What Happens After Ukraine Gets M1 Abrams And Leopard 2 Tanks?
While most in the West and Ukraine have hailed the decisions in Washington and Berlin to give Ukraine M1 Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks, there are predictably few asking what should be the obvious question: what next?
Once
these tanks arrive on station and Ukraine starts to employ them against
Russia, what outcome does the White House expect or desire?
The
truth is likely that no one in the Administration has bothered to think
that far – continuing a bad trend in U.S. foreign policy over the past
several decades that has uniformly resulted in bad outcomes for our
country.
Giving Without a Plan
Failing
to form a coherent, realistic strategy regarding our support for
Ukraine in its war with Russia risks squandering valuable military
assets and financial resources – or worse – stumbling so badly that the
U.S. or western powers are inadvertently sucked into a war we should
never have been fought, and which could only harm our interests.
Unfortunately, we have a rather bad track record in recent decades for
failing to think much of anything through.
Many studies and reports concluded one of the major reasons Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 failed so badly was because Washington failed to
put any serious thought into the question of “what comes next”
following the campaign to destroy Saddam Hussein’s army. Choosing to
militarily take down Iraq involved very little risk for the United
States and required little creativity in the formation of the plan:
Iraq’s once-vaunted military had been eviscerated in 1991 and languished under a decade of crippling sanctions that prevented Saddam from rebuilding his army. It was a house of cards waiting to be blown over.
Sure
enough, the U.S.-led coalition mowed down what little Iraqi organized
resistance there was and the conventional phase of the war was
effectively over within five weeks. Yet aside from some optimistic claims that “Iraqi democracy will succeed,” Washington had no idea what to do once the tanks went idle.
What
happened next, quite predictably, is the Pentagon and State Department
went hunting for something to justify their continued presence, making
stuff up along the way. The result was complete chaos, mission-shifting, and tens of thousands of American service members wounded and killed. U.S. troops are expected to remain for years to come and the country’s government remains deeply unstable.
Similar fiascos resulted from other mission-shifting operations: a lack of vision throughout the 20 years of pointless combat in Afghanistan; unnecessary military support to Saudi Arabia against the hapless Yemenis; no thought given to what comes next in Obama’s Libya excursion of 2011 (two governments claim sovereignty to this day); a military presence within Syria, completely devoid of any valid national security purpose; and operations in numerous locations throughout Africa.
A History of No Plan
In
each of those examples, we had no vision for “what comes next,” and
with the ignominious exception of Afghanistan, our military continues to
languish pointlessly in each location to this day. Evidence is starting
to pile up that we are trending towards repeating this seemingly
default affliction in our engagement with Ukraine. There are a number of
basic questions the White House should have asked – and answered –
before taking any action in that war.
Informing a Plan of Action
Before
the White House agreed to significantly increase our military and
financial support to Kyiv following Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion,
Biden should have asked a number of admittedly hard questions and
demanded policy options from his senior staff. Failing to ask and answer
the tough questions – as has been done in each of the previously
mentioned foreign excursions – leads to mission creep, mission
expansion, and almost uniformly results in ultimate policy failure.
Though
he should have done so 11 months ago, it can be done now. Before one
more piece of U.S. military gear is sent to Ukraine, Biden should
provide answers to these critical questions:
What are America’s vital national interests as they relate to the Russia-Ukraine war?
What is the desired end state of U.S. support?
How does the provision of military gear support the desired end state?
What
are the criteria for determining success or failure of the policy to
support Ukraine? How will the president know if American actions are
working or failing?
What
is the culmination strategy? Under what conditions will the support
mission conclude? If Russia starts to win on the battlefield, will the
U.S. provide even more weapons and financial support – or if Russia
starts to lose, will we moderate our support if Ukraine starts to push
Russia so far that U.S. intelligence concludes a desperate Putin may
resort to nuclear weapons?
These
are crucial questions to have posed and at least formed working answers
to before getting too deep in the operation. There is no evidence that
any of these questions have been considered, much less answered, and
that has troubling ramifications for our national security.
The Unanswered Questions
First
and foremost, the president must delineate America’s most vital
national interests. Is it to seek the military defeat of Russia? To
“weaken” Russia (however defined)? To seek the end of the Putin regime?
Merely to push Russian troops back to February 24 2022 lines? Or more
modestly to prevent the war from spilling beyond the Ukrainian borders?
To ensuring the preservation of NATO and American security? If we don’t
know what outcome we even desire, how will we know if our policies are
successful or a failure?
Similarly,
if we don’t know what we want to achieve, how will we know what – and
how many – of each type of armament and ammunition type we should supply
to Kyiv? Give too little, and the objective won’t be reached; give too
much and Ukraine may go beyond what is in American interests.
The Consequence of Aid Without Answers
If
we give blanket support to Zekensky’s stated desire to drive the
Russian military out of all Ukrainian territory, for example, how does
Biden ensure American objectives if the Ukrainian military starts to be
so successful that Putin uses his enormous nuclear arsenal to stave off
defeat? If Biden doesn’t agree to support Ukraine in going that far (and
thus limits the number and type of military support, preventing
Zelensky from winning on the ground), the result may be an indefinite
stalemate that literally bleeds Ukraine dry of its people and leaves its
land resembling a moonscape.
It
is vitally important that the president fashion answers to all these
questions and then crafts a policy that has the best chance of producing
outcomes that benefit our country and secures our allies. At a minimum,
the White House should prioritize ensuring that we don’t provide so
much military support to Ukraine that it puts our own security at risk
by depleting our own stocks of vehicles and ammunition – Biden must
quantify where those lines are.
Ultimately,
the intent of any U.S. foreign policy related to the Ukraine-Russia war
should be to end the conflict as soon as possible and do so in such a
way that it does not set the stage for a renewed conflict in the future
(as the bad ending of World War I set the stage for World War II). The
long-term security of the United States and Europe is vitally important
for our security. Ending the war on mutually acceptable terms – and
avoiding any overt or tacit security guarantees – gives Washington the
best chance of long term security.
Author Biography and Expertise
Also a 1945 Contributing Editor, Daniel L. Davis is
a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the
U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times – including the M1
Abrams tank heading to Ukraine. He is the author of “The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.” Follow him @DanielLDavis.