. Arming Ukraine, therefore, probably would prompt Putin to scale up the war. He would send the secessionists more troops, advisors, and arms.
Ironically, Menon actually agrees that it’s possible for Putin to “recalculate and wind down.” How could Menon disagree? The argument that leaders respond to negative incentives—higher costs, more blood, greater uncertainty—is conventional wisdom among policymakers, diplomats, and academics. Only fanatics impervious to any kind of cost-benefit analysis would push ahead with suicidal behavior, and Menon is not calling Putin a fanatic. Menon mistakenly says: “The presumption that Putin will back off once Kiev gets US weaponry is not based on evidence but hope. And hope is not a strategy.” In fact, this “presumption” is based on a history of effective deterrence in geopolitics accompanied by academic studies. Menon’s protestations to the contrary, the outcome anticipated by the report is perfectly possible, especially given Menon’s implicit assumption of the primacy of geopolitical interests.
So why does Menon lean toward the possibility that Putin would “scale up the war”? Because, in the Kremlin’s view, Ukraine is a “critical country.” Disregard the obvious riposte: that Ukraine is also a “critical country” for the United States and Europe, assuming the West intends to preserve the global postwar security architecture that Putin’s aggression threatens to dismantle. Rather, focus on Menon’s claim that “Putin’s main defense for his war has been that the West is actively undermining Russia’s security.” That’s just not true. The war against Ukraine began with the Kremlin’s occupation of Crimea, from where it spread to the Donbas. From the start, Putin has been unequivocal about his reasons for attacking Ukraine: the need to defend Russians and Russian speakers from the “fascist junta” that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych in Kyiv and the imperative to reclaim sacred and historically Russian territory. Which makes sense, as Putin’s war was a response to Ukraine’s democratic Maidan Revolution, which enshrined people power and posed a direct threat to his rule. Domestic and ideological rationales have always overshadowed invocations of some Western threat in his pronouncements—which also makes sense, as NATO’s supposed interest in “drawing” Ukraine into its “orbit” is nonexistent (and only an ideologically driven Putin could not know that).
Menon says that US weapons supplies would lead “Putin to scale up the war. He would send the secessionists more troops, advisors, and arms.” But Putin has relentlessly committed “more troops, advisors, and arms” since his annexation of Crimea! When the West and Ukraine did nothing in response, he escalated. When the West imposed minor sanctions, he escalated. When the Ukrainians took a beating in September, he escalated. When the Minsk cease-fire occurred, Putin escalated. Whatever the West and Ukraine do, Putin escalates. As Menon rightly says, “There’s not a shred of evidence that Putin has changed course in Ukraine. To the contrary. Moscow’s backing for the separatists has increased, enabling them to regain some of the land lost to Ukraine’s counteroffensive.” Quite. Giving Ukraine arms won’t be the thing that makes Putin escalate whenever he does so again.
Menon’s next argument relates to the supposed absence of a Plan B. As he says, “There’s a basic axiom in war: Don’t take a big step (or even a small one) without having thought hard, and planned for, what you will do if it doesn’t have the intended effect.”
Ignore the fact that Menon has no Plan B, and that, logically, his response to all further Russian aggression would have to be: do nothing, lest the Russians escalate. Here’s the more important problem with this thinking: Military assistance to Ukraine is more like a Plan D. Plan A was for the West and Ukraine to protest. Putin escalated in response. Plan B was sanctions. They’re destroying the Russian economy, but, once again, Putin escalated. Plan C was the Minsk cease-fire—and Putin escalated. Military assistance is not an alternative to current policy; it’s a logical outgrowth of the failure of Western policy to stop the Russian aggression. And it’s an approach that is rooted in the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment in both the West and Russia. The only thing that could stop Putin is some combination of soft and hard power—of diplomacy, economic pressure, and military threats. The West’s mistake has been to embark on these actions serially, and not simultaneously. By arming Ukraine, the United States and its allies would finally be in the position to engage in effective diplomacy and bring about a peaceful solution to the war.
Menon’s final argument is this: “But here’s the plan’s biggest flaw. Imagine that a Ukrainian army beefed up with American weaponry suffers serial defeats. … What then? … We would have to retreat or wade in deeper.”
This argument is far too simple. Why should the Ukrainians necessarily suffer serial defeats if, as every Ukrainian policymaker who knows Ukraine can’t beat Russia will tell you, the point of getting US weapons is to deter the Russians and prevent them from making further territorial gains? Even if the Russians escalate in response—and they escalate regardless of what the West does—why does Menon assume that they’d be willing to throw all caution to the wind and escalate so severely? Why does Menon assume that supplies of arms have to be so huge as to transform Ukraine into a strategic threat that Russia feels impelled to nip in the bud? Why does he assume that US policymakers are irrationally incapable of recognizing their own country’s interests and simultaneously saying yes to Ukrainian self-defense and no to war with Russia?
Assumptions, like hope, are not a strategy.
