By Gabriel B. Collins
Ending the war in Ukraine and saving lives requires decisively defeating Russia. But exceedingly difficult decisions lie ahead. Moscow’s campaign of destruction against Ukraine’s energy system weaponizes winter against Ukrainian civilians, seeks to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses, and sets the stage for a significantly more severe European and global energy crisis in the winter of 2023 and 2024. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s likely goals are to make Ukraine uninhabitable and destabilize European politics through a refugee crisis, break the political will of Ukraine’s military benefactors, and force a cease-fire that allows Russia to retain stolen territory. As a backstop, Russia aims to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure so thoroughly as to render it an economically failed state ripe for re-invasion after a temporary peace.
Ukraine thus finds itself on the wrong side of a highly consequential law of conflict: The offensive (Russia) has the initiative in altering its strategy and only needs to be right once to inflict massive, potentially existential harm. Kyiv needs a strategic shift in 2023 to save its citizens’ lives and spare the country further destruction by “defending forward,” taking a offensive approach to shield its citizens, but it will be hard pressed to do so without political assent from key NATO parties, especially the United States. The status quo approach favors Russia over time. How, therefore, might American and other NATO decision-makers think about accepting incremental risk in the near term versus deferring a strategy shift decision now and instead accepting future risk?
To start, Russia’s escalatory shift—if successful in retaining seized Ukrainian territories—would very plausibly embolden it for further revisionist actions. This would open pathways to direct NATO-Russia military confrontation that have not yet arisen even in today’s tense environment. Future campaigns of conquest would in many cases leave the United States and its allies with far fewer and much worse options than what they face now. Imagine a future attack on the Suwalki Gap to create a land bridge from Kaliningrad, Russia, to Belarus, for instance.
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