For Ukraine to Win, NATO Would Have to Join the Fight | Opinion

Commentators have sought for months to convince their Western audiences that defending Ukraine is worth risking war with Russia. We have been asked to pretend that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "unprovoked," that the conflict is not, at least in part, a proxy war designed to weaken Russia, that Ukraine is a democracy, and that Ukraine can somehow defeat the much larger Russia. Any debate has been discouraged. Any proposal for negotiation has been condemned as appeasement.

As the permanent partition of Ukraine becomes ever more likely, the question before us becomes whether NATO will go to war with Russia to prevent that outcome. It is long past time for a serious debate about the costs and benefits of such a war. That debate should begin during the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius.

There is no debate about whether NATO expansion provoked Russia or if Ukraine mistreated its Russian speaking citizens. NATO added 15 new members, advanced a thousand miles eastward and placed nuclear capable missiles on Russia's border in Poland and Romania. How would the United States respond if China began to arm and train the Mexican Army? The Ukrainian nationalist government in Kiev passed numerous laws discriminating against Ukraine's Russian-speaking minority. How would the Quebecois react if the Canadian government banned speaking French in Montreal?

Nor is the debate about whether Ukraine can defeat Russia. That outcome was never likely. Fortress Bakhmut fell in a battle that depleted Ukraine's professional army and Russia's prison population. Ukraine's much heralded spring offensive was a disappointing dud. No objective analyst believes Ukraine can drive Russia from Crimea on its own.

The debate at Vilnius will in truth be about what sort of relationship the West wants to have with Russia. Will NATO simply persist in fueling a cruel war that is destroying Ukraine? Will NATO openly confront Russia to retake lost Ukrainian territory or will NATO accept that Russia is a major power with legitimate security concerns. In short, will NATO leaders procrastinate, escalate, or negotiate?

Procrastination is unlikely to resolve the issue in NATO's favor. While the West continues to regard the war as a luxury requiring no social or economic adjustments, Moscow has already called up the reserves and put its economy on a war footing. Russia's GDP is growing faster than much of Europe's. Russia's tank, missile, and ammunition production has increased significantly. Russia's armed forces are both larger and more experienced than they were a year ago.

Far from being divided, Russia's political elite, military leadership and general population all rallied to their government during the brief Wagner mutiny. Meanwhile, Paris is burning and populist-nationalist parties winning elections across Europe. Procrastination only allows Russia to grow stronger while the effects of Western deindustrialization and internal division become more obvious.

Procrastination also allows the destruction Ukraine to continue. One of Europe's poorest nations has lost 20 percent of its territory. Much of its infrastructure lies in ruins and will take years to rebuild. Nearly a third of the population has fled or been displaced. The situation reminds one of Vietnam where villages needed to be burned in order to "save" them from the Communists. Anyone truly concerned about the Ukrainian people should want this war to end as quickly as possible.

So, what about deploying NATO troops to Ukraine? Escalation is certainly the only way Ukraine will ever recover Crimea. It is probably the only way Ukraine will even hold on to Kharkov and Odessa. And it is quite possibly our own road to the next world war. One of the very few points on which President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump agree is that the war in Ukraine has already increased the risk of a catastrophic nuclear exchange.

Anyone bothering to follow Russian language media understands that the Russian people believe they are fighting a war for survival against a corrupt, godless, and implacable West. Meanwhile Western elites continue to believe that the heavily, nuclear armed Russia remains a weak nation that can be safely bullied. Against this backdrop, further escalation seems to be a recipe for miscalculation and disaster.

It did not have to be this way. In the years following the Soviet Union's collapse, the people of the nascent Russian Federation viewed the West with admiration and hope. Unlike the communist Soviet Union, Russia did not see itself in a perpetual struggle with the capitalist West. Many Russians were eager to embrace democracy and establish a market economy. To those of us who were there at the time, it seemed that the centuries-old debate between Russia's Slavophiles and Westernizers was over, and that the Westernizers had won.

That opportunity was lost. The West did not provide a new Marshal Plan to rebuild Russia's political and economic institutions. Instead, the West repeated the harsh, some would argue vengeful, policies of the Versailles Treaty. In numerous ways the United States sought to contain Russia militarily and restrict its growth economically. While most of Eastern Europe received significant economic assistance and invitations to join the European Union, Russia was shunned.

Thus, NATO procrastination is unlikely to end the war and escalation is very likely to make the situation worse, certainly for the Ukrainian people and possibly for the entire planet. The path to a lasting peace in Europe remains steep, but with wisdom and courage it is not impassable.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Europe's statesmen gathered at the Congress of Vienna and through compromise successfully brought post-revolutionary France back into the community of nations. Perhaps the Congress of Vilnius will finally seek to do the same for post-communist Russia. Wars always amplify loyalties and hatreds. If those gathered in Vilnius prove to be wise and courageous statesmen rather than unimaginative politicians, they will begin to unwind the hatreds this war has rekindled.

David H. Rundell is a former chief of mission at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the author of Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller is a former political advisor to the U.S. Central Command and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served in diplomatic postings for 15 years in the Soviet Union, former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.