Summary of a very long piece:
- The two key U.S. assumptions – i.e., that Russia’s war was “unprovoked,” and its war aims were deemed “maximum” – are both empirically wrong and unsubstantiated. But both have been propagated to maintain a narrative and media discourse that enables the current Western approach.
- Within the media discourse, the American intelligence community was “spot on” in predicting an invasion of Ukraine. But this assumption is misleading, at best, and dangerous, at worst. It has allowed statements and warnings issued by U.S. policymakers, who cite the authority of intelligence, to go unchallenged. Upon closer scrutiny, an examination of the rhetoric of the Biden administration in the lead up to the war suggests good reason to question the quality of their information.
- Contrary to the media’s popular depiction, the war isn’t – and never was – about conquering Ukraine. The war requires a full reinterpretation within a coercive bargaining framework over limited aims. Since its onset, the invasion hasn’t entailed the scope, scale, or conduct that is akin with a maximum war-aim to vanquish the state and subjugate society.
- Russia’s military maneuver toward Ukraine’s capital was about coercive signaling, not conquering it. The military invasion paralleled a diplomatic track, which explicitly sought to coerce Kyiv to promptly enter into negotiations. The goal of Russia’s Plan A was to elicit a conditional-based surrender favoring its terms, while keeping the bulk of its mobilized forces on the horizon. In exchange to comply early, Ukrainian leaders could avoid a destructive and devastating war that plays out on their soil. A so-called “quick-and-decisive victory” wasn’t about capturing the flag; it was about expediting, under duress, a negotiated settlement over neutrality. In effect, Plan A wasn’t spoiled by a military defeat, but rather because it failed to coercively extract political compliance.
- The Russian military convoy deployed in late February 2021 towards Kyiv represented a decoy operation to facilitate Moscow’s contingency plan, which sought to divide the Ukrainian military so as to more efficiently establish hard territorial facts on the ground in the east and south. This has utilized as a mechanism to entrench Russia’s bargaining power, while blocking the ascension of Ukraine into NATO, indefinitely. There was never any intent by Moscow to militarily seize Kyiv.
- In examining both the military and political challenges, there’s no credible indication that foreign-imposed regime change was the pursued goal, let alone an objective considered feasible by Russian leaders. From a military perspective, neither the conditions in Ukraine nor Russia’s own capacity to overcome those obstacles supports the conventional wisdom of an intent to conquer it.
- Unbeknownst to the West, it was Zelenskyy’s government that made the first provocative move that incited the initial deployment of Russian troops on the border in February 2021, a year before the invasion.
- Concerns over NATO expansion to induct Ukraine didn’t jumpstart the precipitating crisis. However, as the crisis escalated in the spring and summer of 2021, NATO expansion became the front and center concern for Russia after (a) Kyiv decided to renew its membership bid in April 2021 and (b) NATO officially renewed its commitment in June 2021 to bring Ukraine into the alliance.
- It was accommodation, not deterrence, that constituted the correct approach to starve off the prospect of war. The Biden administration made a colossal error in employing a hard-nosed deterrence scheme. Not only was it ineffectual but putting it into practice had perpetuated the opposite of what it intended to prevent, aggravating insecurities and escalating the crisis to its breaking point.
- To end the fighting, recent calls suggest Ukraine make territorial concessions. But neither a bilateral deal nor redrawing borders alone will bring about a lasting peace. This is because Ukraine is entangled in a proxy war. Its casus belli cannot be simplified as a territorial tiff between neighbors. Although such disputes played a role in the crisis, the taproot of the instability remains NATO’s living commitment – issued in 2008 and reiterated in 2021 – to bring Ukraine into the Western alliance. As such, the West must be a signatory to any lasting settlement. Without a multilateral agreement over Ukraine’s strategic orientation, the war could settle into a ‘frozen’ or recurring conflict.
- Inevitably, the misguided U.S.-led approach will be exposed by the merits of a hard and inconvenient truth: Russia’s resolve will likely prevail over the thin veneer of Western unity.
- Washington has an interest to preserve the narrative’s tenets, not only to prolong efforts to punish and degrade Russia, but also to shape how victory is defined. The war looks abysmal for Putin if his original aim is perceived as maximum. However, if interpreted through the lens of a limited aim, the war’s trajectory is reversed in favor of Moscow, not Kyiv– and advocates of pursuing “victory” ought to take notice. Either way, the West isn’t winning the war. A decisive victory in Ukraine is neither realistic nor worth the dangers or costs to try to achieve it. Even if more Western support arrives, it won’t stop Russia from escalating in kind. It also won’t do much to roll back the tremendous coercive leverage it has already gained. In reality, Russia’s terms for peace will be difficult to defy in any eventual settlement.