Discussions around the Ukraine crisis have mainly focused on the causes of the massive and disturbing Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border, what would happen during an invasion, and the policy options available to the United States. and their allies. Relatively less attention has been paid to the question of whether Russian strongman Vladimir Putin will achieve his goals forcefully – or whether an unprovoked invasion of a democratic neighbor might in fact be a terrible strategic mistake.

This is a question we (not to mention Putin himself) should ask ourselves. The history of this type of unnecessary violence is not favorable to its perpetrators, who almost always end up losing more than they expected or gained from the war.

War is above all very costly and represents a failure of negotiation to resolve outstanding issues between states. No one yet knows if this war will really take place or if it will be the most elaborate and sustained international confrontation of the century, but Russia’s stated objectives – to force the withdrawal of NATO forces from Eastern Europe, a formal agreement that NATO expansion is complete, and more — are both wildly unrealistic and out of touch with the situation on the ground. Annexing more territory in eastern Ukraine or creating a territorial corridor to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria can serve Moscow’s interests in various ways, but it won’t undo earlier expansions. of NATO nor will it prevent future additions to the alliance.

Putin may be considering war because he wants Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky and his democratic regime gone, and that is not something that can be achieved without force or assassination. But it is a terrible and self-defeating goal, likely to mire Russia in civil conflict for years to come, even if it succeeds on its own terms.

No one understands this better than policymakers in Washington, still reeling from two decades of war after willingly toppling dictatorships in Iraq and Afghanistan. By some estimates, the United States will ultimately spend more money on these wars (including future veterans’ obligations) than the gross value of all oil imported into the United States since 1980. All that money and sacrifice bought little from the United States other than a dramatic deterioration in the regional security situation and the emancipation of Iran, its main regional rival.

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For Putin, a regime change operation would be a dramatic escalation of Russia’s earlier interference in the former Soviet periphery, a maneuver he did not attempt against a much weaker Georgia in 2008. And even if everything goes as planned on the battlefield, Russia would then be in a position to maintain a new puppet regime despised by more than half of the Ukrainian population. If the plan is to annex the whole country, it should be noted that this has not been successfully achieved by any country for a significant period since Indonesia with East Timor in 1975. And that, in the long term, s It ended pretty badly for Jakarta.

But we are getting ahead. Ukraine is not a rag doll that Russia can push away. As Seth Jones and Philip Wasielewski write at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Mechanized attacks are not always as fast as attackers hope.” As they point out, it took weeks to eliminate a very small militia from the Chechen capital of Grozny in 1994. Granted, that was probably the nadir of modern Russian military might, but Ukraine has a number of towns larger than Grozny, and Putin should expect a vigorous defense from regular Ukrainian forces as well as militias and individuals should the Ukrainian military break down. If Russian forces move from ethnically mixed areas to those where Ukrainians are overwhelmingly in the majority, the road will not be easy.

The Russian army dwarfs that of the Ukraine in size, but the defender generally enjoys an advantage in warfare, especially when the stakes are existential. The winter and spring climate in Ukraine could also be a major obstacle to overcome. And the war will involve a number of untested questions about combat between two well-armed armies sporting the latest technological innovations (though Russia’s air superiority is undisputed). I have yet to read expert analysts who believe that Ukraine can successfully defeat the full force of the Russian war machine on the battlefield, but the costs to Russia in life and treasure will likely be very high – and surely higher than Putin is betting.

As the Biden administration has placed Ukraine outside its security perimeter, Kiev’s Western allies are reportedly eagerly funding insurgent forces fighting a Russian occupation, further raising the costs of adventurism. After being the target of two decades of insurrection, American military advisers know how to turn things around. Unless she wants to cut them off and wait for them, Russian forces will find that taking and holding dense cities will be a tough and brutal affair.

But the material costs of keeping a modern, urban country under wraps could be eclipsed by Russia’s long-term return to aggression.

Far from achieving the far-fetched goal of evacuating NATO from Eastern Europe, Russia’s conquest of Ukraine would likely spur new defense spending and the deployment of forces in Poland, Slovakia, Romania and in the Baltic States in particular. It could even trigger renewed and more serious talks about Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Instead of helping Moscow break out of what it perceives to be its NATO encirclement, the invasion of Ukraine may instead hasten it. If Putin argues that NATO enlargement is unnecessary because Russia is not a threat, he can do nothing to destroy that argument but invade Ukraine.

The Biden administration is also preparing to roll out what Edward Alden to Foreign Police call him “sanctions doomsday device,” or what Sen. Bob Menendez (DN.J.) calls it”the mother of all penaltiesThese could prevent Russia from accessing US dollars and markets in critical areas like semiconductors. While Moscow could respond by cutting off natural gas supplies to Europe, triggering chaos. economic, in the long term, countries dependent on Russian supplies would invest in technological innovation, seek more sustainable sources of energy and make other adjustments as Western countries have done in response to Arab oil embargoes 1970s. Russia is unlikely to come out on top. Even a limited invasion of Ukraine would likely result in a competition to see who can suffer the most economic pain – an outcome, it goes without saying, that does not benefit person.

What would like the benefit for all parties, even at this late date and despite an accelerating mistrust, would be to sit down together and identify issues that can be resolved through compromise. NATO cannot promise to freeze at its current size, but a promise never to bring Ukraine in, if it avoids a major war, would certainly be preferable to a bloodbath.

Ukraine and its allies are unlikely to avoid war without such painful concessions, and Russia will do much more damage to what it says are limited security objectives in the region with an invasion rather than a negotiated agreement. Whether the relevant policymakers can be brought to see this in time to avert one of post-war Europe’s worst security blackouts is an open question, but certainly worth a try. .

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