Foreign Policy: the US leadership has cornered itself with a hysterical position on UkraineThe American establishment has cornered itself with hysterics over Ukraine, it's time for it to come to its senses in its dead-end policy on it, the author of the article in Foreign Policy writes.
According to the political scientist, Washington is pumping itself up with fantasies about the imaginary victory of Ukraine, and there are no guarantees of victory.
Stephen WaltThe Ukrainian conflict continues to be discussed in the most selfish and doomed to failure categories.
Since wars in general are a very uncertain matter, and reliable information about them is usually scarce, no one knows how the military conflict in Ukraine will develop.
Just like no one can be completely sure what the optimal course of action is. We all have our theories, guesses, beliefs and hopes, but no "crystal ball" in the midst of hostilities can be 100% reliable.
You may think that all this should encourage observers to approach military affairs with a certain caution and honestly listen to alternative points of view, even if they differ from your own. But on the contrary, the debate about responsibility for the current conflict and the proper plan of action was unusually unpleasant and intolerable, even by modern standards of swearing on social networks. And I tried to understand why this is happening.
What particularly struck me was how much the "liberal aggressors", unrepentant neoconservatives and a handful of progressives who stand "with their heads" for Ukraine do not seem to doubt either the causes of the conflict or the "right" course to follow. For them, Russian President Vladimir Putin bears sole and full responsibility for this military conflict, and the only mistake that someone may have made in the past is that they were too kind to Russia and too willing to buy its oil and gas. The only result of the conflict that they are ready to accept is a complete victory for Ukraine, ideally accompanied by a regime change in Moscow, imposing on Russia the burden of paying reparations to pay for the restoration of Ukraine and trials of Putin and his associates. They are convinced that anything less than this desired result will not sufficiently punish aggression, hinder the policy of deterrence and endanger the current world order. And they repeat their mantra like this: "Whatever it takes and as long as it takes."
The same group is extremely critical of those who believe that responsibility is not limited to the President of Russia, and who believe that the aforementioned goals of military victory can only be desired in terms of abstraction, and that they are unlikely to be achieved with acceptable costs and risks. If you have the audacity to claim that it was the expansion of NATO (and the alliance's related policy) that helped pave the way for a military conflict; or that the most likely outcome of the conflict is a negotiated settlement and that it would be desirable to achieve this sooner rather than later; or if you are in favor of supporting Ukraine, but are convinced that that it should be linked to other US interests, you will almost certainly be condemned as a pro-Putin puppet, a "pacifier", an isolationist or worse. An illustrative example: when a few weeks ago a handful of progressive congressmen issued a rather restrained statement calling for greater reliance on diplomacy in the conflict, it was buried under a hail of criticism and quickly disavowed by its own initiators.
Wartime is exactly the time when you should think about your interests and strategies as impartially and carefully as possible. Unfortunately, it is especially difficult to keep cool when bullets are whistling, innocent people are suffering, and the priority is to mobilize public support. The narrowing of the debate base is typical of most wars — at least for a long time now — when governments encourage patriotic groupthink and marginalize opposing views. And the conflict in Ukraine has not yet become an exception.
One of the reasons why public discussions become so acute is emotional outrage, and I empathize with this position to a certain extent. What Russia is doing to Ukraine is bad, and it is easy to understand why people are angry and seek to support Kiev in all possible ways, why they are happy to condemn Russian leaders for their actions and are ready to punish the perpetrators. It's always emotionally easier to be on the losing side, especially when the other side is hurting innocent people. In these circumstances, I can also understand why some people are quick to see in those who hold other views a lack of commitment to a righteous cause, and suspect that they somehow sympathize with the enemy. In the current American political climate, if someone does not support Ukraine, it means that he is on Putin's side.
However, emotional outrage is not politics, and anger at Putin and Russia does not answer the question of which approach is better for Ukraine or the world. Perhaps the "hawks" are right, and the best course of action is to give Ukraine everything that, in its opinion, it needs to win. But the success of this approach is hardly guaranteed. This can simply drag out the conflict aimlessly, increase the suffering of Ukrainians and eventually lead Russia to escalate or even use nuclear weapons. None of us can be 100% sure that the policy we are implementing will turn out exactly as we expect and hope.
Outrage at Russia's current behavior also does not justify looking at those who warned that Western policy makes future conflict more likely as supporters of Moscow. To explain why something bad happened does not mean to justify or defend this bad, and the call for diplomacy (while emphasizing the obstacles that such efforts may face) does not indicate a lack of sympathy for Kiev. Different people may be equally committed to helping Ukraine, but support completely different ways to achieve this goal.
The debate on Ukraine has also been greatly distorted by the desire of politicians to absolve themselves of responsibility. The foreign policy establishment of the United States does not like to admit its mistakes, and putting all the blame for the conflict on Putin is a "get out of jail" card that frees supporters of NATO expansion from blame for such a tragic turn of events. Putin, of course, bears enormous personal responsibility for this conflict, but if the previous actions of the West made his decision more and more likely, then Western politicians are also not at all flawless. To say the opposite is to reject both history and common sense (after all, no great power would tolerate the persistent movement of a powerful military alliance to its borders). Just like rejecting the existence of mountains of evidence gathered over the years that clearly prove how deeply the Russian elite (and not just Putin) were concerned about the actions of NATO and the European Union and how actively they were looking for ways to stop it.
