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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

On Russia and Ukraine, the perspective of a Putin adviser

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 6–ONCE AGAIN, A PRETTY INTERESTING DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS!

This is plausible as to Russia's view of the situation and sobering; an excerpt:

For 25 years, people like myself have been saying that if Nato and Western alliances expand beyond certain red lines, especially into Ukraine, there will be a war. I envisioned that scenario as far back as 1997. In 2008 President Putin said that if Ukraine’s membership of the alliance became a possibility then there will be no Ukraine. He was not listened to. So the first objective is to end Nato’s expansion. Two other objectives have been added: one is the demilitarisation of Ukraine; the other is denazification, because there are people in the Russian government concerned with the rise of ultra-nationalism in Ukraine to the extent that they think it is beginning to resemble Germany in the 1930s. There is also an aim to free the Donbas republics of eight years of constant bombardment….

I don’t know what the outcome of this war will be, but I think it will involve the partition of Ukraine, one way or another. Hopefully there would still be something called Ukraine left at the end. But Russia cannot afford to “lose”, so we need a kind of a victory. And if there is a sense that we are losing the war, then I think there is a definite possibility of escalation. This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war….

[E]scalation in this context means that in the face of an existential threat – and that means a non-victory, by the way, or an alleged defeat – Russia could escalate, and there are dozens of places in the world where it would have a direct confrontation with the United States….

We all feel like we are part of a huge event in history, and it’s not just about war in Ukraine; it’s about the final crash of the international system that was created after the Second World War and then, in a different way, was recreated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, we are witnessing the collapse of an economic system – of the world economic system – globalisation in this form is finished. Whatever we have had in the past is gone. And out of this we have a build-up of many crises that, because of Covid-19, we pretended did not exist. For two years, the pandemic replaced decision-making. Covid was bad enough, but now everybody has forgotten about Covid and we can see that everything is collapsing. Personally, I’m tremendously saddened. I worked for the creation of a viable and fair system. But I am part of Russia, so I only wish that we win, whatever that mean.

(Thanks to Chris Morris for the pointer.)

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50 responses to “On Russia and Ukraine, the perspective of a Putin adviser”

  1. Johnny Eh McDonald

    "There is also an aim to free the Donbas republics of eight years of constant bombardment…."

    So long uti possidetis juris! Another imperialist norm about to bite the dust.

    Reply
  2. Brian Leiter

    It's certainly right up there with protecting the world from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Apologists for aggression do say some curious things.

    Reply
  3. David Wallace

    Interesting; that said, I think an interview with someone this close to Putin is as much a way for the Russian government to make claims about its view as it is a dispassionate informed comment on that view.

    BL: Most certainly!

    Reply
  4. Daniel A Kaufman

    Russia is losing this war demonstrably. Its military is revealed as a paper tiger and Putin as an incompetent war leader. For anyone to take Putin's threats seriously at this point is a mistake. The Russian army couldn't beat Israel's let alone NATO, and Putin isn't nuking anyone either. His threats simply are no longer credible, in the wake of this pathetic, failed invasion.

    Hopefully, the developed world will continue to turn the screws and keep its nerve. Putin only wins this if we embrace the fecklessness we constantly flirt with. But allowing Putin any sort of victory at this point would be a catastrophic mistake. Allowing it to go this far has already incentivized everyone to re-arm or arm-up, as well as pursue nuclear programs, if they don't have one. And allowing it to go farther will simply guarantee zero progress on any substantial global effort, like climate, going forward.

    Reply
  5. Brian Leiter

    I find that a pretty surprising and implausible set of conclusions. Does anyone think the U.S. army is a "paper tiger" because of the disaster in Afghanistan? It's tough to prevail against a committed, domestic resistance. Despite that, Russia has held Crimea for eight years now, and without serious challenge, and is now poised to take over Eastern and Southern Ukraine. The war and killing will only stop when what remains of Ukraine guarantees neutrality. If Russia ends up with Eastern Ukraine as a buffer, as well as the South, in addition to Crimea, and a neutral remnant of Ukraine that NATO won't go near, then Putin will have, in fact, succeeded. Of course, sanctions should continue, so that this exercise in aggression is costly to Russia as well and Putin has a disincentive to aim for more.

    Reply
  6. YAAGS

    The Iraq and Afghanistan wars would have gone much, much worse for us if the Iraqis and Afghanis had thousands upon thousands of stingers and javelins. I imagine that if the U.S. lost tens of thousands of soldiers to similar sorts of Russian arms in the first weeks of either war, the majority of Americans would not blame our leaders and think of Russia as simply protecting the Iraqis and Afghanis from our war of agression. Rather, the U.S. would be overrun with a seething hatred of Russians and ultranationalism. I can't imagine anything different happening in Russia. Maybe some other oligarch or military leader will overthrow Putin, but the Russian people will have an overwhelming hatred for us now. Putin may lose, but Russia is going to be a bitter enemy of the United for at least another generation because of this. If they're forced to withdraw and have no stake in the global economy, they will sponsor unending terrorism and cyberattacks against the U.S. Perhaps even a dirty bomb through proxies like Iran. As long as they maintain their nuclear arsenal they would have nothing to lose. This is why I'm not quite as happy about Russia being slaughtered and humiliated as most neolibs seem to be. Slaughtering and humiliating people generally doesn't make them capitulate and say 'my bad'.

    Reply
  7. David Rosenthal

    How is one seriously supposed to interpret this:

    "This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war."

    For one thing, Russia is the pinnacle of anything except as the supplier of fossil fuels to nearby countries. So it is just the ego of the Russian elite? Their vain wish to restore Russian Empire? To be a world power in some way other than nuclear weapons?

    I agree that this war is bigger than just about Russia and Ukraine; it's about whether the Russian yen for Empire, which requires dominating other countries and other peoples, will be stopped–or, as is possible, encouraged.

    This guy says Russia can't afford to lose. I think Europe and NATO can't afford to lose–where losing means giving up more territory. that would mean that Russia would be encouraged to use its brutal type of scorched-earth warfare elsewhere.

    Let's not keep comparing this to misbegotten US wars; the US has done some very bad things indeed. Let's evaluate this on its own merits.

    Reply
  8. Zeno

    I can't speak for the U.S., but in the UK people do overwhelming blame our leaders for the Iraq war (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan, Libya, etc). It's totally destroyed Blair's reputation on the left and the right, and even among people who usually take no interest in politics. And the hatred of Blair has been robust and persisting – people still can't stand him, many years later. Had Russia or any other country stepped in to arm the Iraqis I don't think the UK population would have swung behind the war and our leaders. It might well have caused some anti-Russian sentiment, but probably not 'seething hatred' and 'ultranationalism' – although of course 'what ifs' are always difficult to judge. Is the US so very different? I don't know.

