Ruling out American and NATO troop deployments to Ukraine has made war there more likely.
One of the biggest obstacles to deterring Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine has been the American and NATO phobia of deploying “boots on the ground”—that is, combat soldiers who can advise and reinforce the Ukrainian military in Ukraine.
President Biden, in fact, expressly has ruled out such a deployment. And American politicians, left and right, Democrats and Republicans, unanimously have echoed Biden’s insistence that American combat troops will not and must not deploy to Ukraine.
Their obvious concern is that this would pit American troops against Russian troops and result in “World War III” or even a nuclear war. This concern is superficially understandable, but seriously misplaced.
Deterrence Not War. The point of such a deployment, of course, is not to wage a war against Russia; it is to deter or prevent Russia from waging a war against Ukraine. And it is difficult to see how you do this without a credible threat of destroying invading Russian military units should Putin seek to attack Ukraine.
The threat of economic sanctions almost certainly is not enough.
As we have observed, Putin is dismissive of economic sanctions and for good reason: America and NATO are unwilling to inflict the type of serious economic sanctions that would cripple the Russian economy, because this also would hurt the West Europeans, who depend on Russian fuel exports.
What about a potential war with Russia? Does anyone seriously believe Putin would launch a war against Ukraine if that meant a war against the United States military and allied NATO militaries?
Putin may be covetous of Ukraine, but he is not stupid or reckless. He knows full well that the Russian military is no match for NATO. His invading forces would be destroyed and would suffer heavy casualties in any face-off with NATO in Ukraine—provided NATO is forward-deployed, positioned, and prepared for this contingency.
Historical Precedent. Putin remembers that Russian military units were decimated by American military units in Syria during the Trump presidency in 2018, and it wasn’t even close.
Recall as well the experience of West Berlin at the height of the Cold War in 1950s and early 1960s. The Soviets then often intimated that they intended to use military force to dislodge American and NATO forces from Berlin; yet they never did so. Why?
Because even then, with a comparatively much greater military force than they now have relatively speaking, the Russians were not suicidal. They dared not to attack an ensconced and prepared American and NATO military force.
As retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg explained to Fox News’ Martha MacCallum:
Putin has said repeatedly [that] he has no intention of engaging NATO. He knows it’s a suicidal event if he does so. In fact, he knows, it’s the end of Russia if he does that. So he’s not going to get anywhere close to NATO.
Ukraine Today. True, Ukraine is not a member of NATO; however, the 2004 Budapest Memorandum obligates the United States to support Ukraine in the event that its sovereignty or territorial integrity is threatened.
Moreover, as Putin himself acknowledges, his designs extend well beyond Ukraine.
Putin seeks to expel NATO from all of Eastern Europe. And, as the geography of the region clearly demonstrates, he will have a much greater ability to achieve this if he can draw in closer to Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and Slovakia, first by subjugating Ukraine.
In other words, if America and NATO don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, they almost certainly will have a more difficult time doing so in the rest of Eastern Europe.
The bottom line: no one wants a war in Ukraine. But the way to stop a war from happening is to deter Putin. And the way to deter Putin is to make it militarily suicidal for him to attack Ukraine.
This, in turn, requires that American and NATO policymakers abandon their phobia about deploying “boots on the ground”—that is, combat soldiers who can advise and reinforce the Ukrainian military in Ukraine.
American and NATO failure to realize this geo-strategic truth has made a war in Ukraine far more likely, far more dangerous, and far more costly to our collective security.
Feature photo credit: The geography of Europe shows that if Russia takes Ukraine, all of Eastern Europe is at heightened risk of Russian subjugation. Map courtesy of ZCTrading via EBay.