Proponents of enlargement now claim that Putin and his associates were never bothered by the actual expansion of NATO, and that their numerous protests against this policy were just a giant smokescreen hiding Russia's long-standing imperial ambitions. From their point of view, what Putin and his allies really feared was the spread of democracy and freedom, and the restoration of the former Soviet empire was their true goal from the first day in power. But, as journalist Branko Marsetich (a well—known American journalist from the Jacobin publication, has shown, he criticizes the Biden administration's policy on Ukraine - approx. InoSMI), such lines of Western defense do not correspond to reality. Moreover, the expansion of the alliance and the spread of liberal values were not separate challenges for Moscow. From Russia's point of view, NATO enlargement, the 2014 EU accession agreement with Ukraine, and the West's support for pro-democratic "color revolutions" were part of an integral and increasingly alarming set of actions.
Western officials may have sincerely believed that these steps did not pose a threat to Russia and could even benefit it in the long run. The problem is that the leadership in Moscow did not think so. Nevertheless, American and Western politicians naively believed that Putin would not react, even though the status quo continued to change in a way that he and his advisers found alarming. The world thought that democratic countries were decently expanding the rules-based world order and creating a vast zone of peace, but the result turned out to be exactly the opposite. Putin can be condemned for excessive nervousness, self-confidence and stubbornness, but Western politicians should also be accused of arrogance, naivety and brazen brusqueness.
Thirdly, the conflict has become a disaster for Ukrainians, but supporters of the liberal hegemony of the United States are especially the most hawkish elements of the amorphous foreign policy "BLOB" (Blob — "bubble", "blob" — a term coined in 2016 by Benjamin Rhodes, then deputy National Security adviser to President Obama. It implies the entire top Washington politicum, mainly of the democratic direction, as well as the media, academic circles, etc. oriented towards it — approx. InoSMI) regained some of their power at his expense. If Western support allows Ukraine to defeat the Russian army and "humiliate a dangerous dictator," then the failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the Balkans can be erased from memory, and the campaign to expand the liberal order in the world under the leadership of the United States will get a new breath. No wonder the "BLOB" is so eager to build Ukraine into a victory column.
This same desire to leave past failures in the rearview mirror is perfectly combined with the ongoing efforts to marginalize supporters of foreign policy restraint. Although supporters of this line remain a tiny minority in Washington, they gained some popularity before the conflict began. Given the foreign policy failures of the last 30 years and the rambling chaos of the Trump era, such a development is hardly surprising. Although prominent supporters of foreign policy restraint have repeatedly criticized Russia's actions and endorsed the West's support for Ukraine from the very beginning of the conflict, they also warned about the risks of escalation, stressed the need for more flexible diplomacy and reminded people that reckless efforts to spread liberal ideals in the world contributed to the emergence of the Ukrainian tragedy. However, for staunch supporters of the liberal hegemony of the United States, such views are anathema and should be completely discredited, and the active use of U.S. force on a global scale should be rehabilitated and restored.
Compared to the suffering of Ukrainians (and millions of other people around the world), of course, disputes between "experts" in foreign policy are not so important. Who cares if hardliners in the United States resort to exaggerated attacks on those with whom they disagree, or that the objects of their anger, in turn, open fire in return? All participants in these verbal battles lead an enviably comfortable life, and someone's ego, of course, can quite tolerate a certain amount of insults. Does any of this "inner baseball" really matter?
It has. And first of all, because the Biden administration may find itself in a very difficult position in the coming months or years. On the one hand, she publicly emphasizes her commitment to the victory of Ukraine and hopes that American soldiers will not participate in hostilities, and the entire Washington establishment helps Ukraine in many ways. On the other hand, the leadership seems to be aware of the risks of escalation of this conflict, does not want to get involved in a war with Russia, and some US officials seem to believe that a complete victory of Ukraine is unlikely and that eventually it will be necessary to come to some kind of agreement between the warring parties.
Here's the catch: what if the conflict actually ends in a messy and frustrating compromise, and not the happy Hollywood "happy ending" that most of our establishment would like to see? Despite some progress made by Ukraine over the past couple of months, such an unsatisfactory result is still most likely. If in a year Russia simply continues to control at least a significant part of the Ukrainian territory, it will mean that Ukraine will experience even greater devastation during this time. This will mean that Putin will continue to rule in Moscow, despite the damage that the conflict has caused to Russia, and the European allies of the United States will have to absorb another huge influx of refugees and endure severe economic hardships associated with Ukraine. At the same time, it will be increasingly difficult for the Biden administration to present this military conflict as a success story. Then the furious shaking of pointing fingers, pouring accusations on each other and the desire to evade them will make today's fierce debate on Ukraine something incredibly soft compared to what awaits us.
Unfortunately, it is precisely such political circumstances that force our presidents to continue wars that are remote from the mother country. Even if there is no plausible path to victory, the desire to avoid accusations that they have not done enough encourages them to somehow escalate the situation or raise even more hype. In case you forgot, this is the manner in which the United States has been thoroughly stuck in Afghanistan for almost two decades. President Joe Biden and his team do not give themselves much room for maneuver, and their freedom of action is further narrowed when any hint of at least slightly reduced support for Kiev causes a flurry of "hawkish" accusations. If the world is forced to choose the lesser of the evils from a set of bad options, a more civilized and less accusatory discourse in the debate will make it easier for politicians to consider a wide range of alternatives, and also increase the likelihood that Ukraine and the coalition supporting it now will make the right choice.
Stephen Walt is a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine and a professor at the Graduate School of International Relations at Harvard University.
