After more than two years of war between Russia and Ukraine and US and Western military support to Kyiv, there are no signs the conflict is close to the end.
At the US presidential debate last week, former US President Donald Trump refused to say “yes” when he responded to the question “Do you want Ukraine to win this war?”
Instead, he repeated his claim that he can end the war and declined to say if defending Ukraine was in America’s national security interests.
Nor did his rival Vice President Kamala D. Harris respond by “yes” to the question. But, contrary to Trump, she reaffirmed her support for Ukraine against Russia's war of aggression.
In an analysis published by The National Interest, Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff during the George W. Bush administration, wrote that the question “Do you want Ukraine to win this war?” is not simple.
“What does it mean to win? There is no shared view in the West or between the West and Ukraine,” Graham wrote.
He explained that from the very beginning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has defined victory as liberating all the Ukrainian land Russia has seized since 2014.
“That would make his country whole again within the internationally recognized borders of 1991 when Ukraine emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union,” the writer said.
He noted that polls indicate most Ukrainians share Zelensky’s goal, although attitudes are shifting as the costs of war mount.
Also, Graham wrote, others would claim victory if Ukraine could push Russia back to the de facto borders of February 23, 2022, the day before Russia invaded.
Some would even go so far as to claim Ukraine has already won on the argument that Russia is unlikely to advance much further into Ukraine than it already has.
In Washington, he said, the Biden-Harris administration has never clearly defined victory or stated unambiguously what it seeks to achieve. Also, the administration has never publicly claimed Zelensky’s goal as its own.
Rather, Graham wrote, Biden has so far delivered two inspiring odes to the power of freedom to subdue autocracy, but in neither one did he define victory for Ukraine in concrete terms.
Other US officials have offered glimpses into administration thinking, but none has provided a comprehensive articulation of the administration’s goals, he said.
Under Congressional pressure, Graham said the administration finally sent a classified strategy for Ukraine in mid-September, but no details have yet been made public.
According to the writer, the US has fragments of a policy that is not necessarily internally coherent. The administration, for example, has promised to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” leaving “it” undefined.
Also, Graham noted that the US administration has said that it is arming Ukraine now to strengthen its position at the negotiating table without indicating the parameters of the deal it hopes Ukraine could negotiate.
Also, he said, the US has declared its goal to be the preservation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence without specifying clearly within what borders, even though it officially recognizes the 1991 borders.
And since before the war began, President Joe Biden has been emphatic that the United States will not go to war with Russia to defend Ukraine and run the risk of nuclear cataclysm that would entail. Would that hold even if that were the only way to prevent Ukraine’s defeat and subjugation by Russia? No one knows for sure, Graham said.
All of this suggests the administration itself has not agreed internally on its goals or that it believes it could not withstand the rigors of public debate, according to Graham.
He wrote that this is a losing strategy because it endangers the popular support that is critical to the success of any foreign policy in a democratic society, ensures that resources will be wasted, encourages endless public bickering that saps American strength and reinforces the Kremlin’s belief that it can outlast the West to achieve its goals in this conflict.
“It is time for the United States to offer a compelling vision of what it is trying to achieve in the Ukraine conflict and a strategy for success,” Graham wrote.
“It should be grounded in objective reality, with a clear assessment of Russian, Ukrainian, European, and US interests and capabilities, and identify the resources that will be needed to achieve its goals,” he said.
Graham also noted that the strategy must embed its goals for Ukraine in a broader vision for Europe’s future security architecture in the face of continuing Russian hostility and obstructionism.
“It must chart a course to co-existence with Russia that, no matter what the outcome of the Ukraine war, will not cease to be a major rival while remaining a necessary partner in managing strategic stability and dealing with urgent transnational threats, with climate change at the top of the list,” he explained.