    I agree with your point about humiliation: the West's biggest mistake was not doing everything it could to mitigate the humiliation of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and Russia's empire (that's what it was, after all). There should have been something like a Marshall Plan. Now we're all in serious trouble, and probably only China comes out of this better off. There are no good options.

    Reply
  9. Rollo Burgess

    To the point made by David Rosenthal, one of the reasons why I think Russia is so dangerous is the extraordinary cognitive dissonance between the self-image as an empire at the pinnacle of some sort of order, and the reality of a poor, backward, and declining nation*. Particularly as this conflict has exposed the hollowness of its conventional military strength the only things Russia can lean on to sustain its delusions are fossil fuel exports and nuclear weapons; the former are unstable given the global decarbonisation agenda and the newfound determination of Germany et al to change direction on their foolish energy policies – that leaves only nukes.

    Reply
  10. Brian Leiter

    Russia is arguably the most powerful anti-U.S. country: it not only has the most nuclear weapons, include the most tactical nuclear weapons, by a very wide margin (this is, sadly, rather important), it also has the 11th largest economy in the world (although a much lower per capita GDP), and the 5th largest active military. China surpasses it on some of these metrics, but is also much larger. As YAAGS pointed out, it does seem to me readers are drawing unwarranted conclusions about the Russian military. (I wish they were warranted, but…)

    Reply
  11. Rollo Burgess

    The Russian military is clearly non-negligible but put it like this – on this showing there is no way that Russia is in a position to initiate further wars in parallel with occupying/fighting in Ukraine. They are already pulling troops out of other deployments they have (e.g. in Georgia) and relying on mercenaries (of dubious effectiveness) to try to salvage pride from this debacle. The idea that they can simultaneously attack Nato in the Baltic states or whatever seems very dubious, assuming we are talking conventional war. The 'Russian steamroller' this ain't.

    The Russian economy is indeed the 11th largest in the world, but it is way smaller than, e.g., that of the UK or France, which are not superpowers on any measure. It is not at all comparable to the economy of China, which is far larger and also a) growing and b) really strong in key sectors of the future, e.g. semiconductor fabs. On a per capita basis both Russia and China are clearly very poor, but this doesn't stop China being able to fund huge military spending due to the enormous absolute size of its economy; Russia is not in such a position.

    Re nukes, I agree absolutely, this is terrifying; I guess my point is that it is about the only terrifying thing about Russia, without the nukes they'd just be a basket case.

    Reply
  12. Zeno

    I think Russians, including the Russian elite, are pretty well aware of their status as a poor, backward and declining nation. That's the impression I've had from Russians I've known, whatever that's worth. It's just that they put a large part of the blame for their situation on the West and on Soviet leaders who, as they see it, allowed their self-confidence to be shaken. Russian geopolitical narratives seem to me to be driven in large part by resentment and a desire to recapture lost glories. Read Karaganov's answers when asked about China again. He's putting a brave face on it but it looks like he knows that Russia's near-term destiny is to be dominated by China. He seems to want Europe to help Russia to counter Chinese hegemony. Of course, as David Wallace implied, it's hard to know how sincere Karaganov is being.

    This connects with the point I made in reply to YAAGS. Part of the reason that the Russian population is disposed to hate the West (to the extent that it is) is that they resent it and nurture a combination of humiliation and sense of injustice. Obviously, having a state-controlled media and a tyrant in charge is another big part of the reason that Russians are disposed to hate the West. This will be the case whether NATO sends arms to Ukraine or not. (And, of course, if NATO doesn't arm Ukraine, the Ukrainians will not forget – and nor will the Poles and the Romanians and so on. Try asking Hungarians what they think of the U.S. Many of them, in some ways perversely, blame the U.S. for 1956, when they expected to receive help. Hungary's position today is not unconnected to this.)

    Reply
  13. YAAGS

    There is a similar reaction in America, but that is because the Iraq war is seen as a boondoggle where we mostly just wasted money and killed Iraqis for no reason. Things would be quite different if we lost and had a huge number of casualties so that almost everyone knew someone who was killed or maimed by the Russian equivalent of a javelin or stinger. And to make it a proper analogy, it would have to be in Mexico or Canada and we would have to watch helplessly as the Russians build bases right on our border afterwards.

    The best analogy for the UK would be if the Russians gave the IRA the equivalent of javelins and stingers, who then defeat the British military and drive all the protestants out of Northern Ireland and back to the UK, and then form and alliance with Russia to build their missile defense and early warning systems in Ireland.

    Reply
  14. Peaceful IR Realist

    Although I agree that commenters here and in throughout the English-speaking media seem to be overstating Russia's military weakness, there do appear to be grounds for concluding that the invasion has gone worse for Russia than Russia expected. The best evidence for this is Russia's own propaganda. Russia initially described the invasion a "special operation," which suggests that the Russians expected to accomplish their goals quickly, and Russia's subsequent announcement that the operation has reached a new phase, where the focus would shift to Eastern Ukraine, has been plausibly interpreted as reflecting Russia's recognition that it will have to seek more limited objectives than it originally pursued.

    If that is true, then now is an opportune time for the US to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the conflict. As Sun Tzu explains in the Art of War, "the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities." (http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html). Besieging walled cities is the worst policy of all because a siege is a form of prolonged war, and "[t]here is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare." (Id.) Balking the enemy's plans is the highest form of generalship because "supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." (Id.) When you disrupt the enemy's plans, you impose profound psychological disruption on the enemy's leadership, and thus have a strong chance of breaking the enemy's will to resist without further fighting.

    Here, the US balked Russia's plans because Russia thought the war would be short, but Russia now realizes the war will be long, and the reason it will be long is that US military support for Ukraine has rendered Ukrainian forces stronger than Russia expected. Thus, the US has an opportunity to break Russia's will to resist without further fighting. But to convince Russia to end the conflict, we can't just give them the stick; we need to give them a carrot as well. That is what Karaganov probably means when he says, "Russia cannot afford to 'lose', so we need a kind of a victory." Some commenters here hate the prospect of giving Putin anything, but the alternative is a prolonged war, waged via US military support for Ukrainian forces as well as economic sanctions, which are the 21st Century equivalent of besieging a walled city (with Russia as a giant walled city). Sun Tzu said that was "the worst policy at all." I suspect the US leadership isn't fazed by that because they believe the US is so strong that we can ignore the lessons of history. Unfortunately, I suspect that the lessons of history very much apply to us.

    Reply
  15. YAAGS

    But the U.S. almost certainly *wants* this to be a long drawn out guerilla war. This is not bad for us at all because we are not the ones fighting it. Defense contractors will only get richer, and Russia's economy and military industrial complex will be crippled. I doubt the CIA cares about Ukranian casualties. To be blunt, I suspect people were high-fiving each other in Langley when the Russians invaded, that those same people are now explicitly telling Zelenskyy not to compromise on Crimea or Donbas, and that they are the ones funding his security so he's beholden to them. They wouldn't be doing their jobs otherwise.

