Today, September 27, 2022, is meant to mark the end of rigged referendums in four Ukrainian regions presently occupied by Russia. These referenda are likely to be used as a pretext for Moscow to annex these regions, just as it did with Crimea in 2014. While no other country is likely to acknowledge these seizures as legitimate, President Vladimir Putin has said any Ukrainian attacks on these captured provinces would be tantamount to attacks on Russian territory. He has threatened to use nuclear arms against Ukraine in such a situation and could very well also declare war on the United States and other NATO countries who have provided highly sophisticated military aid to Kyiv since the invasion began. The odds of nuclear war are the highest they’ve been since the worst chapters of the Cold War. What’s more, neither side shows any credible sign of stepping back from the brink, stepping ever closer to the precipice of epic death and destruction.
To be sure, Putin has shown himself desperate and humiliated. Once expected to readily conquer Ukraine, the Russian military has suffered high casualties and slow progress. Vehicles went without fuel and soldiers ran out of food and ammunition. Ukrainian forces, with U.S. help, targeted and killed several prominent Russian generals, who were trying to impose command and control on its muddled, exhausted units. Reports of Russian war crimes, including the massacre of civilians, seem less a symptom of decreed brutality as wanton cruelty on the part of rank-and-file soldiers on the rampage. A Ukrainian counteroffensive exceeded expectations and forced Russian forces to retreat. Most recently, the mass mobilization of military-age men within Russia has led to large protests and, in some cases, violence against the state. Putin’s recklessness makes a sort of sense as an extreme bid to make the show of dominance he meant the invasion to be.
What does not make sense is why the U.S. seems equally keen on escalation. A critical stopgap spending bill being considered on Capitol Hill is said to include more than $12 billion in Ukraine-related aid. This follows a recent announcement by the White House that the U.S. will supply another round of military aid to Ukraine, this time for $600 million, after pledging almost $3 billion in such aid last month. Notably, the U.S. is giving Ukraine more HIMARS rocket launchers, already responsible for decisive surgical strikes on Russian control posts and storage depots. There is no limit to how generous the U.S. government will be with its coffers (not so for “trivial” matters like COVID relief), and each astronomical amount is met with rare bipartisan applause.
Yet there seems to be less attention paid to a fundamental question: what does the U.S. hope to be the return on its investment? What does Washington want to achieve in Ukraine?
The answer is twofold: the U.S. wants to weaken Russia and help Ukraine win. The former goal has arguably already been achieved, assuming it was ever necessary. Hawks on both sides have had a reality check when it comes to the capacity of the Russian Bear. With no end in sight, the situation in Ukraine is comparable to the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s or the 1994 Chechen war of independence. In both those cases, though, Russia had defeated its inferiorly equipped opponents, establishing control over the areas under contention before ultimately withdrawing after grueling guerilla resistance.
Ukraine might well have gone the same way, with a fast capitulation giving way to years of insurgency and a subsequent Russian exit. Instead, the Russian invasion faltered on its own. The Western media turned Volodymyr Zelenskyy into a celebrity underdog. The tenacious Ukrainians, or so the narrative went, could beat the Russian colossus all on their own—if only they had adequate weapons and resources, provided by the U.S.
From the outset, however, the conditions began to multiply. Ukraine can beat Russia—if only the U.S. enforces a no-fly zone, shooting down Russian planes if necessary. Ukraine can beat Russia—if only the U.S. sends even more advanced weapons, capable of hitting targets inside Russia. There is a grudging recognition that it is only a matter of time before Russia’s overwhelming advantages lead to the inevitable result. The true condition of Ukraine winning a conventional war against Russia is for U.S. assistance to reach a point where Washington is at war with Russia—in essence, if not by declaration.
And so, the Biden administration finds itself in the untenable position of supporting Ukraine, no matter the cost (literally!) while tiptoeing around anything that could be construed as provocative of Russia. “Passive escalation” is still escalation, however, and stands in contrast to a negotiated settlement. The U.S.’s refusal to concede its post-Cold War status as unipolar hegemon and accept limits to its power means it will stay the course, even if that course leads to nuclear war.
This is consistent with how the U.S. foreign policy influenced the conflict. Washington’s relentless expansion of NATO after the USSR’s dissolution erased all opportunities for a post-Soviet Russian rapprochement with the West and set the stage for what is a classic Cold War proxy war—even though it is over three decades since the Cold War came to its anticlimactic end. If the mentality of the U.S. foreign policy establishment does not change, the chances of the long-dreaded climatic exchange of nuclear arsenals will stay alive.
Bizarrely, most of the criticism directed at the White House’s approach in Ukraine is that it has been too cautious and too ineffective. Even if we are mere minutes from midnight on the Doomsday Clock, Kori Schalke of the American Enterprise Institute writes in The New York Times we should remove the “constraints” on our support for Ukraine and forgo “passive escalation” for the more aggressive variety. Meanwhile, on the U.S. left, there is virtually no anti-war movement to speak of. Too scared of being called “Putin apologists,” most celebrate the so-called “guardrails” Biden has placed on U.S. policy regarding Ukraine. It is like saying the descent to Hell is safe because Satan has added banisters. The manner in which nuclear war begins—recklessly or responsibly—is irrelevant, next to taking every step to make sure it never happens.
Bakunin Matata! 