Other than a few tweets I have stayed quiet on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as I was reading a ton to try and form an opinion. I am writing this post as much for myself as anyone else, as writing helps me clarify my thinking and also records it so I can go back to it at a later point. For those who just want the conclusion up front: I believe NATO needs to push back hard on Russia now, including supplying much more equipment to Ukraine. We also urgently need to stop our energy purchases from Russia.
First, what about any historic promises to Russia not to expand NATO eastward and aren’t we at fault here? Shouldn’t the Ukraine have been guided to a neutrality stance instead? Sure, that absolutely could have been a better approach but happens to be completely irrelevant now as we will never know how that would have played out. The same, incidentally, goes for the opposite view, which is that we should have already had Ukraine in NATO by now. Most of the people writing about these alternatives are some version of: “if you had only done what I had been suggesting there wouldn’t be a war today.” Again: totally unknowable and also irrelevant.
Why am I saying it’s irrelevant? Because we are not dealing with a rational actor on the other side but with a deranged dictator. Putin has been in power way too long and has killed off opposition leaders. He also doesn’t appear to be in the most stable place mentally, as a clear-headed Putin is unlikely to have let all those pictures get out of him sitting way on one end of a super long table making him appear sick or paranoid. Putin has time and again revealed his ambitions in writing and in speeches to build a Russian world that includes many of the places that have previously been part of the empire/union. Ignoring those expressions is like ignoring Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” where he laid out his ambitions.
What about the nuclear threat? Born in Germany in 1967, I grew up with that threat still very much on everyone’s mind and have often found myself surprised by how much it had receded into the background. First, I believe that there is a non-zero risk of a nuclear war and that’s been the case ever since we had large arsenals of nuclear weapons (another reason to try to live your life well every day). Second, unless he’s managed to change the system, Putin cannot simply push a button and launch nukes. According to detailed descriptions of the set up, the Russian code book is in three parts, all of which need to be assembled to arm weapons and Putin has only one third of that. Third, Putin is already calling sanctions an act of war. So to think that there is some bright line on one side of which we are safe and on the other we are doomed makes no sense. Fourth, the nuclear threat is no different if Putin were to attack a NATO country and so you really would have to believe that he would stop at Ukraine (counter his own words). So yeah, it sucks to have this threat out there but it ain’t going away and we will only come closer to it no matter what. Put differently, this risk is going up with inaction, not down.
Pushing back hard now will make this war go longer and cost more human lives. So why do it? There is no endgame in Ukraine right now that doesn’t result in massive bloodshed. Does anyone seriously think the Ukrainians will just happily be ruled by a puppet regime installed by Moscow? If this war drags on there is a real chance that Putin is in fact toppled, as he and the war are clearly unpopular in Russia. And if he’s not, then at least the chances of a subsequent attempt to invade a NATO member such as Estonia are diminished dramatically (not because Putin himself might not attempt it, but because the opposition around him can grow).
So I find myself in the hawkish position here. I would, however, add that we should focus on much more targeted sanctions than we have. Russia is very much a controlled media environment and it does not help if citizens there start to believe the West is targeting them without reason, driving them to support Putin. Our two biggest levers as going after oligarchs (by the way here I think freezing assets is much better than seizing them outright – what’s the point, if oligarchs think they can never have them back?) and stopping our energy purchases. The latter is going to hurt us a lot and if we are at all serious about supporting Ukraine we have to be willing to pay that price. Right now we have the worst possible combination: targeting the broad population while at the same time still giving tons of money to the Putin regime every day.
The second order effects of this war are likely to be terrible. The Ukraine is a major food producer and would need to be seeding right now. That’s likely to be massively disrupted if not outright impossible. Given the amounts involved we are talking about more than just a spike in prices. There is a high chance of famines that might kill thousands if not millions of people. Along with this will come political unrest and destabilization in many more parts of the world.
All in all then it is hard to overestimate the extent to which this will get worse before it gets better. Despite all of this there are also reasons for hope. There’s been an awakening globally to just how dangerous a dictator Putin is (something that had been denied by too many for far too long). I admire the Ukrainians who are willing to fight for their freedom and the Russians who are openly demonstrating against the war, despite the threat of draconian punishment. They all deserve our every support.
