For years, there was one guiding throughline to U.S. coverage concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It wasn’t essentially about permitting Ukraine to reclaim all of its territory, and it definitely wasn’t a few defeat of Russia outright. As an alternative, the West’s technique centered on convincing Russian President Vladimir Putin that his invasion of Ukraine would in the end fail. If Putin might be satisfied that his goals of reconquering Ukraine would by no means succeed, then a path to negotiation—to a secure cease-fire and even to potential peace—might be discovered.
In a vacuum, it’s a sound technique. As with all geopolitical tussle, there would theoretically come some extent when even Putin would throw up his fingers on the quagmire and notice he couldn’t succeed. Possibly it could come after a sure variety of Russian troops died. Possibly it could come after the Russian financial system tumbled headlong off a cliff. Possibly it could come after one more Russian consumer or ally elsewhere crumbled, with Moscow unable to do something to assist.
For years, there was one guiding throughline to U.S. coverage concerning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It wasn’t essentially about permitting Ukraine to reclaim all of its territory, and it definitely wasn’t a few defeat of Russia outright. As an alternative, the West’s technique centered on convincing Russian President Vladimir Putin that his invasion of Ukraine would in the end fail. If Putin might be satisfied that his goals of reconquering Ukraine would by no means succeed, then a path to negotiation—to a secure cease-fire and even to potential peace—might be discovered.
In a vacuum, it’s a sound technique. As with all geopolitical tussle, there would theoretically come some extent when even Putin would throw up his fingers on the quagmire and notice he couldn’t succeed. Possibly it could come after a sure variety of Russian troops died. Possibly it could come after the Russian financial system tumbled headlong off a cliff. Possibly it could come after one more Russian consumer or ally elsewhere crumbled, with Moscow unable to do something to assist.
However virtually 12 years after Putin first launched his invasion of Ukraine and virtually 4 years since its full-scale growth, one factor is now inescapably clear: Putin won’t ever come to that conclusion. There isn’t a quantity of arms, matériel, or help that the West can provide Ukraine that may dissuade Putin from his final imaginative and prescient of reunifying Kyiv and Moscow and of seizing Ukrainian sovereignty for his personal. Putin is so saturated in conspiracy theories, historic illiteracy, and obsessions together with his personal legacy that there isn’t a value he gained’t bear to satisfy his obsession with seizing Ukraine for himself and restoring Russia to the great-power standing it supposedly deserves.
This actuality—that there’s no option to really deter Putin from his perception that he’ll in the end be victorious—is a tragedy, not least for Ukraine. But it surely’s additionally one which opens new alternatives and factors the best way for fulfillment not solely in Ukraine however in beating again Russian revanchism, as soon as and for all.
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The proof that Putin won’t ever surrender his dream of reconquering Ukraine is legion. Look, for example, at the newest rounds of back-and-forth between the Kremlin and the White Home. Within the ill-starred Alaska summit between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in August, the Russian chief dismissed Trump’s presents—recognizing Russian management of Crimea, granting Russia management of the Donbas, and rather more—out of hand. As an alternative, Putin went on one other of his now-infamous historic soliloquys concerning the supposed “brotherhood” between Russia and Ukraine, miffing Trump and scuttling negotiations. The US even canceled plans for a follow-up summit in Budapest, largely as a result of Moscow continued to demand that Washington handle the “root causes” of the conflict. These causes, in response to Putin, don’t have anything to do with particular territorial concessions and even Ukraine’s standing in NATO however with the truth that Ukraine, as a supposed core a part of the “Russian world,” prefers to affix the West—a desire that, within the eyes of Putin, can not stand.
None of this, it’s price saying, is new. Putin has been spouting these inanities for years. His obsessive, virtually messianic convictions about Ukraine stretch again a long time, alongside his beliefs that Ukraine is merely a wayward pawn rightfully belonging to Russia. Neither is this essentially distinctive to Putin himself; for practically two centuries, Russians have persistently lied to themselves that Ukraine is, and should be, a part of Russia correct.
