Hawks in Washington continue to press Joe Biden to get even more deeply involved in the war in Ukraine. They want more military equipment for Kiev and more maximalist military and political objectives, which range from pushing Russia entirely out of Ukraine, to carving up Russia, to the removal of President Putin himself. They’re right that Russia should lose the war and that Ukraine should win it. But they’re wrong about how to get there.
Ukrainian and Russian forces are now in a slow, grinding war. Both have taken major losses, but Ukrainian casualties have been especially high. In the coming weeks, Russia might consolidate its position in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine might scrape back a little more territory, or the fighting might come to a halt.
I am tempted to hope that Ukraine will fight on at least until it retakes its February borders, and perhaps beyond, regaining all the territory it lost back in the 2014 war. But the former intelligence analyst in me sees risks all around. In the best circumstances, regaining significant amounts of territory will almost certainly require a long and protracted fight. Risk of escalation would be ever-present. Costs to America and Europe would mount.
And it would be especially bad for Ukraine. The fact is, Ukraine won’t win this war with a drawn-out, exhausting struggle to claw a few more hectares of territory back from Russia. Ukraine’s real victory is not on the battlefield, but in its post-conflict rebirth. The sooner that begins, the better.
Ukraine wins by seizing the opportunity, while its still can, to immediately begin a massive, western-funded reconstruction effort that turbo-charges its political and economic integration into Europe, strengthens its security, and speeds it down the path toward a democratic future. Ukraine wins by demonstrating the extraordinary resilience of political and economic liberalism to the world and starting that process as soon as possible, not in five years when the country is destroyed and the world has moved on. Ukraine wins by stopping Russia from extinguishing its independence, which so far has been miraculously preserved, but remained at risk until the fighting stops. Ukraine wins by channeling the national energy that has been generated by the war into a better peace and a stronger, more prosperous nation.
Western support for Ukraine has so far been extraordinary, reaching levels that almost no one could have expected just days before the war began. But today’s high levels of support will not last forever. Food and fuel costs worldwide are spiking. Nato has been unified in the first 100 days of the war, but over time divisions will emerge. Ukraine’s cause is widely viewed as just today, but the longer the war drags on, the greater the risk that moral clarity will fade.
Ukraine should prefer to spend the goodwill it now enjoys on rebuilding its economy, infrastructure and democracy, instead of on more weapons. Reconstruction is already a massive undertaking, which under the best conditions will take a decade or more and require hundreds of billions of dollars in western aid. The longer the war goes on, the more Ukraine will be destroyed and the more expensive it will get. A protracted war meanwhile increases the risk of deepening corruption and greater centralization and personalization of power in Kiev, both of which plagued Ukraine in the past and work against the overarching goal of strengthening Ukrainian democracy.
To be sure, de facto acceptance of a divided Ukraine, even if not de jure, means a hostile, potentially disruptive Russia on the border. This obviously presents challenges to Ukraine’s reconstruction, especially if Russia controls Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. But a Russian presence on Ukraine’s border is unavoidable without a coup in Moscow or a broader war; transitioning to reconstruction now presents fewer challenges than an endless war that sees many more cities in Ukraine flattened and millions of its citizens living as refugees abroad.
It will be hard to convince Ukraine’s leaders that this is their best option, now that their nation has suffered so grievously at Putin’s hands. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is unlikely to see his nation’s longer-term interest in a prosperous European future unless the United States and Europe use the influence they have as Ukraine’s economic and military lifeline to encourage him to do so.
Accepting a limited victory will also require diplomatic leadership from Washington to overcome resistance in some allied capitals, and from the commentators who badly want revenge on the Kremlin. Indeed, in the zero-sum logic that prevails in many quarters, Ukraine can only win if Russia is dealt a humiliating and decisive blow. Unquestionably, Putin should pay a dear price for the havoc that he has wreaked on Ukraine and the resulting damage to European and global security. Justice also calls for this. But sanctions, diplomatic ostracism, and heavy losses to the Russian military are real costs that will bite more over time. Russia’s elites, meanwhile, have had their assets seized and doors slammed in their faces around the world. These costs will afflict Russia and its leadership for years to come.
Perhaps the most famous dictum of strategy is that war ought to be a continuation of policy by other means. Western leaders should thus remember: Ukraine doesn’t win this war on the military battlefield. Nor does the west. It wins it when Ukraine becomes a healthy, prosperous democracy. This is already a challenge. A protracted war will not make it any easier.
Christopher S Chivvis is the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Program on American Statecraft and a former US national intelligence officer
