A Political Theory of Victory for Ukraine and for European Security
Speech delivered by Edward Hunter Christie at the Defending Baltics Conference in Vilnius on 8 October 2024
Military experts talk about theories of victory in a military sense. I’m sure we will hear crucial insights from that perspective at this conference.
But I believe we also need a Political Theory of Victory, namely a way of understanding how the political leaderships in our nations shape the goals of our foreign and security policies, and how our nations’ leaders influence one another, ultimately leading to collective action. So, this is about Alliance Politics.
What have we learned in the last two and a half years in terms of Alliance Politics?
1: America is in a state of strategic hesitancy and lack of resolve. While President Biden is responsible for this, and I stress this is not a partisan political point, there is a wider pattern among some U.S. foreign policy thinkers that are in my view a cause for concern for European security.
2: On the positive side, we have a strong subset of Allies – Baltic Allies, Nordic Allies, some of the Central European Allies, Netherlands, UK, who have had the right mindset, the right level of resolve, the right level of courage.
Specifically in this region, in Northeast Europe, governments, military personnel, intelligence services, diplomats in this part of Europe see and understand the Russia problem better. So, colleagues from this region are an asset to our Alliance. Don’t hesitate to present yourselves as such, and to be quite assertive about it. You do know better. History has proven you right.
3: We have had “peer pressure” among Allies, almost approaching a Coalition of the Willing dynamic, with the more forward-leaning Allies sometimes able to pull up the others. And this is powerful. Peer pressure is an agent of change.
So, if we want a political methodology for stronger Allied Action, three points seem necessary:
· First, strengthen the Coalition of the Willing that has a genuine vision of victory for Ukraine and for Europe.
· Second, get the U.S. to understand and support that more courageous vision
· Third, get the commitment of the remaining Western European Allies.
But before detailing that, we need to clarify the desired political end state and some key political enablers.
The Desired End State
Our aim is not merely to survive within the boundaries of NATO or the EU. We already know, the leading Allies say so all the time, notably including Lithuania – we need Ukraine to win and Russia to lose.
We need the Russians out of all Ukrainian territories.
We need the Russians defeated and humbled.
We need them less able, and also less willing, to either attack Ukraine again, or to attack any of us.
Therefore, we must deter Moscow. But for Moscow to feel deterred, it must feel pain, which will enable it to feel regret and then – the key goal – fear.
We must be clear: Moscow must feel fear at the prospect of attacking us, or at the prospect of attacking Ukraine again. That’s the outcome we need.
This is about making the Russian threat go away, by acting on both the capability and the intent of the Russian state to wage war against European countries.
The Political Enablers
In terms of strategic thinking, the ingredients we need to establish, or re-establish, are the following:
1: a clear belief in how superior conventional firepower is essential to deterring Russia
2: a willingness to take risks to ensure Russia suffers a political and military defeat in Ukraine
3: a recasting of how we think about nuclear weapons
Because the Atlantic Alliance we have today is different from what we had in the Cold War.
In the Cold War, U.S. leadership and commitment were clearer than they are today. America’s strategic focus, its level of ambition for its armed forces, and the allocation of resources towards the European theatre were stronger than what we see today.
But it’s not just about allocation. The total level of effort is also at issue:
· U.S. defence spending as a % of GDP was traditionally the highest in NATO. That was true throughout most of the Cold War, and it’s been true every year from 1951 all the way to 2021, so for 70 straight years, if one excludes the special case of Greece.
· Look at the figures now, and we have two European Allies that are higher than the United States – Poland most clearly, but also Estonia.
· Recent trends are also very telling: under Joe Biden, U.S. expenditures as a % of GDP fell. Furthermore, the share devoted to Major Equipment is now around 30%, which is a good level, but the U.S. is not seeking to transform its forces at the same pace as some European Allies. Poland is at 4% of GDP with 51% on Major Equipment.
· So, I would argue that the U.S. is under-responding to the wave of international security challenges that are coming its way.
And of course there’s the issue of U.S. reactions to nuclear brinkmanship by Russia.
On 3 January 2022, the U.S. succeeded in getting a joint statement by all the P5 members, including Russia, stating all the lines that the Biden Administration wanted to see.
Among others, I quote:
- “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”
- “nuclear weapons—for as long as they continue to exist—should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war”
- “the further spread of such weapons must be prevented”
Russia immediately violated the spirit of that agreement, effectively using nuclear threats to frighten off greater assistance, let alone intervention, in Ukraine.
Russia ripped up the scrap of paper it has signed in January 2022, because it was a scrap of paper and scraps of paper don’t contain countries like Russia.
And instead of paying some kind of price for this, Russia was effectively given the sense that nuclear threats and nuclear blackmail are rather effective.
Even worse in a sense was the diplomacy towards China on that issue. Leading Western governments reportedly asked an ally of Russia to ask Russia not to use nuclear weapons against a European country.
