Washington Is Escalating Its Military Role In Ukraine. What Happens When Russia Reacts?

Carl Sandburg relates the story of a friend visiting Abraham Lincoln at the White House near the end of the Civil War, and remarking how improbable it was that the nation had turned to a “one-horse” lawyer from a “one-horse” town to save it.

The president confided that he too thought it strange, and then observed: “It was a time when a man with a policy would have been fatal to the country. I have never had a policy. I have simply tried to do what was best as each day came.”

President Biden’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has a similar flavor. He had no policy for dealing with such an invasion when he entered office because he wasn’t expecting one. Once invasion became imminent, Biden did everything he could to dissuade President Putin, but the war began with Biden and his advisors expecting a quick Russian victory.

When Ukraine proved unexpectedly resilient in the face of Moscow’s aggression, the administration cautiously began sending military equipment—mostly defensive items like Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, surveillance systems and electronic-warfare detection devices.

Russia’s subsequent reverses on the battlefield emboldened the administration to rally allies while gradually increasing the lethality of what America supplied. In April of 2022 it decided to send M777 towed howitzers, in June the HIMARS rocket launcher, and in December the Patriot system—the most sophisticated air and missile defense system NATO has.

Now it is sending armored vehicles, including the prized Abrams main battle tank, and it is pressing allies to send similar weapons such as the German Leopard. There is talk of supplying F-16 fighters.

A Washington Post story on February 9 disclosed that targeting of the game-changing HIMARS system depends on information provided by U.S. intelligence, reporting “Ukrainian forces almost never launch the advanced weapons without specific coordinates provided by U.S. military personnel.”

The very next day, the Post revealed that the Pentagon was urging Congress to allow U.S. special operators to have “hands-on” control of Ukrainian reconnaissance teams collecting tactical intelligence about Russian forces.

The Biden administration’s evolving approach to America’s military role in Ukraine thus reflects a pattern of gradual escalation. The White House continues to exhibit restraint—but it clearly has come a long way from where it was when the war began.

One reason is that it fears the superior resources and ruthless tactics of the Russian military will eventually exhaust Ukraine’s forces. Another reason is the usual horse trading required to bring allies along. America often has to go first before countries like Germany will join in—witness the decision to send Abrams.

However, there is a third factor at work in expanding the U.S. military role, and that is a growing complacency about consequences in Washington. The Russians have raised the possibility of nuclear use so many times that U.S. leaders have become inured to the threats.

Meanwhile a host of themes are heard discounting Russia’s ability to make meaningful progress at the conventional level. Any battlefield gains are strategically insignificant. Moscow has used up most of its advanced weapons. Russian conscripts are cannon fodder. Military leaders are corrupt and incompetent. Etc.

These rationalizations for broadening U.S. involvement and worrying less about consequences are not unlike the enthusiasm with which Confederate leaders celebrated each Union loss during the early years of the Civil War. They failed to grasp the tenacity of their enemy in the face of frequent setbacks.

Russia could prove to be just as tenacious in Ukraine. Worse, it could prove willing to escalate its own efforts to a level where the West lacks a coherent response. Tactical nuclear weapons, of which Moscow has about 1,900, are only the most fearsome option that would force a Western rethink of efforts in Ukraine.

We should not assume that Russian nuclear threats are mere rhetoric. Even if Putin’s advisors are dead set against nuclear use—which they aren’t—escalatory processes have a way of driving leaders to behavior they would never have contemplated in normal times.

And we should not assume that Moscow has few conventional options beyond throwing large numbers of ill-trained soldiers against Ukrainian defenses. Believe it or not, the Russians learn from their mistakes. Using massed drone attacks to degrade Ukrainian infrastructure is a tactical innovation for which Kyiv was not well-prepared, and mirrors the strategy with which the U.S. Army Air Forces wanted to begin U.S. military involvement in World War Two.

We have not heard much from the Russian air force in this war, but it is a fallacy to expect that Russia will not make greater use of its three dozen fighter squadrons, two dozen attack squadrons, and eight bomber squadrons. Whatever losses it incurs may seem justified by the way in which the conflict unfolds if Ukraine looks poised to reach Russia’s borders or retake Crimea.

It would be nice to believe that Vladimir Putin might disappear from the scene in the near future, and that his successors would find a face-saving way of exiting the current war. But that is not a reasonable planning assumption. U.S. policymakers ought to bear in mind the fate that befell Nazi leaders who thought they had prostrated the Red Army in 1941-42.

The Russians came back with a vengeance, stronger than their adversaries imagined was possible. It took time, but they never gave up. The motivation to fight on is different when your own country is at risk, as opposed to supporting conflict in an obscure place far from home—as Washington is doing today.

The point being that anybody in Washington who thinks Russia is on the run in Ukraine, or that Moscow will not escalate to a point where Western options are all unpalatable—that person is a fool. This could all get much worse before it gets better, and not just for the Ukrainians.

That’s the risk Washington takes when it supports a war on the doorstep of another nuclear power. Will it all work out in the end for the West? Maybe. Maybe not.