It’s not just about today’s Ukraine

Washington is now in a full-fledged debate on whether to send lethal (but “defensive”) arms to Ukraine. The President has said it is one of the options on the table.

The advocates argue that arming Ukraine would raise the costs of Russia’s aggression and, along with Western sanctions, improve the odds for a negotiated solution. A successful effort would also bolster confidence in American policy, both within the NATO Alliance and more broadly, redounding to Washington’s benefit in countering Putin’s moves not only in Ukraine but also elsewhere in the world.

The opponents say Russia will escalate further, even before any additional weapons can be deployed in the hands of people who know what to do with them, intensifying the conflict to Ukraine’s disadvantage, allowing Moscow to impose a unilateral solution and undermining confidence in the US. Opponents also fear an Alliance-rending split with the Europeans (especially Germany) and a  proxy war with Russia, with negative implications for cooperation with Moscow on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other important issues.

Who is right?

I’m afraid both are, which complicates the decision-making. I doubt a decision to provide defensive arms now will do anything militarily significant in the near term other than accelerate the Russian offensive. Moscow will win the the battle for Mariupol if it really wants to. But failing to supply arms will allow Moscow to impose its will not only now but also in the future, undermining the credibility of American commitments elsewhere even more.

It is still possible to hope that the discussion of arming Ukraine in Washington will weigh heavily enough to cause Moscow to take seriously the proposal that German Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande carried to Russian President Putin. But if that proposal–whose contents are unknown–essentially allows the insurgents to establish their own autonomous states only nominally linked to Kiev, it will lay the basis for the next war and encourage further Russian adventures in neighboring territories where Russian speakers happen to live.

There is lots of advice out there on how to manage the relationship with Putin’s aggressive Russia, which seems intent on challenging the West in what amounts not so much to a new Cold War as a pale imitation of the 20th century version. Ukraine is not the first Russian attempt to extend its influence to ethnic Russian or otherwise Russo-philic territories. Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Republika Srpska have all presented opportunities for Russian defiance. Moscow is even mucking about in Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia, three countries strongly committed to European Union membership (and the first two also to NATO membership).

Not getting too excited about these challenges is part of the solution. Russia is biting off more than it can chew in Ukraine. The situation in already annexed Crimea does little credit to Russia, which is hard-pressed to finance needs there due to dramatically lower oil prices and demands elsewhere in the parts of Ukraine Russia now controls. Putin is said to be insistent that he not be responsible for reconstruction in Donbas, where the damage is extensive.

But making life harder for Putin should also be part of the strategy. The Ukrainian army needs to vastly improve its training, equipment and performance if it is to mount anytime in the future a serious threat to take back the parts of Ukraine already under Russian dominance. If the German/French proposal fails, that would be the moment to up the ante by providing serious military assistance to Ukraine. It won’t help much in this decade. But it might be vital in the next.

Putin is playing a long game, one that encompasses not only Ukraine but also other neighbors in what the Russians used to like to call their “near abroad.” The West also needs to play a long game that encompasses not only military assistance to Ukraine today but also much closer economic and political relations with Russia’s now terrified southern neighbors, including NATO membership for those that want it.