What Is the West’s Objective in Ukraine?

Russia’s failure to attain an immediate victory over Ukraine has carried the West to consider what its own goals in the conflict need to be. In performing that, it must walk a fine line between the disgrace of insufficient action and the danger of strategic hubris.

VIENNA– We know what Russian President Vladimir Putin desires in Ukraine: to wipe the country off the map. We also know what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants: to maintain Ukraine active as a democratic state. The inquiry is what the West wants. What is its strategic objective?

NATO enforcement

Far, the West’s goals have been framed badly: to prevent being drawn into a battle with Russia while still performing whatever possible to help the Ukrainians. That has meant claiming no to Zelensky when he requests for a NATO-enforced “no fly area.” However, the West’s war strategy can not be based on what it will not perform. NATO and its allies should define a good objective.

At the start of the attack, when several foreseen a rapid Russian triumph, the West might stay with virtue signaling, congratulating Zelensky and his government on their courage while discreetly preparing to evacuate them to exile. Zelensky rejected it, and currently, the Ukrainians have revealed what they can do; NATO is giving anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles into the nation and sharing military intelligence with Ukrainian commanders.

The West has entered proxy warfare, and the proxy defines the purposes of proxy battles. When proxies succeed, it is tempting to start visualizing more ambitious goals, from forcing the rival into a humiliating stalemate to effecting regime alteration. This elevates the risk of strategic hubris. We risk neglecting that Russians have extensive experience surviving economic hardship. They can absorb a big deal of economic punishment before climbing against the regime. It is also hubristic to foresee that Putin’s internal circle will rise and unmake him.

Change in the tides?

It is far too soon to conclude that Putin is losing the battle. He has already changed to more destructive and efficient strategies, with the horrible destruction of Mariupol and Kharkiv showing what might remain in store for Kyiv. Neither the West nor its proxy is in any posture to announce regime change as the tactical goal, which would risk promoting Putin into seeking an even more violent and harmful escalation.

The West has been applauding itself for the intensity of the sanctions regime, but sanctions are guns that struck both sides. Every Western leader recognizes that increased gasoline prices indicate political difficulty back home, especially in an election year. If the West reduces further on Russian energy imports, or if the Russians switch off the tap themselves, a recession or depression will loom.

Western leaders may be worried concerning the most likely long-lasting economic effect of sanctions; however, they also know that concentrating on their economies– and thus their political futures– at the expense of the Ukrainians would look disgraceful, and not simply to the Ukrainians.

At a moment when the war has raised fury in Western electorates on an extraordinary scale, conserving Western economies by compromising the Ukrainians is poor politics and a wrong method. Suppose a Russian victory can still be avoided. In that case, the West will need to reinforce its help to the Ukrainian military to compel Putin into a bloody impasse, followed by a negotiated agreement that leaves at least part of Ukraine undamaged and in the Zelensky government’s hands.

Effects on the West

Even here, the West must prepare for the worst, not hope for the best. The worst would be the defeat of the Zelensky government after an extensive siege and bombardment of Kyiv. Offering the Ukrainians anti-aircraft, anti-missile, and anti-artillery capacities was vital to destroying the siege.

However, if these do not work out to hold the Russians back, the West will have to choose whether it can wait and watch the presidential palace being bombarded and a democratically elected government being ruined. The fall of the Zelensky government would give Putin the victory he so frantically needs; it would certainly permit him to erase Ukraine as a sovereign state and begin the russification of freshly overcome individuals.

This plausible circumstance should provide Western leaders with strategic and moral clarity. The West’s strategic objective in this war should be to protect the Zelensky government. By saving the government, the West can save Ukraine. Any Russian initiative to finish off the Zelensky government should be the West’s red line: the instant it sends a message to Putin that if he does not cease, it will react with force.

Western political leaders can pick this strategic message at this week’s NATO summit. If they can reach a consensus, it will subsequently depend on the partnership’s military leadership to draw up tactical plans to deliver the message loud and clear.

Read the original article on Project Syndicate.

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