    Reply
  16. Zeno

    It's highly unlikely that this will end with the US building bases on Ukraine's border with Russia.

    The Ireland-UK analogy is off in several ways and misleads more than it enlightens. For a start I don't know why you build in the idea of the IRA driving all the Protestants out of Northern Ireland – nothing like that is on the cards in Ukraine (nor was it the IRA's objective, but hey ho). The Ukrainians are not trying to drive out ethnic Russians or native Russian speakers and no one is trying to help them do that.

    It's worth remembering that if Putin's only goal is to prevent Ukraine joining NATO, he could pack up and go home already. He also could probably have secured an agreement about that without invading in the first place. He made that impossible by asking for way more than NATO would give him, like the withdrawal of NATO troops to pre-1997 positions. He knew that he wouldn't get that, but he didn't retreat from that negotiation position, suggesting his goal was never just to secure an agreement that Ukraine wouldn't join NATO. None of us really knows, but in my view Putin is much more concerned about Ukraine joining the EU than joining NATO. If I'm right about that then it's hard to construct an enlightening analogy in terms of Mexico/US. Also, from a European perspective, when Americans make this analogy it often sounds like they're saying that America should just let Russia have a buffer zone in Europe, which everyone (=Americans and Russians) could live with. Obviously Europeans don't like the sound of that. Anyway, my point was just that the Russian population is in a really different situation from the U.S. one: it will pretty much end up hating whoever Putin wants it to hate. So I don't think that Western countries should build that into their thinking when it comes to arming Ukraine. Besides, the sanctions have pretty much ensured that the West will be hated with or without arms transfers.

    That said, I do get the point about NATO expansion eastward and how that threatens Russia's security interests. It strikes me that Russia has a dilemma. It's a nuclear power, and a pretty expansionist one at that. This comes with certain inevitabilities: if you're a nuclear power then every other country is going to want to defend themselves from you with as forward a line as possible – they're going to want to surround your country with missile defence systems. Some nuclear powers – the US, China, maybe the UK and France because of their alliances with the US – are in a position to ensure that no potentially hostile country can get anywhere near them. But Russia's not like that: other than its nuclear weapons, it's pretty weak and it doesn't have many friends. So it's not in a position to establish a buffer zone. That makes it really vulnerable. If it didn't have nukes, it would in some ways be in a much safer position because there wouldn't be this imperative for other countries to push forward lines right up to the Russian border. Is Russia a country that would be more secure if it didn't have nukes? I'm not sure, but it seems possible.

    Reply
  17. Peaceful IR Realist

    I agree that US leadership probably "wants this to be a long drawn out guerilla war." It is fair to say that, since "we are not the ones fighting it," we'll suffer less than Ukraine and Russia. But I'm not convinced we won't suffer at all. First and most immediately, the trade disruptions stemming from the war and the sanctions impose costs on America's domestic economy. As Biden said in March, "there will be costs at home as we impose crippling sanctions in response to Putin's unprovoked war (https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/10/politics/biden-inflation-consumer-price-index/index.html). Two recent news items that highlight the risks that a prolonged war poses to the US economy are Biden's decision to order a historic release of oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve to help push down gasoline prices, and the recent trip by US diplomats to Venezuela (where we closed our embassy in 2019) in an effort to quickly patch things up with Maduro so we can secure an alternative source of oil. Second, the sanctions create the risk that other countries will look for ways to trade without the dollar, and America's freezing of Russian government assets may cause other countries whose interests conflict with the US to question whether the US really is a safe haven for their investments, both of which would undermine US global financial power. Similarly, the US's refusal to negotiate an end to this war could cause countries around the world to question the value of US global leadership, and a prolonged war between the US and Russia may enhance the ability of countries all around the world to extract all sorts of concessions from the US in the wide variety of regions and issues in which we are involved. Next, America will suffer directly if Russia responds to a prolonged war by stepping up cyber attacks against the US or finding other ways to challenge our interests around the world. Finally, war places an intangible "spiritual drain" on society, as you can see from the recent spike in Russophobia and the dramatic fall in tolerance in the US for dissenting views on the war. I share your suspicion that people were "high-fiving each other in Langley when the Russians invaded," but I think those people are making a big mistake.

    Reply
  18. Daniel A Kaufman

    I have found Kamil Galeev one of a number of good people to follow on this.

    https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1511528319656755205

    https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1511529450411749378

    ..etc..

    Reply
  19. Jonathan Surovell

    I'd say the Kremlin is concerned about Ukrainian relations with "the West" in general. The Russian foreign policy establishment has always believed that their country is entitled to a "special sphere of influence," which would include most countries bordering Russia, and Ukraine in particular. Ukraine joining NATO would obviously prevent their exerting such influence. But so would Ukraine joining the EU. Hence their threat, in 2013, to reject Ukrainian territorial integrity should it sign an Association Agreement (free trade deal) with the EU.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/ukraine-european-union-trade-russia

    On the war: the Kremlin's initial strategic assumptions were absurd and led to a debacle for the Russian army. The losses incurred have significantly reduced the Russian military's short-term capabilities and sanctions will slow down replenishment in the medium-to-long run.

    https://fortune.com/2022/03/22/russian-tank-manufacturer-sanctions-ukraine-war/

    But the Kremlin's flawed strategic assumptions, Ukrainian morale, and weapons supplied by the West don't fully explain the Russian army's poor performance. Collectively, these don't explain why Russia *still* doesn't dominate in the air despite its big on paper airforce. Nor do they explain Russian units' frequent resort to unencrypted communication, which have probably contributed to the mindboggling fatality rate among Russian *generals.* Russia also had too few logistics vehicles to begin with to carry out a large scale offensive operation and they've just had a lot more go down the toilet in Northern Ukraine. Then there's the documented poor condition and maintenance of many Russian vehicles.

    In the East, Russian forces have made minimal progress over the last couple weeks. In the South, they've been slowly but steadily losing ground to Ukrainians for some time. Things could change, but, since Ukraine will be better able than Russia to move quality reinforcements into those theaters, Ukraine's positions there are more likely to improve than worsen. Certainly, Russian forces are not "poised to take over Southern and Eastern Ukraine."

    https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1512126897492271113

    https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1510681888700215307

    It's more likely that the assumptions that led most of us to expect a quick end to the Ukrainian government are way off than that Russia's defeat in the first phase of the war is some kind of random outlier.

