We all benefit from the Ukrainian victory
I never attended Ranger School, the nine weeks of pure US Army misery in the woods, mountains and swamps. But I know many who did, and they all reported the same thing: the instruction they received on patrols and minor tactics was insignificant compared to the lesson they learned on perseverance, to “complete the mission although I am the only survivor,” in the words of Ranger Creed.
It’s a lesson that also has applications in the realm of higher politics, and now more than ever as politicians, academics and pundits are beginning to speak – hesitantly, but their voices will grow louder – to pressure on Ukraine to accept a new dismemberment in the hands of Russia. Speculating about motives is useless. What matters is why, despite these voices, the moment calls for gut strength, to stand with the Ukrainian government and people, arm them to the teeth and press for the defeat of the Russian invaders.
From a purely geopolitical point of view, this war matters enormously. If Vladimir Putin were to emerge victorious from his initial disasters, we can expect a torn Europe, ending the uneasy alliance that won the Cold War and gave the world more than half a century of prosperity after the Second World War. A Russian victory would encourage China to consider the possibility of conquering Taiwan and imposing its hegemony in East Asia. And that would lead countries around the world to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, because they would know that in the final analysis, they are on their own. And the lonely and fearful countries with nuclear weapons can very well use them.
Conversely, the benefits of victory for Ukraine – defined as at least its return to the borders it had on February 23, the consolidation of its freedom and independence, and abundant aid for reconstruction – combined to the defeat of Russia, to include the destruction of most of her land power and the crippling of her economy, promises much. A Europe whole and free, sufficiently armed to relieve the United States of most of the burden of its defense, would be a strategic contribution to America’s security. China would find such a manifestation of the West’s strength and resilience sobering. A Ukrainian victory would encourage, if not guarantee, change in a Russia that still has to come to terms with the loss of its empire and still obviously aspires to its restoration.
The moral issues are just as important. In few wars has the balance between good and evil ever been so completely out of balance. Ukraine is the victim of unjustified and unprovoked aggression. Russian behavior – deportations, massacres, rapes and torture – reached abominable levels of conduct rarely seen since World War II. The result is the biggest test Western democracies have faced since Munich in 1938.
One of the greatest lessons of military history is that perseverance matters. This often matters as much as strategy and skill, weaponry and technology. Many intellectuals and some politicians misunderstand this, overvaluing elegant ideas and the subtleties and vanities of diplomatic manoeuvring. But when Winston Churchill said in 1940 that Britain was ready to fight “if necessary for years, if necessary alone”, he meant it. When Abraham Lincoln decided in 1860 that “the tug must come, and better now than later”, he meant it too. In much of their domestic politics, the two men were negotiators and conciliators. In their wars, with issues they understood better than anyone else, they had a different vision. They realized that there is a time to talk and a time to just put your head down and fight as hard as you can. Churchill would not speak with Hitler in 1940, and Lincoln would not speak with Jefferson Davis except to accept his surrender.
Churchill and Lincoln both faced critics who made sophisticated arguments about why a compromise was needed – why accommodation to German rule of the continent had to be made in order to preserve the British Empire or why reconstruction of the Union with a reversal of the Emancipation Proclamation would prevent further bloodshed. . Both men persisted through setbacks and defeats, from Tobruk to Fredericksburg, from Singapore to Cold Harbor.
Something of that spirit is needed now. It is to be expected that Ukraine will suffer defeats; that after he has done a masterful job of covering up his losses, we will know more is inevitable; that we will hear stories – assiduously propagated by Russia and its sympathizers – about Ukraine’s inefficiency, incompetence or corruption is certain. To some extent, these stories will all be true. But the main thing is still to persevere.
In times of war, we often brood over the weaknesses of our own side and are appalled by an enemy who seems unmoved by loss. However, when historians scour the archives after a war, they invariably learn that both sides were under the same psychological and emotional pressures. War is therefore a matter of comparative stress and collapse.
The great war theorist Carl von Clausewitz once said, “In wartime, more than anywhere else, things don’t go as planned.”
Nearby, they do not appear as from afar. With what assurance an architect follows the progress of his work and sees his plans gradually taking shape! … In contrast, a wartime general is constantly bombarded with reports both true and false; by errors resulting from fear, negligence or haste; by disobedience born of right or wrong interpretations, ill will, right or wrong sense of duty, laziness or exhaustion; and by accidents that no one could have foreseen.
Today, we are all like the generals of the early 19th century described by Clausewitz: bombarded with false impressions and fantastic fears generated by fragmentary information. You can see videos of munitions dump explosions and burning towns, and trace troop movements on maps updated daily on social media. The phenomenon, however, remains the same, and so does the remedy. “Perseverance in the chosen course is the essential counterbalance, provided that no compelling reason intervenes to the contrary,” concluded Clausewitz. “It is constancy that will earn the admiration of the world and of posterity.”
So it is now. With weapons delivered on a large scale and with a sense of urgency by wealthy liberal democracies, with assistance in managing logistics and training, with intelligence provided by a dozen highly capable Western agencies, the Ukrainians who fight for their homeland will defeat Russia. Those who deny this possibility must explain why Israel was able to defeat the invading Arab armies in 1948, or why the Vietnamese Communists were able to defeat first France and then the United States.
There is ample evidence of Russian weakness, including the physical frailty of its leader, the refusals of its soldiers to fight, the killing of its soldiers by officers and vice versa, and the courageous, albeit limited, outbursts of dissent internal. Russia will feel in the months (or even years) to come the consequences of the flight abroad of hundreds of thousands of its best-educated and most productive citizens, the isolation of Western technology and skills on which its economy, and the gradual shrinking of currencies from sales of its most important resource, oil. The proof is there if only one cares to see it.
There is a time for smart politics, subtle diplomacy, thoughtful overtures and exquisite compromises. It’s not that. On the contrary, it is up to liberal democracies to support a country that fights for all those who share its values, and to persist, trotz alledem and alledem, despite everything and everything, as an old German poem says. If the West did, it would help secure a victory that is essential to its own security freedom, not just Ukraine’s.