Category: Daniel Serwer
Stevenson’s army, April 23
[The magnificent “Merchant of Venice” ends its run at STC tomorrow.]
– An issue that may come up in next week’s discussion of the Courts is the Chevron Doctrine and delegation of powers to the bureaucracy. See this CRS report.
– Moldova worries about Russian threats
– Cornell prof says sanctions won’t stop the Ukraine war.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, April 22
– Rapid development: Politico has the story of the Phoenix Ghost drones.
– WH names a Ukraine aid coordinator.
– CISA issues a Russian cyber threat warning.
– Lawfare explains why Finlandization is a bad model.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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The odds are bad, but Biden is aiming high
President Biden has often talked about Ukraine in recent days, but he never specifies clear goals. He presumably wants to avoid raising expectations and leave himself the option of settling for less. Can we interpolate his goals from what he and the Ukrainians say and do in public?
The evidence
I think so. Here are some hints:
- He has disappointed the Ukrainians by ruling out a “no-fly” zone. This is intended to avoid a direct military confrontation of NATO with Russia. But one way or another Biden has managed to send all the kit they have asked for. That apparently now includes aircraft or aircraft parts. If there is anything still lacking, it might be air defense systems. But those are complicated and difficult to operate without extensive training.
- The Ukrainians don’t complain about lack of intelligence information. Their success in the first phase of the war appears to have been due in part to an uncanny (and likely well-informed) ability to anticipate Russia’s moves. The Ukrainians anticipated the assualt on Kyiv.
- The sanctions the US and EU are imposing on Russia and Russians are close to the maximum ever. It will not be easy to dial these back so long as Russian troops remain in Ukraine, even if only in Donbas and Crimea. The sanctions are going to crater the Russian economy. That will drive Moscow into economic dependence on and subservience to China, if President Xi is willing. There is no sign the US is planning for a return to the status quo ante.
- Biden has called out Putin as a war criminal responsible for genocide. That rules out any Western negotiation with him as well as any chance for rehabilitation. The President has made it clear his statements were not intended as an official legal determination. But neither he nor any Western leader other than Hungary’s Prime Minister Orban will ever risk meeting with Putin again.
- Biden has explicitly expressed the hope Putin will not remain in power after the war.
What Biden wants
The evidence is clear: Biden is seeking a resounding defeat of Russia, including if possible complete withdrawal from Ukrainian territory and Putin’s removal from office. Of course the Americans may have to settle for less. The human costs to Ukraine of chasing Russia completely from Donbas and especially Crimea could be high. Putin may cling to power, as his pal Bashar al Assad has done in Syria. Though he is still popular in Russia, Putin won’t allow a serious, competitive election. He has murdered and imprisoned his two principal antagonists and shut off the rest from media access.
The laws of politics have not been revoked
Biden himself faces an important mid-term election in Novmber. One-third of the Senate and the entire House are at stake. Current odds favor the Republicans. Biden needs a hat trick to turn the tide in his own favor:
- The COVID-19 epidemic needs to definitively subside.
- The economy needs to continue to grow but inflation needs to decline sharply.
- The Ukraine war nneeds to turn out well for the Ukrainians, or at least seem to be heading in that direction.
The odds for all three of these outcomes are low. At 50/50 for each, we are talking a 1 in 8 chance of success, if I’ve calculated right. But what were the odds that President Zelensky would turn out to be an effective communicator and international statesman? Who knew that Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine would flee away from the Russian invasion? What were the odds the Ukrainian army had learned to fight so well in the years since failing to confront the Russians effectively in 2014? What were the odds that Ukrainians would prove brave patriots?
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Stevenson’s army, April 21
– Putin claims victory in Mariupol.
– Taiwan TV apologizes for false attack report.
– NYT analyzes Solomon Islands pact with China.
– Analysts warn of long Ukraine war.
– Foreign Affairs article describes new warfare in Africa.
– House will vote next week on Senate-passed bill labeled “Lend-Lease.” In fact, it merely waives some sections of existing arms sales laws.
Dan Drezner joins crowd drawing on Thucydides, but adds this less-often-quoted section on what happens during war: Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defense….. The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation.