    Reply
  20. YAAGS

    I think you're incredibly naive to believe that any ethnic Russians will be safe in Ukraine after this. They will all have to move back to Russia. While it was wrong for Russia to invade them, a large number of Ukranians will be out for blood after the war. They've lost homes and loved ones. And it's pretty clear from the government's past behavior that it won't do anything to stop the inevitable pogroms and lynchings. (I also think you're a bit naive to think the IRA wouldn't have slaughtered or kicked out all of the protestants if they actually had the power to do so. They just weren't daft enough to say the quiet part out loud and lose support. To be fair, the UVF would wipe out all of the Catholics if it could, too. Extremists are like that.)

    You usually start off negotiations with things you know your opponent won't agree to in the hope that they'll fall for the anchoring fallacy and to help them save face by agreeing to your actual demands. But as far as I'm aware, all we offered is for Russia to inspect our missile bases to make sure there aren't any nukes there, which is worthless because we could just move them there afterwards and that isn't the point or threat of the bases in the first place. So I'm not sure why you think it's only Putin who was acting in bad faith. He basically didn't have any other things to negotiate with except the threat of invasion. All he could do was bluff and we called it.

    Regarding the expansion of NATO bases, they are basically just missile defense bases. We aren't staging large armies there capable of invading Russia. The threat is that we could potentially eliminate their nuclear deterrent if we get too far ahead and have the right systems all around them, at which point we could invade from pretty much anywhere because we have a massive navy and Russia's borders are so massive that they have no choice but to fight invaders inland and try to cut off their supply lines. If Russia didn't have nukes we would have gone to war with them and China way back in the Korean war.

    Reply
  21. YAAGS

    Oh, I certainly agree that this will have severe economic costs. Gas prices are the least of it. It's fertilizer and rare earth minerals that will really hurt us.

    But I doubt the people making the decisions in Langley and the Pentagon are going to lose any sleep over the price of fertilizer. Americans won't go hungry. They generally only care about America's long term strategic interests and the stability of defense contractors. A lot of them probably want to cut off any reliance we have on Russia or China permanently. If mining nickel in the U.S. makes it so that American gamers can't afford fancy GPUs, so much the worse for American gamers. They will still have the GPUs they need for their planes.

    I also doubt they're worried about the rest of the world siding with Russia and China. As bad as America might look for prolonging the war, Russia will look even worse, as will China by association. In fact, China can't have Russia collapse, so they will be forced to support them financially, which will be a drain on their economy.

    Reply
  22. David Wallace

    "Regarding the expansion of NATO bases, they are basically just missile defense bases. We aren't staging large armies there capable of invading Russia. The threat is that we could potentially eliminate their nuclear deterrent if we get too far ahead and have the right systems all around them"

    Do you really mean missile *defense* bases? Unless I'm seriously missing something, this is a fantastical concern (which I suppose doesn't preclude someone in the Russian government having it). Russia's ICBM siloes are for the most part nowhere near Ukraine, and their flight paths towards the US are northerly and mostly stay far away from Russia's borders during the (really short) window in which you can do a boost-phase interception. It requires heroic optimism to suppose the US will have a functional boost-phase missile defense against *North Korea* in the foreseeable future; I don't see (and don't see anyone credible claiming) that there's the faintest chance of a boost-phase intercept of a Russian ICBM strike, but even if there was, I don't think basing in Ukraine makes any meaningful difference to it.

    I would have thought the more meaningful concern is that bases in eastern Europe make it easier to make short-range nuclear missile *attacks* on Russia, e.g. a decapitation strike on Russian leadership combined with an attack on their missile fields, all supposedly happening quickly enough to prevent launch-on-warning given the short flight distances. I think that's also fantastical (even Trump wasn't that insane) but at least it works technologically.

    Reply
  23. Peaceful IR Realist

    If American leaders aren't worried about the "severe economic costs" that prolonged war may bring, they need to reread the Art of War, where Sun Tzu warns: "If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength." (http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html). Preserving America's economic strength is one of our core strategic interests. Another core strategic interest is the maintenance of our alliances around the world (especially our alliance with India, which has longstanding economic and strategic relations with Russia, and whose friendship we need to counter China, which is a much more significant threat to the US than Russia is). What strategic interest does the US have in Ukraine that is important enough to warrant actions that jeopardize our economic strength and place strain on our alliances with countries such as India? The US has no such interest in Ukraine. Ukrainian neutrality would pose no threat whatsoever to the US or to Western Europe. This is bad strategy.

    Reply
  24. LFC

    As long as the Russian military is committing war crimes by executing Ukrainian civilians and shelling cities indiscriminately, there is little prospect that public opinion in the U.S. and other Western countries will support a policy of the U.S. in effect forcing Zelensky to agree to a dismemberment of Ukraine and neutralization of the part of Ukraine that remains an independent country.

    If Putin wants that outcome, which he should, then he should adopt a more discriminating approach to targeting and stop leveling cities (Mariupol has reportedly been close to leveled). At this point it's not clear that even this would be enough to get the U.S. to pressure Zelensky to make (more) concessions.

    While Sun Tzu and a dispassionate analysis of national interests might counsel forcing a negotiated settlement, Russia has so poisoned matters by throwing apparently ill-trained conscripts into a combat role, where they proceeded, in withdrawing from around Kiev, to engage in the murder of civilians, that the prospects of a negotiated settlement have been set back considerably. (At least that's how things appear to me; I have not been following the conflict in depth but only the main developments.)

    As for the Russian military's performance, it has met stiff resistance bolstered by weapons sent by Western countries, but it appears to have turned in a sub-optimal performance w.r.t. (1) strategy, (2) logistics, and (3) putting apparently ill-trained and ill-disciplined soldiers into combat. There is nothing to be gained at all by having one's soldiers, as they withdraw from an area, execute civilians. Not only is it a blatant violation of the law of armed conflict, but it only deepens the antagonistic public sentiment toward Russia.

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  25. YAAGS

    Hi David. I'm not just making it up. We have in fact built one AEGIS Ashore base in Romania and are completing another in Poland. The acknowledged goal is to counter Russia's ability to hit Europe with intermediate range missiles. I'm sure we have AEGIS systems constantly patrolling the artic as well. You just don't hear about it. It was originally designed as a naval system (hence the 'ashore'.)

    Of course, the very fact that we know about AEGIS almost certainly means we have better classified systems, probably in the same bases. There's a reason the Russians were forced to pursue hypersonics: their traditional ICBMs are likely already obsolete. It's impossible to know what we might have to counter hypersonics. That would be beyond top secret. You want to advertise your offensive capabilities, and hide every aspect of your defensive capacities.

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  26. YAAGS

    I find it very, very hard to believe that it could be part of America's core strategic interests to be economically dependent upon our enemies, especially for strategically important resources like rare earth minerals. America is huge and almost certainly has deposits of its own. It just isn't done in America because the Russians and Chinese can do it for cheaper. There's no reason to think that it would be economically devastating in the long run. If we cut off all trade with Russia and China it would really hurt in the short run but then we would start creating and mining everything here.

