Jaw-jaw is better
The Russian buildup on its border with Ukraine looks increasingly like a real invasion force. While Moscow has already built a bridge from Russian territory to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, President Putin would also like a mainland connection along the coast through Mariupol. Or he has signaled he might settle for an agreement with Washington that Ukraine and other immediate neighbors of Russia will never join NATO. The deployment of 100,000 invasion-ready troops is expensive, but Russia is still relatively flush despite the decline of oil from more than $80 per barrel to less than $70. Putin is using military threat to gain what the West has successfully denied Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago: a “near abroad” sphere of influence Russia regards as vital to its security.
Moscow claims it is reacting to NATO threats, but there is no real sign of those. Putin knows that NATO is an inherently defensive alliance, one ruled by consensus that is difficult to achieve. The Alliance will not deploy troops to defend non-member Ukraine. If the balloon goes up, it will be Kiev’s responsibility to respond to a Russian invasion. While it did poorly at that in 2014, when the Russians took Crimea as well as Luhansk and Donetsk, the Ukrainian army has improved since then and received a modicum of assistance from the US, in particular defensive Javelin missiles to counter Russian tanks. Presumably Washington is also providing Kiev with satellite and signals intelligence.
There is an obvious off-ramp from the current confrontation: the Minsk II agreement that provides for self-governance for Luhansk and Donetsk in return for re-establishing monitored control of the border with Russia and withdrawal of illegal armed forces from Ukrainian territory. But Russia has no interest in self-governance anywhere and uses proxy forces inside Ukraine to ensure that control of the border remains in exclusively Russian-friendly hands. The Germans and French led the negotiation effort that produced Minsk II, but they haven’t got the diplomatic clout to make it stick with Moscow. Even if the US were to weigh in heavily, it is not clear Moscow would be prepared to implement Minsk II.
While Putin’s statecraft in using the threat of military force may look promising, it could turn out badly. It is not clear Russia would win a war with Ukraine. Even without one, any patriotic Ukrainian might conclude from the current situation that membership in NATO and the EU is the most promising way of defending the country and enabling it to prosper. Russia is just too big and relatively well off for Kiev to confront alone. While Russia might bite off another morsel in Ukraine’s southeast, political and economic conditions in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine are miserable. Ukraine’s best hope will be to prove itself far better at governing and prospering than Moscow. That should not be impossible, as Russia is a declining petro-state of no particular distinction in benefiting its citizens.
In the meanwhile, the West will need to react to any military move on Russia’s part. The usual response is perhaps the best it can do: rhetorical condemnation, tightening and expanding sanctions, and increasing military, economic and political assistance to Kiev. The alternative is unattractive: agreement to close the doors of NATO and the EU to Ukraine, Belarus, and other neighbors of Russia. That would demonstrate that sabre rattling is a successful strategy and would no doubt lead to more of the same. We should not go to war with Russia over Ukraine, but nor should we cave to Russian intimidation. Jaw-jaw is better.
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