Very Simple Observations on Ukraine

I don't necessarily feel the need to weigh in on the news topics of the day. There is a class of Twitter dwellers who apparently need to have an opinion about every topic. Sometimes they loudly spout the conventional wisdom while saying "expert" or "consensus" every second or third word. Some of them are contrarians for the sake of being contrarians. Some are hipster meta-contrarians, crafting clever arguments to put themselves in good standing with the consensus crowd while (more importantly) showing themselves to be more sophisticated than the contrarians. I stay out of this for most news cycles. I'm not an expert on Ukraine. I don't have anything particularly new or interesting to say. At the same time, this conflict has the potential to kill us all by setting off a nuclear Armageddon. I have opinions and feelings about that, which no "expert" has the right to deny me. So I'll offer up just a few basic observations.

First, where I'm coming from. My disposition is generally anti-war and anti-interventionist. I'm not a total pacifist, but I think armed conflict needs to be overwhelmingly justified in a way that few actual wars are. From this perspective, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an unjustified war of aggression against a neighbor that poses no threat to it. I'm not in the camp of libertarians who reflexively blames US foreign policy for everything bad that happens in the world. The US isn't totally blameless in a causal sense. "Strategic ambiguity" may have led Ukraine to think they had a stronger backing than they did, perhaps making them more likely to flex their muscles and thumb their noses at Russia. It's truly shameful if we dangled such a promise in front of them without delivering the goods. But the moral blame falls squarely on Putin as the aggressor in this conflict. 

Some commentators are saying the US started this conflict by grooming Ukraine to join NATO. NATO is a treaty in which signatories promise to come to one another's aid in the case of invasion. Basically it was put in place to stop Russia from advancing across Europe after World War II. The only reason Russia should have a problem with Ukraine joining NATO is because they wish to preserve the option of invading them at some future date. I've heard some commentators claim that NATO members would start installing military hardware in Ukraine, missile launch silos and such. These could initially be entirely defensive (set up to, say, shoot down Russian jets or intercept missiles), but could be refit to deploy offensive weaponry pointed at Russia. I think it is beyond paranoid to think that the US or other NATO members would launch an actual invasion of Russia or start making incursions into its border. We're hesitant about getting involved in a shooting war in Ukraine because it might set of WWIII. We wouldn't literally invade Russia for the same reason. In my opinion, some of the anti-war commentators are going beyond, "Putin perceived NATO expansion as a real threat, which explains his actions" and straying into the realm of "Putin was correct that NATO expansion was a threat to Russia." If I am reading them correctly, this is ridiculous and has to stop.

Maybe these commentators are simply saying that NATO-grooming was the predictable cause of Russia's invasion. It was imprudent from the point of view of the United States, potentially incurring costs for no actual benefit, strategic or otherwise. Some have cited quotes by war hawks (Kissinger among them) warning that expansion of NATO would provoke the Russian bear. That's fine, but some are taking this too far, implying that it was immoral to expand NATO. Many cite promises by Bush Sr. to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand after the fall of the Soviet Union. I think it's morally obtuse to imply that such a promise should carry the same moral weight as a promise made between two consenting adults. I think it sucks when a nation breaks an agreement with another nation. At the same time, this was an assurance made to a desperate, collapsing empire to deter Russia from waging wars of conquest. The worthy goal here is avoiding wars of conquest that redraw the map of Europe (or other continents for that matter). Promise-keeping is nice. But this was a promise made hastily to a known killer in order to deter a killing spree in a time of great uncertainty. "We won't meddle if you go on another killing spree. We'll stay out of your affairs."  If we later say, "Actually we will stop future murderous rampages," that's a promise worth breaking. The only reason Putin should have a problem with any nation being a NATO member is that he's trying to persevere the option of launching a war of conquest. Or he has a pathetic obsession with "global influence". (Where some may see Putin as a shrewd rational actor masterfully preserving his nation's influence, I see a pathetic man-child moving action figures around on a map, occasionally making explosion noises.) The invasion of Ukraine is proof that Russia (Putin anyway) is willing to launch wars of conquest to preserve its political influence and sense of empire. 