    As far as India goes, that has an extremely simple solution: we start selling them weapons and investing in them to replace Russia. India is hardly undyingly loyal to Russia. For instance, they recently reneged on their deal to purchase Su-57s from them, which basically killed the program.

    Reply
  27. Peaceful IR Realist

    The issue isn't the US's failure "to pressure Zelensky to make (more) concessions." Rather, the issue is the US's refusal to participate in the negotiations at all; that refusal to negotiate predated the killings in Bucha. US participation in the negotiations is essential because the US will be a principal party to any deal that resolves the conflict. This is true for at least two reasons: (1) as a condition for terminating its invasion, Russia wants sanctions relief, which would come primarily from the US; and (2) in exchange for agreeing to remain neutral, Ukraine wants a security guarantee from the US and the West, and obviously the US will have to sign off on the final form of any security guarantee it provides–as the Turkish official mediating the Ukraine-Russia talks explained, "We had some discussion with the Americans and the French, but there are lots of military details that need to be worked out by our militaries before we put our signature on it." (https://www.ft.com/content/c41c7ef0-e03a-4963-8793-e8931ba29e39).

    @YAAGS – You make it sound too easy. Perhaps it would be in the US's interest to develop domestic sources of minerals and establish better defense and trade ties with India, but these are long-term projects that would require significant expenditures of political capital and economic resources. We can't do it all on the fly in the middle of a war. My point above was that strategy requires a recognition of the limits of one's power.

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  28. David Wallace

    OK, I can see putting missile defenses in eastern Europe theoretically helps against intermediate-range attacks on Europe. I interpreted your 'deterrent' to mean Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent – i.e., its ability to inflict unacceptable damage on the US homeland – but I guess you meant it more broadly. I'm very unconvinced those defenses meaningfully change the game on intermediate-range nuclear attacks – see below – but it at least makes more logical sense. (And having done some homework since my last post, I see Russia is indeed making lots of noise about these bases, albeit some of that seems to be about the pretext that they'll be used for offensive missile strikes.)

    I don't think putting AEGIS in the arctic is terribly useful. ICBMs fired from the Russian steppes are pretty much in orbit by that latitude, well out of AEGIS range as I understand it. (They're intended for short-to-medium-range missiles with much lower trajectories.)

    On the broader point… I would sleep more easily at night if I thought the US really had a missile-defense capability that rendered Russian ICBMs obsolete, but I don't believe it. Shooting down missiles is a really hard problem, for physics reasons that haven't changed much in decades. Even short-range missiles are really hard to target – optimistic (I suspect too optimistic) estimates for Israel's Iron Dome say it might shoot down 50%-75% of missiles, which is great if the warheads are high explosives but not much consolation if they're nukes. Shooting down an ICBM means hitting a really small target, moving at near-orbital velocities, with a near-100% success rate required for it to really disarm a deterrent. The existing tests of missile-defense systems are fairly dismal, and that's calibrated against something like a North Korea strike. Against literally hundreds of Russian ICBMs, many with MIRVs, probably many with decoys, I don't think what we've seen tested has a ghost of a chance. And I just don't believe in some entirely new technological trick that transcends existing tech, that no-one in the academic community is breathing a whisper of, and that can be relied upon without having been tested. The underlying technologies are just not something where we've seen radical advances in the last 40 years.

    (And, again on physics grounds, even a magic superweapon that can attack ICBMs wouldn't benefit from being based in eastern Europe. ICBM flight paths don't go anywhere near there.)

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  29. YAAGS

    We're hardly in the middle of a war. There are other places we can get these things. It means they will be more expensive for a time. But it should really be no worse than Covid. I'm sure oil and coal companies already have the capacity to mine for rare minerals in the U.S., and I would be surprised if they didn't already know about deposits from their various surveys. They just don't do it because it isn't profitable. They might think differently if the government gave them assurances that they wouldn't be undercut by foreign sellers. It it's hardly as though the U.S. is lacking in industrial capacity.

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  30. rwx

    Probably I will be wrong in this, but how does it make sense for the West to provide a security guarantee to Ukraine? Nato is a mutual security guarantee – to get a security guarantee, you have to give one to everyone else. Americans often complain about European "free-riding" in matters of defense. A security guarantee without a mutual defense pact is the epitome of free-riding.

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  31. Peaceful IR Realist

    It makes sense for the West to give Ukraine some sort of "security guarantee" because the security guarantee would help preserve Ukrainian neutrality. Ukrainian neutrality is a compromise solution because this conflict–at bottom–is a struggle between the US and Russia over who gets Ukraine: the US is trying to pull Ukraine into the Western camp, and Russia is trying to lock Ukraine in the Russian camp. Your invocation of the free-rider problem implies that we'd be giving something to Ukraine without getting anything in return, but we're not trying to pull Ukraine into the Western camp for altruistic reasons, and we're certainly not doing it because we need any kind of security guarantee from Ukraine; rather, we're doing this because pulling Ukraine into the Western camp would shift the balance of power in Eastern Europe toward the US and away from Russia. Without a security guarantee, Ukraine will be more vulnerable to Russia, so it will be easier for Russia to lock Ukraine in the Russian camp. The US has been trying to pull Ukraine into the Western camp for decades, so–at least at this early stage in the war–the US is unlikely to accept a resolution to the conflict that leaves Ukraine entirely in Russian hands. Importantly, any "security guarantee" the West gives Ukraine would not be functionally equivalent to NATO's Article 5 commitment.
    Rather, it would probably be a stronger version of the "security assurances" the West gave Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum in return for Ukraine's agreement to give up its nuclear weapons. It's fair to question how valuable any such security guarantee would be to Ukraine, but the Ukrainian negotiators have said that they are willing to agree to neutrality in exchange for some sort of security guarantee, so a resolution of the conflict along these lines certainly seems possible.

    @YAAGS – Sun Tzu doesn't say that besieging a walled city or engaging in prolonged warfare is impossible; he just says it is strategically undesirable given the enormous strain it places on the state. Even if we assume that the economic hardship "should really be no worse than Covid," as you say, I won't deny that the US could probably survive such an ordeal, but I don't see how it is wise for us to place ourselves under such tremendous strain.

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  32. Nick

    I don't have any thoughts to add to the valuable discussion going on, but wanted to link this very good interview from two weeks ago with retired US diplomat Chas Freeman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chas_W._Freeman,_Jr.):

    Note that he uses the same striking phrase as Mearsheimer did at the beginning of this conflict to describe the US's policy of anti-diplomacy: we are "fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian".

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  33. Johnny Eh McDonald

    " YAAGS said in reply to Peaceful IR Realist… I find it very, very hard to believe that it could be part of America's core strategic interests to be economically dependent upon our enemies, especially for strategically important resources like rare earth minerals."

