Reality Over Reactivity for Right Result in Deterrence and Détente

As Iran provides Russia with short range ballistic missiles to use against Ukraine, U.S. officials are reportedly mulling approval of Ukraine’s request to use longer range U.S. weapons to strike Russian targets deeper inside Russia.

Asked whether Ukraine should be allowed long range strike capabilities into Russian territory with U.S.-supplied weapons, The Wall Street Journal quoted U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to say, “We have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we’ll continue to do that as this evolves.”

Secretary Blinken, referring to Moscow’s threats of escalation if the U.S. allowed Ukraine to use its long range weapons inside Russia, replied, “And we’ve now seen this action of Russia, Russia acquiring ballistic missiles from Iran, which will further empower their aggression in Ukraine,” he said. “So if anyone is taking escalatory action, it would appear to be Mr. Putin and Russia.”

The words “adjusted” and “adapted” used by Secretary Blinken “as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed” tell a story of reactivity, not earlier action from prepared foresight as stays ahead of the moving target to head it off with deterrence.

Of American national defense U.S. military leaders have oft said they don’t want to prepare to have a fair fight with U.S. enemies, but want to prepare to have as much unfair advantage going into a fight as possible. That is the key to deterrence and to victory. Why they would deny the same to Ukraine in its self-defense is currently inexplicable.

One attempted explanation the Journal reported on was that U.S. officials do not believe Ukraine or the U.S. have enough long range missiles for their use to make a strategic difference in the war. However, that begs the question of whether combined with other capabilities provided, the long range weapons could change the strategic underlayment of the war in Ukraine’s favor. There are many, many factors in combined force not yet applied to Russia’s entrenchments inside Ukraine nor to their long supply lines.

What combined arms strategies and tactics could look like must not be telegraphed. Neither can they be credibly delayed any longer as they are tantamount to appeasement of Russian aggression by the United States and the abdication of its entire strategy, investment, stated purposes, and foreign policy in supporting Ukraine and Europe in the first place. Either territorial sovereignty and integrity for free nations matters or it does not.

And all who know Russia’s imperial-tribal approach to warfare nearly to the expert, old hand, and historian say that Russia respects only one thing: boldness of force that makes Russia stop attacking. In fact, it is likely, what Russia respects, despite its threats, allows it to feel respected enough to stand down. It says that the opponent finally fought to Russia’s level and earned the cessation of warfare from Russia’s side. There is a certain honor in that which delay degrades.

The truth beneath the debate is this: Russia knows that using nuclear weapons would cause escalation that the Russian state would not survive whereas ending and or reversing its Ukraine war of domination, or in the best case scenario honoring its past recognition of Ukrainian independence would leave the Russian state intact. Ukraine did not attack Russia and all know this, especially the Russians in charge.

The Soviet-trained siloviki are many things, cunning, dangerous, tough, and mostly smart. But they are not fanatical suicide bombers where suicide loses the greater Russian state giving them their meaning. Their policy is to keep what they have and gain what they covet, not lose what they had for the pyrrhic gain of the vaporized and irradiated mess. So it was in facing off during the Cold War.

To reveal Russia’s limits, free nations need to make the suicidal consequences of Russia going nuclear clear and public by ensuring the conventional and nuclear response deterrence doctrine requires is ever ready.

The time to act on prepared foresight and earn the peace is now. Stand taller than the Russians in the righteous cause to gain Russian respect across battlefields and national lines.