What Putin Got Right

Stephen M. Walt

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Russian President Vladimir Putin got many things wrong when he decided to invade Ukraine. He exaggerated his army’s military prowess. He underestimated the power of Ukrainian nationalism and the ability of its outmanned armed forces to defend their home soil. He appears to have misjudged Western unity, the speed with which NATO and others would come to Ukraine’s aid, and the willingness and ability of energy-importing countries to impose sanctions on Russia and wean themselves off its energy exports. He may also have overestimated China’s willingness to back him up: Beijing is buying lots of Russian oil and gas, but it is not providing Moscow with vocal diplomatic support or valuable military aid. Put all these errors together, and the result is a decision with negative consequences for Russia that will linger long after Putin has left the stage. No matter how the war turns out, Russia is going to be weaker and less influential than it would have been had he chosen a different path.

But if we are honest with ourselves—and being ruthlessly honest is essential in wartime—we should acknowledge that Russia’s president got some things right, too. None of them justify his decision to start the war or the way Russia has waged it; they merely identify aspects of the conflict where his judgments have been borne out thus far. To ignore these elements is to make the same mistakes that he did: that of underestimating one’s opponent and misreading key elements of the situation.

What did he get right?

The Biden administration hoped that the threat of “unprecedented sanctions” would deter Putin from invading and then hoped that imposing these sanctions would strangle his war machine, trigger popular discontent, and force him to reverse course. Putin went to war convinced that Russia could ride out any sanctions we might impose, and he’s been proved right up till now. There is still sufficient appetite for Russian raw materials (including energy) to keep its economy going with only a slight decline in GDP. The long-term consequences may be more severe, but he was right to assume that sanctions alone would not determine the outcome of the conflict for quite a while.

Second, Putin correctly judged that the Russian people would tolerate high costs and that military setbacks were not going to lead to his ouster. He may have begun the war hoping it would be quick and cheap, but his decision to keep going after the initial setbacks—and eventually to mobilize reserves and fight on—reflected his belief that the bulk of the Russian people would go along with his decision and that he could suppress any opposition that did emerge. The mobilization of additional troops may have been shambolic by our standards, but Russia has been able to keep large forces in the field despite enormous losses and without jeopardizing Putin’s hold on power. That could change, of course, but so far, he’s been proved right on this issue, too.

Third, Putin understood that other states would follow their own interests and that he would not be universally condemned for his actions. Europe, the United States, and some others have reacted sharply and strongly, but key members of the global south and some other prominent countries (such as Saudi Arabia and Israel) have not. The war hasn’t helped Russia’s global image (as lopsided votes condemning the war in the U.N. General Assembly have shown), but more tangible opposition has been limited to a subset of the world’s nations.

Most important of all: Putin understood that Ukraine’s fate was more important to Russia than it was to the West. Please note: It is by no means more important to Russia than it is to Ukrainians, who are making enormous sacrifices to defend their country. But Putin has the advantage over Ukraine’s principal supporters when it comes to being willing to bear costs and run risks. He has an advantage not because Western leaders are weak, pusillanimous, or craven, but because the political alignment of a large country right next door to Russia was always bound to matter more to Moscow than it was going to matter to people farther away, and especially to individuals living in a wealthy and secure country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

This fundamental asymmetry of interest and motivation is why the United States, Germany, and much of the rest of NATO have calibrated their responses so carefully, and why U.S. President Joe Biden ruled out sending U.S. troops from the get-go. He understood (correctly) that Putin might think Ukraine’s fate was worth sending several hundred thousand troops to fight and possibly die, but Americans didn’t and wouldn’t feel the same way about sending their sons and daughters to oppose them. It might be worth sending billions of dollars of aid to help Ukrainians defend their country, but that objective was not important enough for the United States to put its own troops in harm’s way or to run a significant risk of a nuclear war. Given this asymmetry of motivation, we are trying to stop Russia without U.S. troops getting directly involved. Whether this approach will work is still unknown.

This situation also explains why Ukrainians—and their loudest supporters in the West—have gone to enormous lengths to link their country’s fate to lots of unrelated issues. If you listen to them, Russian control over Crimea or any portion of the Donbas would be a fatal blow to the “rules-based international order,” an invitation to China to seize Taiwan, a boon to autocrats everywhere, a catastrophic failure of democracy, and a sign that nuclear blackmail is easy and that Putin could use it to march his army all the way to the English Channel. Hard-liners in the West make arguments like this to make Ukraine’s fate appear as important to us as it is to Russia, but such scare tactics don’t stand up to even casual scrutiny. The future course of the 21st century is not going to be determined by whether Kyiv or Moscow ends up controlling the territories they are currently fighting over, but rather by which countries control key technologies, by climate change, and by political developments in many other places.

Recognizing this asymmetry also explains why nuclear threats have only limited utility and why fears of nuclear blackmail are misplaced. As Thomas Schelling wrote many years ago, because a nuclear exchange is such a fearsome prospect, bargaining under the shadow of nuclear weapons becomes a “competition in risk taking.” Nobody wants to use even one nuclear weapon, but the side that cares more about a particular issue will be willing to run greater risks, especially if vital interests are at stake. For this reason, we cannot entirely dismiss the possibility that Russia would use a nuclear weapon if it were about to suffer a catastrophic defeat, and this realization places limits on how far we should be willing to push it. Again, not because Western leaders are weak-willed or craven, but because they are sensible and prudent.

Does this mean we are succumbing to “nuclear blackmail”? Could Putin use such threats to win additional concessions elsewhere? The answer is no, because the asymmetry of motivation favors us the further he tries to go. If Russia tried to coerce others into making concessions on issues where their vital interests were engaged, its demands would fall on deaf ears. Imagine Putin calling Biden and saying that he might launch a nuclear strike if the United States refused to cede Alaska back to Russia. Biden would laugh and tell him to call back when he was sober. A rival’s coercive nuclear threats have little or no credibility when the balance of resolve favors us, and it is worth remembering that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union ever engaged in successful nuclear blackmail during the long Cold War—even against non-nuclear states—despite the enormous arsenals at their disposal.

There is one way in which this situation may be changing, however, and it is not a comforting thought. The more aid, weaponry, intelligence, and diplomatic support that the United States and NATO provide to Ukraine, the more their reputations become tied to the outcome. This is one reason why President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainians keep demanding more and more sophisticated forms of support; it is in their interest to get the West tied as closely as possible to their fate. I don’t blame them for this in the slightest, by the way; it’s what I would do if I were in their shoes.

Although reputational consequences are often exaggerated, such concerns can keep wars going even when vital material interests are not at stake. In 1969, Henry Kissinger understood Vietnam was of little strategic value to the United States and that there was no plausible path to victory there. But he insisted that “the commitment of 500,000 Americans has settled the issue of the importance of Vietnam. For what is involved now is confidence in American promises.” Based on that belief, he and President Richard Nixon continued U.S. involvement in the war for another four years, in a futile search of “peace with honor.” The same lesson may apply to sending Abrams tanks or F-16s to Ukraine: The more arms we commit, the more committed we become. Unfortunately, when both sides start thinking that their vital interests require inflicting a decisive defeat on the opponent, ending wars gets harder and escalation becomes more likely.

To repeat: None of the above suggests that Putin was right to start the war or that NATO is wrong to help Ukraine. But Putin hasn’t been wrong about everything, and recognizing what he got right should shape how Ukraine and its supporters proceed in the months ahead.