    Did you vote for Clinton or Trump in 2016?

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  34. Rollo Burgess

    (Replying to peaceful IR realist #31, sorry the reply function doesnt seem to work on this device)

    But surely any form of security guarantee means a commitment by Nato countries to go to war with Russia if Russia again invades Ukraine? This is precisely what we are currently not doing on the (very reasonable) grounds that it would have a good chance of leading to a nuclear war, as Russia would be rapidly and ignominiously spanked in a purely conventional conflict. I don't how Nato can credibly issue any such guarantee: Russia knows we won't risk full on war in Ukraine because of the threat of its nuclear response.

    Re 'camps', I agree this is how Russia seems to see the world. It is unfortunate that its leaders don't seem to ask themselves why people, very culturally similar to themselves, are so desperate not to be in Russia's camp that they will fight to the death to avoid this.

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  35. Peaceful IR Realist

    You write, "But surely any form of security guarantee means a commitment by Nato countries to go to war with Russia if Russia again invades Ukraine?" The type of security guarantee you're describing is what I described above as being "functionally equivalent to NATO's Article 5." That's clearly what Ukraine prefers, but I agree that NATO countries are unlikely to undertake that kind of a commitment to Ukraine. Moreover, such a commitment would be unacceptable to the Russians, so it would not be a plausible basis for resolving the conflict. According to one EU official, the security guarantee that is on the table would be “something between more than Budapest, but, of course, less than Article 5.” (https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/04/04/europeans-weigh-scope-of-security-guarantees-for-ukraine/). In this context, "Budapest" refers to the non-binding "security assurances" that were provided to Ukraine as part of the Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons. I don't know what features a security guarantee that is "more than Budapest but … less than Article 5" would havre. My point is that whatever features this security guarantee has, the guarantor will be a principal party to the ceasefire negotiations. That is one of the reasons why, to resolve this conflict, the US needs to sit down with Russia. If the US really were trying to end the conflict, you'd see US negotiators meeting with the Russians and publishing their own peace-plan proposals. The fact that none of that is happening is a major sign that the US is uninterested in ending the war.

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  36. YAAGS

    Neither. I vote in a large blue state, so I usually write in a protest candidate to signal my dissatisfaction with the duopoly.

    Reply
  37. YAAGS

    Attacking a heavily fortified city is strategically bad for very obvious military reasons. Because of the fortifications, attacking the city outright typically inflicts massive casualties. However, a siege requires your army to maintain long supply lines deep in enemy territory for months and possibly years on end, all while the enemy takes pit shots at you. This is not a good analogy for economic sanctions.

    What you mainly have to worry about is whether the sanctions affect your enemies worse than you and to make sure your economy doesn't permanetly collapse. That's pretty much guaranteed here. So the only other question is whether there was a better option for stopping the ascent of Russia and China given that there's was no political will to do anything about them prior to the war. I don't see any. If you think it's inevitable that they will have revolutions and liberalize then I've got a bridge in New York you might be interested in. There's really only the hope that America will always dominate them economically. The writing was clearly on the wall there with regard to China, and Russia was also on the ascent. Remember that besieging a walled city is the worst way *to win* a war. It is still probably prudentially better than doing nothing while your enemy ultimately overtakes you and ensuring your defeat.

    At least, that's how I suspect the people in the Pentagon and Langely think. It may be that we are morally obligated to just watch China overtake us and hope for the best if the only alternatives are starting bloody proxy wars. I think we have less bloody options for staying ahead, but they would involve the sort of radical social reform that just isn't going to happen.

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  38. Jonathan Surovell

    You write: "Sun Tzu doesn't say that besieging a walled city or engaging in prolonged warfare is impossible; he just says it is strategically undesirable given the enormous strain it places on the state. Even if we assume that the economic hardship "should really be no worse than Covid," as you say, I won't deny that the US could probably survive such an ordeal, but I don't see how it is wise for us to place ourselves under such tremendous strain."

    There's an obvious moral case for placing ourselves under such strain.

    But it seems to me there's a strategic case for the sanctions, too, in addition to those YAAGS has made. Kamil Galeev, to whom Daniel Kaufman links above, has made this case: the sanctions significantly increase Ukraine's chances of winning the war. (I shared a link, above, about the sanctions shutting down a Russian tank factory.) And defeat in Ukraine poses an existential threat to the Putin regime or Russian Federation. This is also the view of the Russian foreign policy thinker, Karaganov, whose interview we're discussing here. Pundits have said similar things on Russian TV. Galeev's idea is that an embarrassing military defeat at the hands of a smaller country would discredit the Putin regime to such an extent that it collapses. Meanwhile, the sanctions are causing competition for resources between regions of Russia. The combination of discredit to the Putin regime and regional economic competition could bring about the breakup of the Russian Federation. I don't know if Karaganov and other Russian pundits understand "the end of Russia" and "existential threats" in exactly this way but the important point is that they also see defeat as posing some such threat.

    https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1509968359483445256

    My previous post (19) addresses the probability of a Russian defeat. Given the totality of the evidence concerning the military situation, it seems to me likely, though far from certain, of course.

    I find it hard to put a probability on the Putin regime's collapsing, or the Russian Federation breaking up, given sanctions and military/economic aid to Ukraine. But given Putin's role in international politics, including US politics, I take it that the strategic value of the outcome to the NATO would be enormous. And this could make the expected strategic value, to NATO, of sanctions and aiding Ukraine seems pretty high to me. Maybe you think the expected value of the policy is still lower than that of ending the sanctions, which has a smaller but more certain upside. I don't find that implausible, I just haven't seen a reliable method for making the call. A pretty high percentage of Russian military failures against smaller countries have, historically, been followed by regime change. But that's obviously not very rigorous (small sample size, among other things). Based on what I've seen, we don't have all that much evidence with which to update our priors here.

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  39. marley greyson

    Prof. Leiter, this Telegram post by D. Medvedev struck me as curious:

    "The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to finally build an open Eurasia – from Lisbon to Vladivostok."

    How can Ukraine joining the EU be a problem for Russia if dealing with Portugal to the Russian border isn't or is Ukraine just the first move in reshaping Europe?

    Perhaps the best solution is one modeled on Tsushima rather than Munich? After all, 1905 was a shake up year in Russia.