Anything may seem worthwhile to avert the use of nuclear weapons, but asking China to solve the problem was also a signal of weakness and a signal of lack of confidence in America’s ability to deter Russia.
It must be said, U.S. nuclear signalling has not gone well under the Biden Presidency.
But this isn’t only about Biden.
It is also about the expert community in the United States.
And it is also about the ease with which Moscow was able to shape perceptions and shape the debate at the highest levels in the United States.
The Methodology
The political model here is the tension, or trade-off, between Alliance Cohesion and Alliance Effectiveness.
Having unity among Allies is a great thing, but only if the common agreement is a strong one.
An agreement at 32 at NATO, or at 27 in the EU, on a policy that is weak is not good for our security.
The war has taught us that Coalition of the Willing dynamics were useful and ultimately led to more courageous actions.
Now the practical question is how to push the boundary, how to advance the frontier, of what can be done to help Ukraine, without causing an ACTUAL breakdown of Alliance commitments.
Another way to express this is to ask the question of how a group of smaller states can form a vanguard that leads the Alliance, rather than following its largest members.
The idea here would be for a subset of Allies, a Coalition of the Willing, to go beyond the common line – by deploying forces inside Ukraine.
One possibility is Air Defence.
We have Air Defence capabilities that we are effectively hoarding for the negative-case scenario of a wider war with Russia. We do not want to fall short, this is understandable.
But only one part of Europe is getting bombed, and allowing it to get bombed is not in our interest: it raises the likelihood of Ukraine falling. And even if Ukraine doesn’t fall, it makes all post-war scenarios more painful and more costly.
So, the proposal is to supplement the AD systems we have already transferred to Ukraine with additional AD systems, BUT
1: the additional AD systems would be deployed on a rotational basis, so we get them back in case of a wider war
2: we deploy these AD systems WITH our own crews, with our own service personnel. This has multiple advantages: our crews will gain valuable operational experience; it would be a signal to all concerned that Ukraine is coming closer to NATO; and such a deployment would offer a relatively low-risk test of resolve between ourselves and Russia.
Significantly for those who stress the need for “escalation management”, such deployments would be clearly defensive in nature, as opposed to Russia’s illegal aggression.
We need this test of resolve:
- to prove to Moscow we’re not afraid of having personnel in harm’s way
- for the sending countries to prove to themselves that they’re not afraid
- to create precedent with the other NATO allies that such deployments can be done
- to create precedent towards Moscow that friends of Ukraine will increasingly be ready to directly intervene in the war if they deem it necessary
- Last but not least, to break the mistaken idea that NATO Allies must move “in lockstep”.
Moving in lockstep, this must be said, is a dangerous idea – it is to fall to the level of the lowest common denominator, rather than pursuing the most effective kind of collective action.
Crucially, such deployments are permitted under International Law, provided Ukraine invites us. And hence there is no legitimate objection that other Allies could raise: it is the sovereign right of each member of the UN to support the right to self-defence of another UN member under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Once the ice is broken on Air Defence, we should consider other deployments to Ukraine.
One example could be technical specialists close to the frontlines, who could work hand-in-hand with Ukrainian counterparts in developing, testing, and deploying certain weapons, for example unmanned systems, whether aerial, or ground, or underwater systems.
Nuclear non-proliferation is dangerous
On nuclear policy, finally, we have to have a conversation about the dangers of non-proliferation.
American colleagues assume in a quite theoretical way that the more states have nuclear weapons, the more dangerous it is.
But the example of the India-Pakistan rivalry suggests that an uncomfortable but nonetheless stable equilibrium can exist between two rival states.
I believe that, in a longer-term future, a Ukrainian nuclear deterrent could be a good way of keeping the Russians at bay.
As for existing allies, Poland would be a natural candidate.
The NATO Alliance we had in the Cold War had three nuclear states. There is no reason to believe that the enlarged NATO of today or tomorrow couldn’t have four or five nuclear states rather than three. Other things equal, this would make any Russian plan of attack against NATO exponentially more complicated and frightening to undertake – thereby making Europe more secure, rather than less, and thereby contributing to global peace and security.
Contrast that scenario with the disarmament and non-proliferation approach that was pursued. It led to Ukraine losing its nuclear deterrent, and ultimately to the largest and most frightening interstate war in Europe since 1945.
Summing up
My proposal is to take the existing line of the leading northern European allies and stick to it – the goal is for Russia to be defeated and to give back all of the conquered territories.
We should visualise and work towards a future Russia that is clearly deterred and indeed frightened by the idea of ever attacking Europe again.
To achieve this in an age of American hesitancy, we need Northern, Central, and Eastern European allies to lead by taking calculated risks with deployments into Ukraine.
And we need to consider facilitating the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both Ukraine and Poland, thereby massively boosting our continent’s ability to deter Russia from ever attacking Europe again.