Putin in Ukraine: No Way Out? - Mackubin Owens

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Mackubin Owens, MINDSETTER™

 

View Larger +

Russia's Vladimir Putin PHOTO: Kremlin News Service

As the stalemate in Ukraine drags on into its third month, the question arises: is there an exit ramp for either Putin or Zelensky? What has changed since I addressed the issue a month ago. The war is costing both Russia and Ukraine dearly. Both economies are being wrecked. Which side has the resiliency to prevail in this continuing war of attrition? Ukraine has so far prevented a Russian victory but has hardly established the conditions to declare anything like victory itself.

Politically, Putin was hoping to divide NATO. Militarily, Russia initially sought to achieve a coup de main, the rapid seizure of Kyiv, and the decapitation of the Ukrainian government, the model the Soviets followed successfully in Afghanistan in 1978. As a result of both Ukrainian resistance and Russian military deficiencies, this gambit failed. Accordingly, Russian shifted military resources to eastern Ukraine, where it has been conducting “gray zone” operations since 2008: military activities that take place in the “space between war and peace” and “include everything from strong-arm diplomacy and economic coercion, to media manipulation and cyberattacks, to use of paramilitaries and proxy forces.” Gray-zone tactics aim to “confound or gradually weaken an adversary’s positions or resolve without provoking a military response.” These are the same type of activities that China has used successfully in the South China Sea.

A major Russian military objective since 2008, initially covertly and now overtly, has been to consolidate control over two Russian-speaking provinces in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region: Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia also seeks to expand its control southward through Mariupol, forming a continuous “land bridge” from Russia to Crimea, which it seized eight years ago.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

Ultimately, Russia seeks to expand its reach west from Crimea to incorporate Ukraine’s major Black Sea port, Odessa. The loss of Odessa would leave Ukraine landlocked, with disastrous economic consequences for Kyiv. But so far, these efforts have failed as well.

 Accordingly, Putin is in a quandary. His main political goal—to weaken NATO—has failed. Indeed, the alliance has found a unity it has lacked since the Cold War. While avoiding—so far—direct confrontation with Russia, NATO has opened the spigots to supply Ukraine with weapons of all sorts, which have tipped the battlefield in Ukraine’s favor.

So what lies ahead? The best achievable outcome would seem to be some sort of a negotiated settlement. But Russia could opt to double down and attempt to use brute power to pound Ukraine into submission. To assess these possible outcomes, it is necessary to understand the stakeholders and their incentives.

The main stakeholders are, of course, Russia and Ukraine but NATO has a stake as well. This is problematic, however, as explained .by the strategist Edward Luttwak, who has identified what he calls a NATO “Ukraine-victory lobby.”  This coalition stretches “from the US to Finland, with notable outposts in Germany’s once-pacifist Green Party and in Downing Street. This loose but influential lobby holds that victory for Ukraine is a victory for NATO and the West, so defeat for Ukraine must mean their defeat as well. It follows that enough military support must reach Ukraine to allow it to expel Russia’s forces, including in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”

This lobby rejects the possibility of a negotiated settlement, preferring that Ukraine expel all Russian troops, with the hope that Putin himself will be driven out of office. Anyone with even a little knowledge of Russian history and a general history of war recognizes the risks attendant to such a gamble.

Luttwak offers a rejoinder, arguing that NATO should provide enough lethal military aid to Ukraine to maintain its strength while vigorously proposing a peace plan. As he notes, the two sides have already reached agreement on the broadest issues: Zelensky has already stated that Ukraine will not join NATO and Russia has already accepted Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.

“That leaves the disposition of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, substantial territories that Zelensky does not have the authority to give up, and without which Putin cannot leave the table where he has gambled and lost so much. While Putin cannot be given the two regions he demanded before starting the war, he can be provided with something that he can portray as a victory: plebiscites in both regions where properly certified residents, including returning refugees, would be allowed to vote on whether their oblast should remain Ukrainian or join Russia.”

Luttwak notes that plebiscites proved surprisingly effective after the Versailles Treaty in disputed territories ranging from Belgium to Poland. In spite of the enormous devastation and loss of life brought about by the Great War, and the bureaucratic shortcomings of newly formed states, the votes in 1919 went well enough to prevent further border wars. 

For such an outcome to work, it is necessary that both sides benefit. For Ukraine, this would require its unconditional recognition as an independent state, the cessation of hostilities, and reconstruction aid. For Russia, it would require an agreement to lift of all sanctions.

But as I argued in my GoLocal essay last month, there is always the possibility of Russia’s doubling down in order to “ruin and depopulate Ukraine, the way Richelieu reduced large parts of Germany to cannibalism during the Thirty Years War.” As I concluded then, “the primary danger now is miscalculation. Backing out of the present cul-de-sac will take a great deal of diplomatic skill.”

Mackubin Owens is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He previously served as editor of Orbis: FPRI’s Journal of World Affairs (2008-2020). From 2015 until March of 2018, he was Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. From 1987 until 2014, he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. 

He is also a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, where as an infantry platoon and company commander in 1968-1969, he was wounded twice and awarded the Silver Star medal. He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel in 1994.

Owens is the author of the FPRI monograph Abraham Lincoln: Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime (2009) and US Civil-Military Relations after 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain (Continuum Press, January 2011) and coauthor of US Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Rise of an Incidental Superpower (Georgetown University Press, spring 2015). He is also completing a book on the theory and practice of US civil-military relations for Lynne-Rienner. He was co-editor of the textbook, Strategy and Force Planning, for which he also wrote several chapters, including “The Political Economy of National Security,” “Thinking About Strategy,” and “The Logic of Strategy and Force Planning.”

Owens’s articles on national security issues and American politics have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, International Security, Orbis, Joint Force Quarterly, The Public Interest, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Examiner, Defence Analysis, US Naval Institute Proceedings, Marine Corps Gazette, Comparative Strategy, National Review, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor; The Los Angeles Times, the Jerusalem Post, The Washington Times, and The New York Post. And, he formerly wrote for the Providence Journal.

LEARN MORE HERE
 

Related Articles

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

 
 

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

I want to follow on Twitter

I want to Like on Facebook