It works in practice, of course, but what about in theory? Over the years I have heard this parody of academic pomposity attributed to a variety of targets, from French intellectuals to economists at the University of Chicago. Recently, however, I have begun to think this myself—about the more militaristic side of the Ukrainian War debate, a side whose practical policies have so far yielded favorable results but whose deeper theories of the conflict still seem implausible, impractical or dangerous.
Before the war, I was not a hardliner on Ukraine. He felt that the United States had made too many commitments to its half-open door to NATO entry, and that eastern Ukraine, at least, could not be defended against Russian aggression without full-scale American military engagement.
Sending arms to Kiev probably made sense, but as a means of hampering a Russian incursion, not stopping it altogether. And a Ukrainian collapse of the kind we saw with our client government in Afghanistan seemed like a possibility.
The war itself has challenged these expectations. The militarists were proven right about Ukraine’s sheer ability to fight. They were right when they predicted that American weapons could actually help mitigate a Russian invasion, not just create an insurgency behind their lines.
And his psychological interpretation of Russian President Vladimir Putin also turned out to be partially correct: Putin’s choices indicate that he is a man motivated as much by a desire for imperial restoration as by a defensive anti-NATO attitude, and the way he has been leading war offers little evidence that a stable and permanent peace is possible, even with eventual concessions from Ukraine.
So, in the area of practical politics so far, I have adhered to the militarists. Military support for Ukraine has been working: it protects a sovereign nation and weakens its rival without seeing a dangerous escalation on the Russian side. And for now, with Russia continuing to launch offensives and avoiding the bargaining table most of the time, there is no obvious “exit ramp” to the peace we should force Kiev to follow.
Even so, when I read the broader theories of hard-line commentators, their ideas about America’s strategic vision and what sort of outcome we should seek for the war, I am still baffled by their confidence and absolutism.
For example, for all their defensive successes, it is still not clear that Ukrainian forces will be able to regain significant areas of territory in the south and east of the country. Yet we have Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic insisting that only a defeat and even “humiliation” by Putin can restore European stability. And, in the same magazine, Casey Michaels launches a call for the dismantling of the Russian Federation, a process described as the “decolonization” of the remaining Russian empire, which would be the only policy capable of bringing about lasting peace.
Or, the United States has set aside an extraordinary amount of money to support Ukraine — far more than we spent on assistance to Afghanistan in any recent year, for example — and our aid is roughly three times what the European Union has provided. .
However, when the New York Times editorial board questioned the sustainability of this support, the response of many Ukraine “hawks” was an angry “how dare you?” — with emphasis, to quote Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution, on Ukraine’s absolute right to fight “until every inch of its territory is free”; on the strictly “modest” and “advisory” role of the US in Ukraine’s decision-making; and on the importance of extending to Kiev, if not a blank check, at least “a very large check, with others to follow”.
All these theories seem to confuse what is desirable with what is likely – and what is morally ideal with what is strategically achievable. I have previously written about the risks of nuclear escalation in the event of a Russian military meltdown, a risk that militaristic theories underestimate.
But given the current state of the war, a more likely scenario in the near future is one in which Russian collapse is still a pleasant fantasy, in which the conflict turns into a frozen quagmire, and in which we are forced to place our Ukrainian policy on a sustainable basis without driving away the Putin regime or dismantling the Russian empire.
In this scenario, our plan cannot be to continue writing countless checks while walking on eggshells with the Ukrainians and letting them dictate the purposes for which our weapons are used. The United States is a global hegemonic power involved in conflicts and facing more significant threats than Russia.
It is also an internally divided country led by an unpopular president whose majorities could be on the brink of political collapse. So if Kiev and Moscow are headed for a frozen conflict that will drag on for several years or even decades, we need to pressure Ukraine to adopt a more realistic military strategy, not its more ambitious one. And, with equal urgency, we need to shift some of the burden of supporting Kiev to European allies.
These goals are consistent with what we’ve done so far and, of course, can be adapted if better opportunities suddenly arise. But a good strategic theory needs to assume difficulties, challenges, limits. The danger now is that the practical gains made by our militaristic policy will encourage the opposite kind of thinking, an arrogance that will jeopardize our still provisional success.
