At the start of the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson asked one of his top generals what it would take to “get the job done.” The useless answer was to ask for a definition of the job. A later White House study described the victory in Vietnam as “a demonstration by the Viet Cong that they could not win.”
Now that they support Ukraine in its war with Russia, Western powers are once again tempted to describe victory as not a loss. Ukrainians are worried that they will be given enough to keep fighting, but not enough to defeat Russia. This is a harrowing prospect at a time when their cities are devastated and the Ukrainian army is losing hundreds of men a day as it struggles to halt Russia’s offensive.
A recent article by President Joe Biden identified America’s main goal as maintaining a free and independent Ukraine. Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has often said that Russia should not win, but he has never said that Ukraine must win. A spokesman for Emmanuel Macron said anonymously that France wanted Ukraine to win, but the president himself had not yet said so.
In contrast, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson simply said that “Ukraine must win.” And Kaya Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia, said: “Victory must be the goal, not some kind of peace agreement.
The difference between those who call for Ukrainian victory and those who limit themselves to saying that Russia should not win is much more than a matter of nuance. It dictates decisive decisions on the type of armaments to be provided to Ukraine – and whether and when to call for a peace agreement. Estonia’s rejection of “some kind of peace agreement” contrasts with Biden’s stated goal of putting Ukraine “in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”
Behind these views is a difference in perception of the threat. Those who see the great danger in Russian imperialism are ready to call for Ukrainian victory. This camp includes Poland, Great Britain, the Baltic States and Finland.
Those who worry most about the war between Russia and the West will only say that Moscow is not winning. They fear that insisting on a clear Ukrainian victory could lead to a direct conflict between Russia and the West or to the use of Russian nuclear weapons. France and Germany are in this camp.
Most importantly, the United States is somewhere in the middle – trying to balance its response to both threats, as it provides most of its military aid to Ukraine. The dominant view in the Biden administration is that after worrying too much about the nuclear conflict at the start of the war, the West is now in danger of worrying too little.
Russian military doctrine allows the use of nuclear weapons in the event of an existential threat to the nation. Senior US officials believe that Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, may see the humiliating defeat in Ukraine as a kind of existential threat. This creates a paradoxical situation – the better Ukraine does on the battlefield, the more dangerous the situation becomes.
These fears bring real caution to US policy and are the reason why Washington has decided to limit the range of new missiles it supplies to Ukraine. The Americans decided not to send artillery that could deal a good blow to Russia, because that might seem too much like a direct US attack. (Meanwhile, the supply of heavy weapons from Germany continues to slow.)
All this is a source of deep frustration for those in the Western Alliance who believe that the greatest danger is Russian imperialism, not Russian defeat. They point to Putin’s recent remarks in which he presents himself as the successor to Peter the Great in order to regain – as he put it – and expand Russian territory.
This school of thought rejects the idea that Putin will one day become nuclear, claiming that the Russian leader has always shown a strong instinct for self-preservation. They believe the only way to end Russia’s imperial threat is to humiliate Putin. This leads to a call for much more aggressive military action – such as providing Kyiv with funds to sink the Russian fleet, which is currently blocking Ukrainian ports.
Recognizing the need to preserve Western unity, America and its allies have devised several verbal formulas that everyone can agree on. Everyone, including Scholz and Macron, agrees that there will be no peace agreement imposed on Ukraine. But Ukrainian fears are that they will de facto be forced to cede territory because they will not be given enough powerful weapons to prevent Russia from advancing on the battlefield.
Much will depend on the impact of the new artillery systems promised to Ukraine in the coming weeks. Despite their major divisions, most Western governments seem to believe that if Ukraine manages to return Russia to where its armed forces began on February 24, before the invasion, it will provide a basis for serious negotiations.
Unfortunately, however, there is no guarantee that Ukraine can achieve this kind of victory – or that either side will stop fighting if the line is reached on February 24. In Ukraine, as in Vietnam, the definition of victory is dangerously elusive, and the result could be a long, brutal war of attrition.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
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