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  40. Peaceful IR Realist

    You write, "I just haven't seen a reliable method for making the call" regarding "the expected value of the policy"; as I interpret your message, the policy objectives you have in mind are winning the war in Ukraine, overthrowing Putin's regime, and breaking up the Russian Federation. Here's how I would determine the expected value of those policy objectives. There are four regions of the world that are strategically significant to the United States: (1) the Americas; (2) East Asia; (3) the Middle East; and (4) Western Europe. The United States has regional hegemony in the Americas. The primary goal of American foreign policy is to prevent other countries from attaining regional hegemonies in any of the other three regions. There is no chance – none whatsoever – that Russia will establish a regional hegemony in any of those regions. This is true regardless of whether Ukraine is in NATO, neutral, or a Russian satellite state. During the Cold War, there was a risk that Russia might establish a regional hegemony over Western Europe or the Middle East, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia became far too weak to pose that kind of threat, and contrary to YAAGS's claim, Russia is certainly not "on the ascent." This is why there is little to be gained from fighting Russia over Ukraine or trying to overthrow Russia's government. Another reason why overthrowing Russia's government, or breaking up the Russian state, is a very bad idea, is that Russia has a large number of nuclear missiles pointed directly at us. Deliberately instigating a serious crisis such as the collapse of Russia's government or the breakup of the Russian state is a sure way to increase the risk of nuclear catastrophe.

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  41. s. wallerstein

    The longest conversation with Chomsky specifically on Ukraine that I've seen post-invasion.

    This guy is 93 and if he was into getting super rich, he could publish an instant international best-seller, Chomsky's
    12 Secrets For Staying Sharp in Extreme Old Age. His memory is still better than that of most 20 year olds and his ability to organize data better than that of my computer.

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  42. David Wallace

    "defeat in Ukraine poses an existential threat to the Putin regime or Russian Federation."

    Much as I would like to see Ukraine win the war, it makes me a little nervous when I hear talk of causing an 'existential threat' to a nuclear superpower.

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  43. David Wallace

    I'm not convinced the US's strategic interests in Western and Eastern Europe come apart that easily. The EU and the NATO security guarantee both bind the continent together in a way that wasn't true in 1989. If Russia occupied big chunks of the Baltic states – let alone Poland – and the US sat back and did nothing, I think both NATO and the EU would fall apart pretty quickly. I wouldn't have thought the economic and geopolitical mess that would make would be in the US's interests even on a hard-nosed reading of strategic advantage. And while I agree that Russia poses no direct (conventional) military threat to western Europe, it's much less obvious to me (and, more persuasively, it's much less obvious to leaders in Lithuania, Finland, Poland etc) that it doesn't threaten NATO's and the EU's eastern flank. In that sense it seems strongly in our interests that Russia loses, and weakens itself militarily, in Ukraine. (Though I agree that actually trying to induce regime change in Russia is really dangerous.)

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  44. Menelaus

    Being hybrid war one must assume the reality in Ukraine is almost diametrically opposite what MSM is reporting, as MSM itself is a clear extension & partner in hybrid war. This is obviously not assistance, but a proxy alliance or ghost war of NATO vs RusF, so far limited to Ukraine. Because the MSM is fully partnered in this epitome of the "just" (hybrid) war against Russia, it is equally evident that the term "Orwellian" fully applies, not because Russia itself is in the right (it is the clear aggressor) but because of the carte blanche the MSM has either been forced or willingly ascribed to itself in its full partnership with one side, Ukraine/NATO, in this hybrid war.

    Such a full partnership seems unprecedented in scope and flagrancy in the post-WWII history of the MSM (speaking grosso modo). All of which begs the question, has the MSM in the West been, under the pretext of epitome of just war with Russia, been more or less fully and permanently lost to something really quite approaching classic Orwellianism?

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  45. Jonathan Surovell

    I initially put the issue of sanctions + arming Ukraine in terms of the US’ “strategic interests” in contrast with morality. I think you use that phrase but at other times talk about US foreign policy-makers’ “goals.” I don’t mean to nitpick but just to avoid confusion, I was using the phrase “strategic interests” in the sense of offensive realism: on this view, as I understand it, a state’s “strategic interests” are whatever will maximize its power. Increasing state power is a major goal of policy-makers, though it’s obviously not their only goal. State power also explains and predicts some but not all of states’ military behavior.

    To put some cards on the table, I actually think “the strategic interests of a country,” when meant in this realist sense, is probably a euphemism for “state power.” So I’ll avoid the phrase going forward. Also, to put my cards on the table, I think foreign policy, like any other kind of policy, should aim for just and good outcomes. Realism is one of several tools for predicting which policies will achieve those ends. I’m not sure how important it is in the case we’re considering but I’m focusing on it basically for the sake of argument, as it’s the basis of one of the more reasonable objections to the strategy of pursuing Russian defeat in Ukraine.

    So, if sanctions + arming Ukraine caused the collapse of the Putin regime or the breakup of the Russian Federation, would they thereby increase the power of the US state? Assuming you’re using “strategic interests” in the sense of offensive realism, you say “no” because the collapse of the Putin regime would have no relevance to whether any of the US’ rivals becomes hegemonic in one of several geographic zones. I don’t accept this premise or inference. The problem with the premise is that the Putin regime is probably China's most important ally. Therefore, ousting him would likely be a significant setback to China. And China does have a real chance at hegemony in East Asia, one of the geographic zones in question.

    I don’t accept the inference because we’re talking about increasing power, not merely preventing other powers from becoming hegemonic in geographic zones. And Putin's actions, such as his support for Assad, Maduro, the Cuban government, and Iran, likely reduce US power in the Middle East and the Americas or, at least, make the current level of power harder to maintain. It’s also relevant that, in the opinion of the US government, as represented by its intelligence agencies and Senate Intelligence committee, Russia carried out a politically significant cyber attack against the US (hacking the DNC). This is a non-trivial projection of Russian power into the US. So the collapse of the Putin regime would advance the goals of US foreign policy-makers even if Russia has no chance of becoming a hegemon in any of these regions.

    Power maximization isn’t the only goal, apart from moral ones, that’s worth considering, of course. I brought it up because realists often

    On your second point, there is a risk that Putin would respond to imminent defeat in Ukraine with nuclear strikes. To be clear, if Russia is to lose, the faster it does so, the lower the chance of nuclear war (all else being equal). The longer fighting goes on, the higher the chance of fighting between NATO and Russia. I doubt anyone can say with confidence whether a diplomatic solution or Ukrainian victory promise a quicker end to fighting.

    A diplomatic resolution that helped Putin stay in power would bring risks. Putin seems to me to exhibit a particularly dangerous combination of eagerness to go to war (and conduct other aggressive foreign operations) and throw around nuclear threats. He's embarked on five wars during his time in power. This one could be the last–five times could be a charm–but it would be irrational to expect it to be. So if he does remain in power, there's a good chance we go through this all over again in a couple years and who knows if we come closer to conflict between Russia and NATO at that point. In fact, there are reasons to think that Putin would be more likely to fight another war and make nuclear threats were he to survive this one: the regime would have time to fix the problems with its military that this war has brought to light and it would have gotten the message that it can successfully use nuclear blackmail in a war of aggression. That would be an incredible power for it to realize it wields.

