Foreign Affairs - The Backstory , April 16, 2023

 

April 16, 2023  |  View in Browser Welcome to The Backstory. Every Sunday, we’ll guide you through the debates driving U.S. foreign policy and international affairs using pieces from the Foreign Affairs archives—some recent, some decades old.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, scholars and policymakers have debated how deeply involved the United States should be in the conflict—and, increasingly, whether it should continue to maintain such high levels of support. The issue is also top of mind in the wake of the leak of classified U.S. documents revealing, among other things, that Kyiv could run out of key weapons in the weeks to come. Driven at turns by competing anxieties over international security, the future of democracy, domestic political backlash, and the specter of nuclear war, it is a debate that is playing out in the halls of the U.S. Capitol—and in the pages of Foreign Affairs.   Over the course of the war, Washington has committed over $75 billion in aid and arms transfers to Kyiv. The provision of advanced weapons systems has prompted concerns about the risks of escalation with Moscow—but “arms transfers may be the least dangerous of a dangerous list of options,” Stephen Biddle wrote in March 2022. Aid to Ukraine allows Washington and its allies to both “raise the cost of Russian aggression without engaging Russia directly” and “give Ukraine a chance of fending off Russian forces without exceeding NATO’s risk tolerance.” Writing a month later, Stephen Wertheim argued that a more restrained approach would be better. Washington should think twice rather than “lock a new cold war into place.”

The Ukraine Temptation Biden Should Resist Calls to Fight a New Cold War Stephen Wertheim

Washington’s ultimate aims in Ukraine have remained ambiguous, leaving the question of how much aid it should provide open-ended. In June 2022, with the Kremlin facing battlefield setbacks, the Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba called for a commitment to “a complete and total Ukrainian victory.” Ukrainians, he wrote, “need weapons that prove that the West is committed to helping us actually win—rather than to just not letting us lose.” But, Barry Posen warned, the most likely outcome of such a strategy would be “not a Ukrainian triumph but a long, bloody, and ultimately indecisive war.”

Ukraine’s Implausible Theories of Victory The Fantasy of Russian Defeat and the Case for Diplomacy Barry R. Posen

Some have argued that a diplomatic compromise would bring a quicker end to the war. But pressuring Kyiv into a negotiated settlement would not lead to long-term peace and stability in Europe, Alina Polyakova and Daniel Fried argued in June: “Rather, it would reward Russian military aggression in the short term, create a new swath of instability in the heart of Europe, and effectively condone Russian war crimes.” Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Estonia, wrote in December that peace on Russia’s terms “would not mean the end of suffering but rather more atrocities.” But even if a negotiated end to the war seems unlikely today, the Biden administration should nonetheless think through what a sustainable settlement might look like, Emma Ashford advised in October. If it fails to do so, “it may find its carefully calibrated response to the war being overtaken by a dangerous fantasy of absolute victory.”

No Peace on Putin’s Terms Why Russia Must Be Pushed Out of Ukraine Kaja Kallas

A key pillar of Washington’s approach to aiding Ukraine has been the incremental expansion of military and economic assistance. But with the conflict entering what could be an extended stalemate, Western leaders must shift their approach and “aim to support a breakthrough” by providing more and better weapons all at once, Michael McFaul urges. Margarita Konaev and Owen Daniels counter that even though Ukraine has demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for military adaptation, the West must “temper expectations about what it can achieve in the months to come.” “New technology and weapons, no matter how sophisticated, are unlikely to prove decisive,” they write.

How to Get a Breakthrough in Ukraine The Case Against Incrementalism Michael McFaul

With the 2024 U.S. presidential election on the horizon, Republican candidates have begun staking out positions on the question of aid to Kyiv—raising the possibility that U.S. policy toward Ukraine could change significantly. Some candidates, including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, “have indicated that they see continued military support for Ukraine as essential,” Dan Caldwell observes. But others, such as former U.S. President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, “have questioned the wisdom of becoming further entangled in a distant conflict that could ultimately land the United States in a shooting war with Russia.”   As Washington faces pressure to reduce spending and bulk up its capabilities in Asia, and with the war seemingly headed toward a stalemate, it is time for the United States to think about a diplomatic endgame in Ukraine, Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan argue. Washington should aim to make Ukraine’s spring offensive as successful as possible, they write, but as the war’s costs mount and a military stalemate looms, “it is worth pressing for a durable truce” that could “set the stage for a lasting peace.”

The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine A Plan for Getting From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan

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