Blood and Toil

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a NATO renaissance, at least rhetorically. It appears rejuvenated, robust, and capable of confronting Russia in the long-term. Nevertheless, the Ukraine War has merely obfuscated severe political fissures within NATO. Ironically, they are the inverse of the difficulties NATO faced in the early Cold War. It is not America, prone to isolationism and jealous of its sovereign rights, which might abandon NATO, but Western Europe, skittish at suffering high commodity prices, which is most likely to seek a settlement with Russia at NATO and Ukraine’s expense.  Considering the likelihood of Russian ceasefire overtures come this fall, the U.S. must prepare to confront Russia beyond NATO.

Second, Mr. Putin strives to maintain Russia’s hold on Ukraine’s south. This is the real strategic prize in the war, insofar as it provides Russia with tangible economic and military benefits. Combined, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts produce between 10 and 20 percent of Ukrainian food exports, depending upon the crop. Some Ukrainian agricultural produce is stored near these major ports, giving Russia access to even more foodstuffs in the near-term. Hence the bumper crops that Crimean and Caucasian farmers have reported for this year almost certainly include Ukrainian goods. Apart from Odesa, moreover, Russia now controls all of Ukraine’s major ports. Hence Russia, by holding Ukraine’s south and limiting its own food exports, can pressure the global food supply. Additionally, holding Ukraine’s south provides a land bridge to Crimea, which before February 24^th was under long-term Ukrainian pressure. With the south in hand, even absent, Odesa, Russia holds a dominating position in the Black Sea.

The issue for Russia is time, the most expensive item in any combat arsenal. Ukraine is gathering strength. It has slowed Russia’s incremental advance in the Donbas, using long-range artillery and stubborn determination to disrupt the Russian offensive. Meanwhile, new Ukrainian units are preparing for combat. Few have seen active service yet, but they are likely being held in reserve for a major offensive. This offensive will come in the south, again the war’s strategically critical operational area. Indeed, Ukraine has shaped conditions in Kherson Oblast to its benefit, slowly pinching the Russian line and pushing towards the Dnieper River, while also stabilizing and maintaining its positions in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

With enough time, Russia can take the Donbas, blanketing Ukrainian positions with artillery fire to compensate for its lack of trained infantry and making Ukraine recoil under relentless bombardment.  Yet all things equal, this would take weeks: with growing Ukrainian long-range fires, this may now take months. Russia can do little to disrupt Ukraine’s counteroffensive.  Ukrainian air defenses have been robust throughout the war, and will improve with new Western technology, reducing the impact of stand-off bombardment despite Russia’s apparent technical advantages. A new offensive axis to cut Ukraine’s supply route to the West is nearly impossible. Russia has committed all but covering forces to the Donbas, retains a small reserve in Belgorod, and despite its public pretensions, will extract little manpower from covert and limited mobilization.  Belarusian intervention remains improbable.

If Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south gets underway before Russia takes the Donbas, the Kremlin will be in an extremely dangerous operational position. There is no indication that Russia could transfer forces rapidly enough to the south to maintain its westernmost positions in the face of concerted Ukrainian pressure. This exposes the Crimea Canal to Ukrainian recapture and threatens all Russian positions west of the T2202 Road. Redeploying units to stabilize the situation, meanwhile, will open it to pressure elsewhere, in Kharkiv Oblast, but also even in the Donbas.  Operating on interior lines, and with better rested and supplied troops, Ukraine will become far more capable of staging additional counteroffensives.

If Russia can survive the initial Ukrainian counteroffensive, however, even ceding ground in Kherson Oblast or abandoning its western positions completely, the time balance shifts again. Western European NATO, namely France and Germany, and to a lesser but still notable extent Italy, remain deeply ambivalent over NATO engagement in Ukraine. This ambivalence stems from deep-seated policy preferences.

Since the 1990s, NATO’s Western European members have slashed their military capabilities and pursued post-historical foreign policies. The allied unity on display after September 11^th was possible only because the stakes were so low. It cost France and Germany nothing to oppose an Islamist organization in the Afghan mountains, particularly when Russia posed no threat. More muscular uses of American power sparked European backlash. Perhaps Franco-German ire stemmed from American bluntness.

Yet if that were so, the Obama administration’s Europhilic policies should have settled all outstanding issues. Instead, it became apparent that France and Germany were happy to leave well enough alone. When Russia invaded Ukraine, after it brutalized Chechnya and functionally annexed part of Georgia, Paris and Berlin had no stomach for a fight. Angela Merkel, Europe’s arch-diplomat and as of 2016-2020 the Leader of the Free World according to the European and internationalist American commentariat, supported the Nord Stream 2 pipeline just three months after the Annexation of Crimea, and as the Donbas War raged.

Paris and Berlin have a distinct strategic perspective. Decisive action at any point until 2021, including the imposition of an effective sanctions regime or significant arms transfers to Ukraine may have deterred Putin’s aggression. At minimum, it would have weakened Russia in the interim, and imposed a much greater cost on Putin’s aggression.  Yet German and French lives would not have been at risk. When little more than moderate economic concerns were at stake, both parties opted for accommodation, masked as “negotiation.” 

