Answering Mark on Ukraine

Mark Wright listened to the debate Noah and I had about Ukraine on Charlie Cooke’s podcast. He has three questions. Quickly, I’ll try to answer them.

Why are you so sure that a confident Western alliance couldn’t have muscled Russia out of Ukraine without firing a shot in 2008 by placing Kyiv under the U.S. nuclear umbrella?

I’m not sure I expressed confidence in such a counterfactual. What I know is that NATO requires its members to not have any ongoing irredentist territorial or border disputes precisely because such things could reliably drag the alliance into a war. I have assumed that Russia’s maintenance of a vast naval base (over which it has fought great-power wars in the past) on Ukrainian territory would be an irresolvable obstacle. Perhaps Russia was still at a low enough post–Cold War ebb in 2008 that we could have worked this outcome on it, but at what cost? And to whom? Also, at this time, Ukraine was still semi-regularly electing governments that tilted toward Moscow and away from the West. It’s possible that if we had done this, Putin would have immediately called our bluff. Just imagine George W. Bush pushing us toward conflict with Russia in the final years of a presidency that had already resulted in a war-weary Congress.

Isn’t the humiliation of the Russian army and the smashing of its power for a small fraction of America’s annual defense expenditures profoundly in the U.S. national interest by taking a major rival’s capacity for land warfare off the board?

I’m not positive that it was good to give the Russian army so much experience in drone warfare against our weapons systems. Also, Russia has learned and adapted to a military–industrial production line that can produce “good enough for the war at hand” shells at seven to ten times the pace at which the entire Western alliance produces its fabulously superior, shelf-stable shells. Some have preached the usefulness of “sequencing” our threats by seeing Russia’s army humiliated first before there is a conflict with China (one I also hope we can deter and avoid). Noah took the position that Russia’s national interests are permanently opposed to ours in a way that makes it a perpetual enemy (I think this takes the substance out of other claims such as that NATO isn’t an anti-Russian alliance, etc. — be that as it may.) If Noah is right, then yes, it would be in our interest to see Russia demoralized every generation or so. I think we need a stronger strategic reason for doing so, a kind of settlement that we should be aiming at. And, again, I don’t think the costs end with the monkeying around with our military budget. Rebuilding Ukraine will take trillions of dollars, especially if we aim to rebuild it as a member of the West. How large of a DMZ should we have perpetually in Europe? We could make the Berlin Wall look like a pile of toothpicks.

Why do you think — however we came to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and America’s errors on that road — that a U.S. abandonment of Ukraine now would not profoundly increase the likelihood of a Chinese move on Taiwan? I believe that the best way to avoid a shooting war in the Far East is for the Communists in Beijing to be deterred by the U.S. and its alliance structure and the belief in our commitment to sacrifice blood and treasure in the defense of Taiwan. So, MBD, in the effort to deter Beijing, shouldn’t we make every effort to convince China that we will go very far in our support of Kyiv — especially when the only cost we have borne to date is not blood but merely treasure?

This seems the easiest to answer. I think intellectuals’ worst innumeracy in world affairs is reflected in the idea that once you have a heroic resolve of will, you’ll have a heroic resolve of will forever afterward. I do not believe resources such as willpower or weapons are replenished by the act of expending them. It’s like asking, “Isn’t the best way to prepare for a basketball game to focus all your energy slamming the basketball against the backboard on a different court to show your opponent how intimidating you are?” No, your opponent will watch you get tired and wait until you want to quit. Then he’ll call for the game to begin.

If Xi is planning an invasion in 2027, as Elbridge Colby and other China hawks urge us to believe in an effort to awaken us to the urgency of the threat, the U.S. Congress has just promised Ukraine enough weaponry to occupy our production lines almost until that time. That’s without replenishing our stocks or increasing our aid to Taiwan and other Pacific allies. If Xi thought that Ukraine was the decisive theater for Taiwan, he would show a willingness to sacrifice to ensure Russia’s win there. He would intervene directly and win Taiwan now. Instead, he is allowing our weapons and resolve to deplete while he gets cheaper energy from Russia.

Now, do I believe that our political and military class is hurting our willpower by constantly overpromising and underdelivering in conflicts of choice? You bet I do. But to take on Ukraine as our security and economic dependent going forward would be to add another giant set of debits to our overdrawn account. You may think that’s willpower; I think it’s more like a gambler’s dangerously playing on credit.