Charlie added this later in the day:
Prof. Cohen has a new article in Foreign Affairs urging less concern about grand strategy and more about statecraft, how we do what we want. I couldn’t help thinking about our course when he writes:
More than one might think, sound foreign-policy making rests on the basics of bureaucratic behavior: clear and concise memorandums, crisply run meetings, well-disseminated conclusions, succinct and unambiguous guidance from above. Good process does not guarantee good policy, but it increases the odds of it. With that in mind, the U.S. government should pay renewed attention to the training and career management of security professionals.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, April 20
– WaPo has updated list of weapons headed for Ukraine.
– NYT story on same topic notes US isn’t giving longer range weapons that can hit inside Russia.
– US says no more ASAT tests. Politico has more.
– DIA releases report on “Challenges to Security in Space”
– CRS issues new report on Russian nukes.
– Just before US officials arrive, Solomon Islands sign pact with China.
– WSJ tells how US-Saudi relations have fractured.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Russia is losing the war even when it wins
The Russians have now adjusted their aggression in Ukraine. They have abandoned for now the homicidal but fruitless assault on Kyiv. Instead they are now focused on enlarging the areas they already controlled in Donbas and ensuring a land bridge to Crimea along the coast of the Sea of Azov. They also continue to bombard Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Lviv.
This new war plan makes far more sense than the original one. The areas in question are contiguous to territory Moscow already controls. The limited objectives are commensurate with the forces Moscow has available. Russian speakers inhabit much of the coastline in question, though by now most of them have fled westward.
The Russians are gaining ground but at high cost
The Russian assault has gained some ground in the east and south. But the effort is ponderous and costly. They have lost eight generals. If the ratio of generals to troops is the same in Ukraine as in the Russian army, that likely means they have lost at least 15-20,000 troops (killed) plus wounded and exhausted. But generals are harder to kill than soldiers, so that number may be low. It is roughly consistent with NATO’s guesstimate.
The Russian gains are coming at high cost not only in manpower but also in Ukrainian infrastructure. The Russians are leveling not only power and water plants but large numbers of apartments and businesses, especially in besieged Mariupol. If you are planning to occupy territory, destroying its civilian infrastructure is not so smart. Murdering and raping the locals is also not a good idea, as they are not likely to take mistreatment lightly. But that is precisely what the Russian forces retreating from north of Kyiv did.
The strategic outcome is no longer in doubt
These tactical mistakes compound the strategic ones. Ukraine will not be a friend to Russia in the future. When the people you are liberating flee away from your army, you are doing something wrong. If all, or more likely part, of Ukraine is occupied, the population will resist. Putin doubted that Ukrainian national identity is real, but Ukrainians no longer do. They are standing up to defend their country’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. That is a big strategic loss for Russia.
Any territory the Russians occupy will remain unreconstructed, as the West won’t pay and the Russians won’t have the money. Colin Powell’s antique store dictum (“you break it, you buy it”) will saddle Moscow will an enormous burden. Russia doesn’t even have the kind of excess population required to re-populate any parts of Ukraine it occupies. China, which has both the money and the population, will be far more interested in economically penetrating the European Union than supporting a costly Russian satrapy in Donbas.
The geopolitical situation looks no better. Russian aggression has brought strengthened NATO forces to its eastern members, all of whom now understand the risks they run if Moscow succeeds in Ukraine. They are funneling arms and training to the Ukrainians. Finland and Sweden are readying membership applications for the Alliance. Russian threats against them as well as the Baltics, Poland, and other NATO members for supplying weapons to Ukraine are falling on deaf ears. Republicans in the US Congress are muting their Russophilia. Even Turkey is sympathetic with Ukraine. NATO hasn’t been this unified since the Cold War.
Russia’s interests and Putin’s are diverging
Russia needs an end to this war, sooner rather than later. It can’t do that by continuing the fight, which will prolong the agony. But Putin’s interests are not the same as Russia’s. He likely can’t survive in power if Russians conclude the war was lost or that it was a colossal mistake. Hence the massive repression Putin is exercising inside Russia, which has lost all pretence of democratic norms. Putin often says Russia is fighting Nazis in Ukraine, but his own behavior now resembles Hitler’s far more than Ukrainian President Zelensky’s.
Russian aggression in Ukraine was ill-conceived and ill-executed. But so long as Putin is in charge, it will continue. Only if there is a serious threat to his hold on power will he reconsider. President Biden’s references to Putin as a genocidal war criminal are intended to signal US readiness to support an alternative. The Russian security elite, Putin’s oligarchs, and the Russian people have however so far failed to mount a serious effort against him. But that is not to say they never will. Some day they may conclude the obvious: Russia is losing the war even when it is winning.
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