We should help Ukraine defend itself

The decision whether or not to provide Ukraine with weapons has now reached the White House. Both the State Department and Pentagon approved this policy and Kurt Volker, President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, has also done so.

Nevertheless, opponents of this policy have again flooded the media arguing against giving Ukraine these weapons. Their arguments boil down into three categories: Russia allegedly retains escalation dominance and will be provoked if we do so, our allies oppose this move and in any event Ukraine does not merit these weapons due to its democratic or other capability deficits. Unfortunately, all three arguments are unfounded.            

{mosads}Russia already is and will be provoked whatever we do. But doing nothing encourages it to continue escalating its aggression against Ukraine as it has done with relative impunity. Russia has created armies and divisions against Ukraine and brought its best weapons there, notably not against the Baltic States where it faces NATO.

Russia commits daily major violations of the Minsk accords x and its forces have killed about 10,000 Ukrainians, devastated eastern and southern Ukraine, imposed ethnic purges if not ethnic cleansing on Crimea and shot down unarmed civilian airliners. Beyond this it has sponsored terrorism in Ukraine and wages an unrelenting information and economic warfare against Ukraine. Finally, it has launched information warfare and constant threats against all of Europe and the U.S. 

Yet Russia cannot and dare not launch an all out war against Ukraine because of the limits to its own military capability which amounts to about 100,000 men capable of being operationally deployed against a resolute and steadily improving Ukrainian army. Indeed, these opponents of helping Ukraine refuse to acknowledge the progress made by this army or the resolute fighting spirit of the Ukrainian people lest that detract from their narrative of a Russia unlimited by its own economic weakness and military capabilities. Actually Putin himself had to announce defense cutbacks on August 14.

Russia cannot and dare not sustain a protracted war that would lead to many fatalities and is the inevitable cost of further escalation even though it can always make life miserable for Ukraine.

By giving Ukraine weapons we raise the cost to Russia when it can least afford it and adopt Moscow’s long-standing tactic by helping Ukraine fight and talk simultaneously. We thus replicate the way we helped drive Soviet forces from Afghanistan and fully accords with our policy since 1947 of helping people who wish to be free defend themselves against naked aggression.

Second, although our allies have decided not to offer weapons, they have stated that they would accept it if we decided to do so. Clearly this is an amber flashing light, not a stop sign. Neither will they pressure Ukraine to accept the Minsk accords when Russia violated them before the ink was dry and still does so. Therefore alleged allied opposition is not only no argument, it is utterly unfounded.

If anything, helping Ukraine defend itself and fulfilling our own prior assurances of its sovereignty and integrity in the 1994 Budapest document would strengthen allied confidence unlike the craven past policy of abandoning our commitments once Russia invaded Ukraine. 

Third, admittedly Ukraine suffers from many well known and extensively reported democratic and other defects — so do w —, as recent events clearly show. Thus Ukraine is hardly unique. And in any case the quality of its governance and democratic credentials is ultimately irrelevant to the issue of a country struggling to build democracy that must fight for its life, freedom, territorial integrity and sovereignty against naked aggression.

It is clearly in our interest as the guarantor of European and Ukrainian security as well as as the upholder of a liberal world order that aggression not be rewarded. Therefore failure to act not only rewards Russian aggression it actually increases the chances of U.S. troops fighting in Europe. 

Ukraine may not be perfect. But it will defend its freedom and only wants us to give it the tools to finish the job as we assured Ukraine we would. Moreover, the longer this war drags on the less likely it is that Ukraine will become more democratic or that it will be able to reform its economy by itself. That would be impossible in wartime. Neither does giving Ukraine the means of self-defense prevent us and our allies from leaning on Kyiv to continue reforms. If anything, doing so gives us more leverage for Ukraine will not long heed people whom it feels abandoned it during its crisis. Thus the arguments for opposition lack a basis in reality and should be dismissed.

President Trump should authorize the provision of these weapons for Ukraine today, just like Polish members of Solidarity in the 1980’s are not only fighting for their freedom, they are fighting for ours. 

Stephen Blank is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. He is the author of numerous foreign policy-related articles, white papers and monographs, specifically focused on the geopolitics and geostrategy of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasia. He is a former MacArthur Fellow at the U.S. Army War College.