The pitfalls of multilateral coalitions
Russia keeps misreading Western resolve on Ukraine.
Former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is a curmudgeon when it comes to his assessments of American foreign policy. He is an even bigger curmudgeon when it comes to his assessment of European contributions to transatlantic security. It therefore seems noteworthy that, while still being curmudgeonly, Gates offered some recent praise for the degree of transatlantic unity:
This comes on the heels of last week’s decision by Germany, Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and other countries to send upwards of 300 tanks to Ukraine — after weeks of news cycles about whether this would actually happen or not. Furthermore, the United States is planning to boost its production of artillery shells fivefold over the next two years to assist that country in defending itself from Russia’s invasion.
Russia is less than pleased about these moves, but Moscow’s efforts to deter Western help have not worked out all that well. Indeed, Newsweek’s David Brennan reports that the White House was unimpressed with Russia’s response:
Russian officials met the Western announcements with anger. Russia's Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechayev said in a statement Wednesday that the "extremely dangerous decision takes the conflict to a new level of confrontation," framing the step as a "permanent escalation."
Russia's Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov said the step was "another blatant provocation against the Russian Federation," while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Abrams and other Western tanks "would burn up just like all the others."
On Thursday, Pentagon deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the Russian vitriol was nothing new.
"I feel like I've heard that talking point before from them, whether it was the Javelins that we were giving or the HIMARS and then the Patriot," she told reporters. "Everything seems, I guess, to be an 'escalation.' I don't view it as that."
"This is a war that Russia started, invading a sovereign state," she added. "What is escalatory is them continuing this war each and every day."
To the Spectator’s Jacob Heilbrunn this is further evidence of Biden’s leadership skills:
The latest sign of Western resolve will help strengthen Ukraine’s ability not simply to repel Moscow, but put it on the defensive. For a regime that subsists on propaganda, the conspicuous lack of victories in Ukraine threatens its very existence.
Perhaps the most ominous sign, from Moscow’s perspective, is that Germany is performing something of a U-turn in foreign affairs. Far from going wobbly, Germany, prodded by Poland, is adopting a more assertive stance toward Putin….
Now that Scholz has approved the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, there’s no going back. The handcuffs that the West imposed on itself over the past year in arming Ukraine have been discarded. There are no real red lines any longer. Indeed, it’s only a matter of time before Ukraine receives fighter jets from the West to counter Russian forays into its air space.
Sure enough, Politico reports that some Pentagon officials are advocating to send F-16s fighter jets to Ukraine.
It is worth stepping back to consider the degree to which Russia has miscalculated Western intentions with respect to Ukraine. At every step of this conflict Russia and Putin have expected the West to fracture and fold its support for Ukraine; Russia and Putin have been wrong every time.
Why does Russia keep making this mistake? One could posit that Putin is basing his expectations on past U.S. weakness, but I don’t think that’s it. Because Putin is hardly the only observer to wonder about the sustainability of the coalition supporting Ukraine. In the eleven months since the start of the war it has been a recurring theme of, say, Politico’s coverage of the conflict: how long can Biden maintain the domestic and international coalition supporting Ukraine?
It is not a crazy question, either. Putin knows that ad hoc coalitions can be unstable and ephemeral; Russia is facing one of those coalitions right now. Given the recurring nature of transatlantic disputes, it is sensible to wonder whether the United States can maintain it.
It is a credit to the Biden administration that they have been able to fashion a sustainable coalition despite trade tensions. It is precisely the “pleasant surprise” of it that might be causing Russia to repeatedly miscalculate, however. This is the pitfall of cobbling together a multilateral coalition. When it functions, the effect can be powerful; because it might fall apart, however, targeted actors will often need convincing about its sustainability. Which means that Biden will need to continue to demonstrate the robustness of his diplomacy.
It is a credit to Biden and his foreign policy team that they keep ringing up diplomatic wins with key allies — not just in confronting Russia, but also China and Iran. That takes arduous diplomatic work — so arduous, in fact, that adversaries will test the durability of the coalition repeatedly.
The result will often be frustrating, in that Russia will double down on hopes that the pro-Ukraine alliance will buckle. But as populists continue to fare poorly in recent elections, it is likely that Russia will experience even more frustration when their hopes are dashed.
Expectation is a complicated word in these kinds of discussions--it goes right to the heart of the question of what it is that Putin and his associates thought would happen in this war, and what they wanted to happen. I presume in any event that one of things they did not *want* was for Europe and the United States to become more united and more committed to opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But it feels harder to be sure that they didn't *expect* that, or had any explicit expectation of what would happen in that respect. (It may be that Putin was led to expect a quick victory in Ukraine, and hence had no discussions whatsoever of what any international opposition would do beyond make a lot of noise.) I think diplomatic protesting about escalation etc. is almost de rigeur and would be happening whether or not they had an accurate model of the coalition's resolve or not. (Rather like talk of a "red line" over chemical weapons use in Syria or elsewhere--an obligatory kind of rhetoric that predicts very little about actual response, where the hope is that talking as if something dramatic is going to happen is thought to be in and of itself sufficient to make the other side think twice.)
Following Ryan's point, if Putin et al really did want to divide the coalition, the way to do it cynically would be to make conciliatory noises, pretend to be in favor of talks about security agreements, promise that the annexations might be negotiable, etc. without any intention of doing any of that. So either the Russian leadership understands perfectly well that the coalition is going to remain pretty united as long as Russia is pursuing total victory and using hard-line tactics and they really don't care or they really, really do not understand their adversaries. Or the people making decisions are having information withheld from them.
Every escalation undertaken by Russia has served to unite the opposing coalition further. If Putin wants to undermine that coalition he would need to do a 180 and start de-escalating. End attacks on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. Shift state propaganda towards sane and conciliatory rhetoric. Formally renounce annexations of Ukrainian territory. Begin withdrawals, and promise to ultimately retreat to somewhere near the line of control on February 24th.
Under such a scenario real pressure might be applied to Ukraine to abandon their full war aims and negotiate with this newly "reasonable" Russia.
Unfortunately, I have serious doubts such actions are even possible under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.