All this said, I agree with the observation that the US is willing to "fight Russia to the last Ukrainian". I enjoy the romantic notion of a plucky but determined Ukraine halting and expelling the Russian juggernaut. But war is hell. Millions of people have had their lives disrupted, and thousands have already been killed. The Ukrainian people should not be made performers in a morality play for the consumption of US news junkies. The Ukrainians will need to decide for themselves how hard to fight and to what end. I hope nothing done by the US prolongs their suffering. I hope official US foreign policy doesn't encourage them to fight beyond what's prudent. I hope unofficial "Twitter-mob" encouragement doesn't cause them to overestimate the chances of the cavalry coming in to save the day. My not-so-hot take is that if Russia is willing to incur the losses, it can eventually take Ukraine. If that is how this ends, I hope for as few casualties as possible. Some American hawks would love to see this war be as costly as possible for Russia without a thought to the suffering incurred by the Ukrainians. I would hate to see such needless suffering just to "weaken" one of America's antagonists. Putin would still have enough nukes to end civilization, so it's not clear what strategic advantage it would be to decimate his army. (Except that maybe it would deter or make unfeasible an invasion of another former Soviet state? A good outcome no doubt, but bought at what price?)

What should have happened? I really don't know. I wish we had given a clearer signal that Ukraine wouldn't be admitted to NATO. If NATO members were unwilling to get into a shooting war with Russia, they should have made that extremely clear. At the same time, I wish we'd sold them more arms and offered more military training, and earlier. The Ukrainian military outperformed everyone's expectations. It's not unthinkable that a Ukraine with, say, ten times as many aircraft and anti-tank weapons could have completely halted the Russian war machine, or deterred it from ever crossing the border. Maybe such a military build-up would have been highly visible to the Russians an would have simply encouraged an earlier invasion? 

There is an argument that goes "Give Putin what he wants, otherwise he'll nuke the world." That's too simple. There's a counter-argument that goes, "Don't give in, otherwise Putin will smell weakness and expand without limit." That's also too simple. You can't give in to unreasonable demands just because some madman has a nuclear arsenal, but you also can't draw lines in the sand everywhere. Scott Alexander said it best in a recent post:

I think this is where the lines-in-the-sand come in again. Imagine Russia declared a “no-sanctions zone” across the entire world, where if any corporation stopped doing business with them, they would bomb that corporation’s headquarters (even if the corporation was headquartered in eg the US). While this might give some corporations pause, a lot of Americans would feel honor-bound not to comply - it would be “giving into terrorism”.

The line between common-sense “don’t provoke a nuclear power” and “if we went along with this, it would be giving into terrorism” is set by international law, diplomatic norms, and various fuzzy rules of war. They say that some things are allowed, and other things are bullying and if someone threatens them you need to call their bluff. The silly “no-sanctions zone” idea would be the latter. And so would a no-fly zone.

Some among the anti-war commentariat (I'm thinking in particular of a very recent speech by Scott Horton) have been making too much of the fact that Russia has nukes, as if any provocation whatsoever will cause total annihilation. Standing up to a nuclear power certainly requires caution and prudence. I don't think we should get into any shooting fights with the Russian army, and establishing a no fly zone would be unwise. (A no fly zone is essentially a promise to shoot down Russian planes. If enforced, that starts a shooting war. If not, it destroys our credibility.) 

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There is a "that's not my problem" mentality among some of the anti-war libertarians, which I consider morally obtuse. (It's a real shame, too, because I typically count myself as a member of that group.) As in, "Sorry about the terrible invasion, but that's not America's problem." And then it feels like there's some kind of bullet-biting contest where they insist on total American neutrality even in the face of the worst atrocities. It's weird, because these are the same people who will quite correctly point out that war is immoral because it kills lots of non-American civilians. My reaction to this is "Really? Even if an extremely delicate and circumscribed use of force could, say, stop a massacre? Even if there's a 99.9% chance a show of force, without actual force, would halt the advance of a genocidal death squad?" Of course, hawks tend to badly miscalculate the odds of something like this succeeding. Restraint and humility are wise when considering the use of force. But I don't sign on to this notion that it's "not my problem" if a large nation commits an atrocity against a smaller nation, or a nation commits atrocities against their own citizens. The US should at the very least be welcoming their refugees. If the lives of foreigners have value (and I would insist they have just as much intrinsic value and dignity as American lives), we should regard aggression against them as a problem that needs to be addressed. If a delicate projection of power could save thousands of lives, that shouldn't be off the table because we're biting the bullet on some kind of moral "principle". (Scare quotes because it's difficult to articulate what this principle is, not because I'm against being constrained by moral principles. Is this a "principle" that results in more aggression in the world? Does the same principle say we can't use force to stop private aggression within the US? Or is it specific to nations? Is it permissible under this principle for private individuals or private militias go abroad and help Ukraine or a similarly situated nation? Is the objection to being conscripted, through taxation and use of your resources without your consent, to participate in a war? Even if it's a just war?)