However there are key distinction between Putin pushing all of those claims then and persevering with to regurgitate them now. Simply scan by way of the whole lot that has occurred over the previous few years. The Russian financial system has careened towards stagnation, if not outright collapse. Russia itself has misplaced extra troops than all of its wars mixed since World Battle II, magnitudes extra than the US ever misplaced in Vietnam, and should nicely find yourself shedding extra troops than the US even misplaced in World Battle II. Fantasies of Ukrainian fracture and of Ukrainians welcoming Russians with open arms have proved farcical.
In the meantime, because of his morass in Ukraine, Putin has watched Russia’s geopolitical standing disintegrate, exposing Moscow as a declining regional energy. Together with his troops slowed down in Ukraine, Putin may do nothing whereas Azerbaijan barreled into Nagorno-Karabakh, gutting Russian affect within the South Caucasus. Putin may do nothing when Syrian rebels lastly closed in on Bashar al-Assad’s regime, dissolving Russian affect within the Center East. Now, in Venezuela, Putin is pressured to face by whereas the U.S. vise closes round Nicolás Maduro—one in all Moscow’s longest-standing allies, not simply within the Americas however globally. All of this whereas Moscow turns right into a junior companion—and doubtlessly even vassal—of a much more highly effective China.
The complete conflict has been, as one analyst mentioned, a “strategic nightmare” for Putin. But, even with all of this, the Russian dictator has not wavered from his final, maximalist designs. He has not dropped his monomaniacal fixation on conquering Ukraine and on cementing his legacy therein. By means of all of it, he has behaved much less as a globe-striding colossus and extra as a fetid, fevered Gollum doing something and the whole lot he can to seize the ring—no matter no matter value Russia has to pay for it.
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That is, after all, a strategic godsend for the West. Putin’s resolution to self-immolate Russia’s function as a geopolitical power has been a present for the remainder of us. But it surely additionally signifies that since there isn’t a “off-ramp” for Putin on this conflict—since he’s keen to bear any value for final success—the West should shift its technique. Washington and its allies should surrender the concept there’s some final value that might power Putin to retreat. That ship has sailed.
As such, a brand new technique should be recognized. And there’s one which stands simply offstage however is completely acquainted to Washington: containment. Simply as George F. Kennan noticed an implacable, ever-hostile foe within the Soviet Union, the West should acknowledge that Putin is now a frontrunner who won’t ever be sated and who won’t ever abandon his goals of seizing Ukraine, irrespective of what number of Russians need to die or how a lot Russian financial disintegration outcomes.
The West should acknowledge this actuality and proceed apace. At its broadest, it means recognizing that Russia will probably be implacably hostile—to Ukraine and to the West—as long as Putin stays in energy. It additionally signifies that the West ought to proceed extracting as many prices from Russia as it could actually, each domestically and internationally. The West should proceed doing the whole lot it could actually to strangle Russia’s financial system, from seizing frozen Russian property in Europe to increasing secondary sanctions towards these—in China, the United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere—that proceed to abet Russia’s conflict machine.
It must also proceed focusing on Russia’s remaining allies overseas, whether or not in Transnistria or Belarus, doing something and the whole lot to weaken leaders similar to Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko and strengthen these similar to Moldova’s Maia Sandu. It additionally means encouraging home turbulence and pressures in Russia itself. Simply as fascist regimes in locations similar to Portugal and Spain had been introduced down by home forces—propelled, partially, by navy failures overseas—so, too, will or not it’s home forces that lastly finish Putin’s reign in Russia.
None of this may deter Putin or his convictions that he’ll in the end show victorious in Ukraine. By means of all of it, he’ll proceed to persuade himself that victory is within the offing: that the West will finally waffle, that Ukraine will finally collapse, that the tide will finally flip. He won’t ever surrender the concept he can win a protracted conflict in Ukraine—even when which means risking Russia’s financial well being and even when which means risking Russia’s personal territorial stability.
All of that is, sadly, the truth we should come to phrases with. It’s time to place to mattress the concept Putin will be persuaded and acknowledge that he should merely be outlasted. Such a strategic shift not solely acknowledges realities on the bottom (and within the Kremlin), however it can assist expedite final victory for Ukraine and even for eventual Russian democracy. It should come at an ever-increasing value—however it is going to be one that’s price it.
