Russian President Vladimir Putin knew that by invading Ukraine he was going to war with the United States, a proxy war, but a war nonetheless. He aspired to win it in a few days and even US military intelligence agreed with him. The 150,000 men that Russia had concentrated on the Belarusian border would arrive in Kyiv in just 72 hours.
Therefore, the initial reaction of the United States and its European allies was to remove the Ukrainian government from Kyiv, but President Volodómir Zelensky chose to resist and everything began to change.
Supported by arms and financing from the United States, as well as from other Western countries, the Ukrainian army forced the withdrawal of the invading force to the north of Kyiv and, later, also from Kharkiv. Now that the hundred days of war have passed, the front moves little. The Russian army is advancing in the Donbas, but not in the Black Sea, where Odessa appears to be a military target out of reach.
The war enters a phase that can be decisive in forcing a negotiation. Whether Ukraine will regain territory lost since the February 24 invasion is impossible to predict, as is Putin’s reaction, his readiness even to use nuclear weapons.
What seems more and more clear is that the United States will emerge victorious whatever the military outcome on the ground.
As the weeks have gone by, the White House has raised the tone of its rhetoric and its ambition and no longer hides the fact that beyond ensuring Ukraine’s sovereignty, it wants to weaken Russia so that it is no longer a threat to its neighbours.
This goal has already been achieved. Russia today is a much weaker country. It is economically and militarily diminished, as well as politically isolated. It is a country with little relationship with the West. Economic sanctions hamper its growth.
Putin will be a pariah until he dies, a butcher to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. As long as it occupies Ukraine, the West will maintain sanctions and it will be very difficult for Russia to rebuild its army and revitalize its economy. We speak of a prolonged decline, as long as the years that Putin remains in power.
Russia has only the nuclear threat left to claim its great power status, but this is a resource that China, to whom it has entrusted its future, will not allow it to use.
President Xi Jinping did not support the invasion of Ukraine. He is against NATO expansion, but abstained on the Security Council resolution condemning the invasion. The strategic alliance that Putin and Xi signed in early February quickly hit a limit. Wars are not of interest to China, and even less so now that it is trying to get out of the doldrums of the pandemic. Its export economy needs a stability that Putin’s territorial ambition in Ukraine compromises.
In addition to weakening Russia, the United States has achieved another goal that it had been pursuing for many years: making Europe aware of what is at stake. Russian aggressiveness has convinced Europeans that they must bear the cost of their own security. Investments in defense will increase. Germany has launched an ambitious project to build a large army. It is quite possible that, in a short time, Europe will be able to defend itself within a strengthened Atlantic Alliance.
The United States will therefore be able to free up military and economic resources to meet China’s challenge in the Pacific. This is the third victory reported by the war in Ukraine. Europe will be a strategic ally capable of guaranteeing security from the Arctic to the Sahel and the Indo-Pacific region. The United Kingdom will have a decisive role in this new distribution of responsibilities.
The war in Ukraine has shown Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines the importance of good military forces and good allies in containing an expanding dictatorship like China’s in the Pacific. By defending Ukraine, the United States sends them a message that it will not leave them alone, and China takes note.
Thanks to Ukraine, the United States manages to stabilize Europe and the Pacific, two crucial regions for deciding hegemony in the 21st century, a leadership that intends to base itself on the same pillars that have sustained its “world order” during the 20th century: individual rights, democracy and free trade.
On April 26, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin chaired a meeting of more than 40 countries determined to ensure that a sovereign and democratic Ukraine survives Putin at the Ramstein base in Germany. Austin called it the alliance of “the nations of good will.” The attendees agreed to meet every month to “intensify” “the struggle of today and those to come.”
President Joe Biden has public opinion on his side. Three-quarters of Americans admit to a “moral duty” to help Ukraine. Although this support is conditional on no soldiers being sent, it is surprisingly high after the defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On May 19, the Senate approved $40 billion in aid, more than what Biden was requesting. Almost all Republicans voted for it. It was an unusual gesture in a highly polarized Congress.
The United States comes out stronger from Ukraine, but it can make mistakes that nullify these advantages.
The biggest danger is deciding when you have won, something that is very complicated. The White House is determined that Putin gains no advantage from the invasion. This means that the Ukrainian army must recover, at a minimum, the borders prior to February 24. It will not be easy, not even with the heavy weapons that have begun to arrive at the front.
Ukraine, on the other hand, is convinced of its victory. He has the men, the defensive advantage and the determination to resist until the end. The US $40 billion is almost half of Russia’s military budget. The Russian army, even so, despite the clumsiness of its commanders, is still far superior to the Ukrainian.
Ukraine alone must decide how much destruction it can continue to suffer and how much territory it can sacrifice. The United States and its allies must respect this complex decision, whatever it may be.
A “definitive” victory over Russia, however, may take a long time, and it is not clear that American public opinion will maintain the enthusiasm of these first months of war. Inflation is worrying and will have a decisive weight in the legislative elections in November. As long as the war continues, the deleterious effects on world energy and food markets, as well as on supply chains, will continue. That is, prices will remain high.
The United States and Europe are interested in ending the war as soon as possible. Also to China. The reasonable thing would be to force a truce, but when and how are not clear. Russians and Ukrainians still aspire to dominate more territories before sitting down to negotiate. In this sense, the summer will be decisive. Ukraine is going to receive sophisticated weapons, in addition to financial and humanitarian aid, more than 200 million dollars a day for the next five months. The Turkish Bayraktar BT2 drone – one of the most decisive weapons in the Uranian army – costs just over a million dollars.
The ceasefire, come when it comes, would allow Putin to sell the newly conquered territories as a victory, although Russia would remain under the sanctions regime, a country as isolated as it is now. The West could begin to rebuild the Ukraine under the control of the Kyiv government. The EU accession process would continue.
This exit would erase the threat of a military escalation like the one that is going to take place in the coming weeks. It would also eliminate the danger of a nuclear confrontation. The United States, already the great winner of the war, would consolidate its triumphs. Biden could face the November elections with guarantees that he does not have today.
This would be the logical thing to do, but nothing that has happened so far in Ukraine has made common sense.
