What happens in Ukraine will not stay in Ukraine. That is the essence of an argument commonly made for why the United States and other nations must support Kyiv in resisting Russian aggression. As Washington Post columnist Marc Theissen argued, “Failure to save Ukraine would decimate our credibility in defense of Taiwan, thus making war more likely.” Taiwan’s own representative in Washington, Bi-khim Hsiao, echoed this view, stating, “Ukraine’s survival is Taiwan’s survival. Ukraine’s success is Taiwan’s success. Our futures are closely linked.” The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and current presidential candidate, Nikki Haley, extended the argument in a recent campaign town hall, saying “this is bigger than Ukraine … When Ukraine wins, that sends a message to China with Taiwan, it sends a message to Iran that wants to build a bomb, it sends a message to North Korea testing ballistic missiles, it sends a message to Russia that it’s over.”
Is it really the case that failure to stop Russia in Ukraine will have such implications globally? Would it have such dire consequences for the reputation and credibility of Washington’s support for its allies that it will induce Bejing to authorize the invasion of Taiwan, embolden Iran in its pursuit of a nuclear weapon or give any number of countries the impression that they can pursue their interests with aggressive impunity? The answer to all these questions is no, for three reasons.
First, it’s important to keep in mind what kind of precedent an eventual Russian victory might set. Suppose that Russia did ultimately gain from its invasion, such as by maintaining control of the occupied territory it now claims to have annexed in eastern and southern Ukraine. It will have done so at immense damage to its military and harm to its economy, both of which are due in no small measure to the actions taken by the U.S. and its allies to this point. This would not set a precedent of impunity. To the contrary, the lesson for any other country watching from the sidelines would be that the pursuit of even marginal territorial gains against a U.S. partner state could leave its military decimated and its economy devastated.
This would be even more pronounced in the case of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Other than Beijing coveting control of the island in the same way that Moscow wants to conquer Ukraine, the situations couldn’t be more different. To begin with, Russia and Ukraine share a flat land border that presented no obstacle to Russia’s initial invasion or subsequent operations, besides the mud that bogged down its tanks and armored vehicles in the opening weeks of the assault. In contrast, China and Taiwan are separated by 100 miles of water, meaning any invasion would require an amphibious assault—an immense logistical undertaking that is considered among the most difficult of military operations.
The likelihood of success is therefore questionable, but even in the case of a Chinese victory, Taiwan’s infrastructure would almost certainly be devastated, thereby diminishing the value of taking it in the first place. Any attempt would also have to factor in significant losses to China’s naval and air forces, especially if the U.S. military becomes directly involved in the fighting. Then there is the economic harm China would suffer due to sanctions that the U.S. and its allies can be expected to impose. Beijing may still decide to invade Taiwan, but it must be prepared to do so at enormous cost.
The failure to fully expel Russia from the territory it currently occupies in Ukraine would not be the catalyst for U.S. foreign policy failures elsewhere.
A second reason the broader impact of a Russian victory has been exaggerated has to do with two words that should be forever banished from the U.S. foreign policy lexicon: domino theory. That Cold War-era argument held that allowing any country to fall to communism would embolden revolutionary groups—and their external sponsors—in other countries, thereby facilitating the spread of communism the way one falling domino tips over the next in line. To keep the communist domino from falling in Vietnam, the U.S. expended enormous military and financial resources there for over a decade. Washington ultimately failed to prevent the country from “going communist,” but besides neighboring Laos, the subsequent dominos were never toppled as feared. The fall of Saigon had no real impact on any of the U.S.-Soviet proxy conflicts that followed, and before the Cold War had even ended, the domino theory was largely considered to be discredited.
Similarly, the failure to fully expel Russia from the territory it currently occupies in Ukraine would not be the catalyst for U.S. foreign policy failures elsewhere. That’s not to say the U.S. won’t experience any setbacks on other files. But if they occur, it will be due to circumstances specific to those files, not the outcome in Ukraine.
Third and related, it’s important to remember that “reputation” and “credibility” are logically dubious concepts in international politics. The idea that reputation matters is grounded in the notion that international politics is a series of repeated interactions between participants that are familiar with each other’s behavior, so how a state acts in one situation can shape expectations for how it will act in another. With just under 200 states in the international system, there are indeed many opportunities for repeated interactions between them that will result in reputations being formed.
But reputations can only be useful in the conduct of international affairs if the circumstances of each situation do not vary, or if a state’s interests do not vary from situation to situation. This is simply not the case. James Morrow, an international relations scholar known for his work on how we analyze strategic interactions in world politics, argued that because “other factors always vary” from case to case, one can at best draw “cloudy” inferences about the role, if any, that reputation plays. In discussing the Vietnam War, Morrow wrote, “The failure of the United States to intervene and stop the fall of the South Vietnamese government in 1975 did not destroy the belief that it would fight to defend Western Europe from a Soviet invasion.”
That said, there is unfortunately a “cult of reputation” in international politics. So even though reputations do not influence adversaries’ decisions, leaders often engage in actions to defend their nations’ reputation out of the belief that they do. This can lead states to use force for no other reason than to demonstrate their capability and willingness to use force. But the logic that such actions in one context will lead adversaries to draw conclusions about potential actions in another is dubious at best. Former U.S. President Barack Obama tackled this mindset head-on in an interview near the end of his presidency, when he said that “dropping bombs on someone to prove that you’re willing to drop bombs on someone is just about the worst reason to use force.”
To be clear, there are good reasons to support Ukraine. Preventing Russia from committing more human rights atrocities, for which the International Criminal Court has already indicted President Vladimir Putin, is one. Moreover, a failure to support Ukraine would probably embolden Putin to seek to further undermine European security, from Moldova to the Baltic states and perhaps even beyond. But while defeat for Ukraine would be plenty bad, it would not have grave implications outside of Europe.
Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.