France and Germany are slowly waking to a new reality. War in Europe has returned. Russia will conquer Ukraine or collapse. Nuclear threats have resumed. The situation is beyond the comprehension of French and German publics and political leaders, accustomed to unserious politics and sanctimonious diplomacy. Still, France, and to a lesser degree Germany, have provided some military support to Ukraine. Even this is qualified. Germany now demands that Russian exports to Kaliningrad continue.  France waffles between giving Putin exit ramps or defeating him.

The pity is that earlier action could have deterred this crisis. But now that Ukraine has survived because of NATO aid, Putin is at war with the Atlantic Alliance. This war is not yet kinetic, but rather “hybrid,” as the Russians call it. The West is not “fighting to the last Ukrainian.”  Rather, Ukraine is the most militarily active member in a tacit Western coalition. Its immediate legal purpose is to drive Russia from Ukrainian territory, or at least recover Ukraine’s de facto February 24^th borders. But achieving this goal requires, and fulfills the objective, of weakening Russia and securing Europe.

Herein lies the rub. The Russian military may simply crumble in the face of Ukrainian pressure. Alternatively, Russia may escalate severely, hoping to terminate the conflict before its position erodes. More probable is some sort of expanded mobilization, still short of a declaration of war. Effective command decisions can stabilize the front, allowing Russia to hold Zaporizhzhia Oblast, parts of Kharkiv Oblast, and the Donbas for a time – that is, until Ukraine rests, plans, and executes another offensive.

This time gap between Ukraine’s first and second counterattacks is exceedingly dangerous. For Russia will certainly seek a peace settlement in the interim, especially if it can take the Donbas.  The settlement will involve Ukrainian independence, and perhaps even the acceptance of Ukraine’s EU candidacy, in return for Russian territorial control over the Donbas and the South, if possible, including Kherson, if necessary without it.

France and Germany will jump to accept this settlement. It provides a glimmer of hope to the fundamentally economic Europeans whose primary concern since February 24^th has been the economic fallout Russia’s war has caused. Beginning in October, as the winter approaches, Macron, Scholz, and their respective governments will become increasingly aware of public demands to bring down energy prices. Although limited means exist to alleviate this pressure, like expanding nuclear power output, the fundamentals remain: in the short-term only a peace deal can relieve Western European energy pressures and provide French and German households with cheap winter heat. Thus, Paris and Berlin can be expected to endorse rapidly any Russian peace overtures. Paradoxically, Ukrainian success may only fuel their enthusiasm – if Kherson is recaptured, the argument will run, why cannot Kyiv seek to retake Crimea, thereby triggering severe Russian escalation?

The United States should seek to preempt French and German recalcitrance in any way possible. It should also expand arms transfers to Ukraine immediately. The sooner Kyiv has the tools to drive Russian forces from its territory, the more tenable a peace deal becomes: a legitimate offer from the Kremlin, for example, to withdraw from all territory but the Donbas should be entertained, even if this offer will remain unlikely.

Yet the United States must nevertheless entertain a disturbing thought. How might it prosecute a strategy against Russia and ensure Ukraine remains armed and fighting without French and German support?

Two facts break in the U.S.’ favor. First, given the amount of equipment transferred to Ukraine, and the financial support Ukraine has received, France and Germany have little leverage over Ukraine. Only Washington can force Kyiv to negotiate. The U.S. is more insulated from Russia’s commodity pressures than any other NATO member, mitigating the appeal of an American “peace camp.”  Second, although NATO has been tacitly involved in the current crisis, Eastern European NATO has been far more forthcoming than France and Germany. They understand the stakes. Russian victory in Ukraine now means a revision of the European security order. Moscow is a brutal master. So are Paris and Berlin: neither, from Eastern Europe’s perspective, would provide the resources the U.S. has already spent to keep it free of Russian control.

Thus, three steps are necessary to preempt friction in the Atlantic Alliance from derailing support for Ukraine and pressure against Russia.

First, the U.S. should prepare to permanently shift its European forces farther east. Germany still hosts some 35,000 American soldiers. Arrangements should be made now to push at least some of these units to Poland, the Baltic States, Czechia, Slovakia, and Romania and Bulgaria. The U.S. can demonstrate its credibility irrespective of Franco-German recalcitrance by planning in advance to circumvent their pressure.

Second, the U.S. should scale up its ground presence in Eastern Europe through a series of Eastern European only military exercises, perhaps with Scandinavian and British participation. In its public rehearsals for a European war, the U.S. should make it clear it is prepared to fight without Western Europe if necessary.

Third, the U.S. should propose a formal diplomatic arrangement between Ukraine and those Eastern European NATO members most willing to resist Russian aggression. This would not, of course, be termed an “alliance.”  But the U.S. has a similar arrangement in place with Israel, where through a series of treaties it agrees to support Israeli strategic security despite remaining noncommittal on an actual combat deployment in defense of the Jewish state.

In its attempt to scramble European security and collapse NATO, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is far more ambitious than the static and ponderous Soviet machine that sat motionless along the line that separated free Europe from the Warsaw Pact. NATO should be preserved against the possibility that its recalcitrant members may yet awaken. But for today, the frontline European states that understand Russia’s goals and know that they do not stop at whatever victory the Kremlin might claim in Ukraine are the best partners for the U.S. in denying Mr. Putin the hegemony he seeks in Europe.

Seth Cropsey is the founder and president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy and is the author of Mayday and Seablindness.