    It’s worth keeping in mind that the collapse/breakup we’re talking about wouldn’t come about through an invasion of Russia. It’s analogous to Afghanistan, where the US supported the USSR’s opponents and thereby caused the collapse of the Soviet regime. Not all existential threats are equally likely to provoke a nuclear response; how the threat is “induced” matters.

    Don’t get me wrong, I see the danger in pursuing Russian defeat in Ukraine. I just think Putin and his regime are fundamentally dangerous and it's hard to compare the risks of different ways of dealing with them.

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  46. Nick

    Thanks for that link. Just listened and it's a great interview. It'll be especially useful for people who are on the fence about how to understand the US's role, since the interviewer actually tries to argue with Chomsky on certain points. This gives Chomsky an opportunity to forcefully refute some of the most persistent misunderstandings about what is going on, and what the US could do (and earlier could have done) to mitigate this horrifying situation.

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  47. Gordon Barnes

    In order to understand what is happening today, we need to remember some relevant history. When the Soviet Union collapsed, everyone in the West advised Russia to transition straight to a free market economy. The results were catastrophic. From 1989 to 1998, economic output in Russia plummeted by 45%. The standard of living of the Russian people plummeted right along with it. Annual deaths in Russia increased by 50%, which amounted to 700,000 more deaths every year. Life in Russia was a living hell. In 1999, Putin entered the scene. Over the next 10 years, from 1999 to 2008, Russian GDP went up 94%, and per capita GDP doubled. The value of the Russian economy went from 210 billion in 1999 to 1.8 trillion in 2008. The financial crisis in 2008 hit Russia hard, and set them back quite a bit. But where did that crisis originate? In Russia? With Putin? No. In originated the West. Thinking back over the last thirty years, if I was a Russian citizen , who would I trust? The West? Or Putin? To anyone who has paid any attention for longer than a few years, the answer should be obvious. When NATO kept encroaching, getting closer and closer to Russia, I would think back to what life was like in Russia in the 1990s, and think to myself “Hell no, I don’t want any more of that.”

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  48. Peaceful IR Realist

    You write, "So, if sanctions + arming Ukraine caused the collapse of the Putin regime or the breakup of the Russian Federation, would they thereby increase the power of the US state? Assuming you’re using 'strategic interests' in the sense of offensive realism, you say 'no' because the collapse of the Putin regime would have no relevance to whether any of the US’ rivals becomes hegemonic in one of several geographic zones." That is not my view.

    What matters in international relations is relative power. In this context, what matters is the US's relative power vis-a-vis Russia. There is no question that the US is far more powerful than Russia. If, during the Cold War, Russia had established a regional hegemony in Western Europe, that would have dramatically upset the balance of power between the US and Russia (i.e., Russia would have gained so much power, and the US would have lost so much power, that Russian power might have equalled or overcome US power). Today, by contrast, if Russia overthrew Zelensky and installed a puppet regime in Ukraine, that would increase Russia's power and decrease the US's power, but the power shift would not be large enough to disrupt the tremendous power advantage the US enjoys over Russia. Similarly, although @David Wallace persuasively argues that Russia may pose a conventional military threat to countries in Eastern Europe, and thus that weakening Russia's military would be "in our interests" (i.e., it would increase US power and decrease Russian power in Eastern Europe), I would say that the balance of power in Eastern Europe is already so lopsided in favor of the US that we do not need the marginal increase in power we would gain by weakening Russia's military through a drawn out proxy war in Ukraine. All the countries Wallace identifies, save Finland, are in NATO, and Russia understands that it would be totally insane to try to invade them. My overall point is that good strategy requires identifying priorities and picking your battles. No one denies that Napoleon or Hitler would have increased their power had they succeeded in conquering Russia. But the risks they incurred clearly outweighed the rewards they sought.

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  49. Jonathan Surovell

    "What matters in international relations is relative power. In this context, what matters is the US's relative power vis-a-vis Russia."

    I'll finish my end of the conversation by disagreeing with the second claim. The kind of "state power" that's relevant for explaining and predicting state behavior, from the offensive realist point of view, is the power to defend oneself and, relatedly, to defeat other, rival states. Not just one state in particular, in this case, Putin's Russia, but all states. In my previous comment, I mentioned that Russia is China's most important ally. For this reason, defeating Russia would strengthen the US relative to China, its most significant competitor. And defeating an opponent's biggest ally is a big win. It goes without saying that the US and its allies will pay an economic price sanctioning Russia. So I go back to my original claim: the value of defeating the Putin regime would be big, though the likelihood of it happening is probably low, though hard to determine rigorously. This makes it hard to make an informed and rigorous comparison between the expected value of trying to do so vs ending the sanctions.

    It should go without saying that all of this would, by itself, be a grotesque argument for trying to bring about the breakup of the Russian Federation. It would be grotesque to say that a super power should destroy another state in order to become a super duper power, regardless of the consequences or the justice of its cause. The grotesqueness of the argument is its treatment of realism as a normative guide to behavior rather than as a social scientific theory that can help us predict the consequences of our foreign policy choices. The idea that states should do whatever maximizes their expected power is the IR equivalent of Ayn Rand's moral egoism. Both are absurd. So here's why I've been approaching the issue from the point of view of US state power. It's prima facie morally right to help a democracy defend itself against an imperialist war of aggression waged by a dictatorship whose army is committing unspeakable atrocities. Our military aid has likely helped save people in Kyiv, Lviv, and other cities from most of the horrors of Bucha and Mariupol. That helping Ukraine defend itself has significant expected value from the point of view of US state power means that the policy that accords with this prima facie moral principle wouldn't be overly idealistic, so to speak, in one respect, at least.

    Thanks for the interesting discussion.

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  50. David Wallace

    Just narrowly on this:

    "All the countries Wallace identifies, save Finland, are in NATO, and Russia understands that it would be totally insane to try to invade them."

    That's reasonably clear now but I don't think it's been obvious throughout the last decade. The Baltic states, in particular, are very awkwardly placed strategically and after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 there was a lot of talk about whether NATO had overextended and had really thought about how it could defend the Baltics. The scary scenario was Russia carrying out some kind of Crimea-type rapid incursion that NATO's immediate defenses couldn't hold off, and then claiming a fait accompli and waving nuclear threats around to deter a conventional military buildup and counterattack. Obama flew to Talinn specifically to give a speech reiterating the Article 5 guarantee and NATO gradually built up forces there, but even a few years ago there was a lot of doubt as to whether it was really a viable deterrent. (It was actually the scenario that worried me most when Trump was elected, though it's not like I really know anything about the various issues). One very welcome conclusion from the war in Ukraine is that, between increased NATO solidarity, European rearmament, evidence that Russia's military is less impressive than we thought, and actual attrition of that military, that particular scenario looks a lot less worrying than it did.

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