The Death of Conquest and the Costs of Incompetence

Supporting Ukraine as Signaling and Why Aggression Doesn't Pay

Morally speaking, there is no question that humanitarian interest in the well-being of the 40 million people who live in Ukraine demands a great effort from the rest of the world to aid them in their resistance to Russian aggression. Aggression and crimes against peace were the charge on which we justly hanged many Nazis at Nuremberg. For the sake of the security and freedom for all humanity, there is a moral imperative to punish acts of aggression by ensuring their failure wherever possible. The very recent abrogation of this principle by the United States is deeply consequential and will have to be addressed in a separate post.

In this piece, however, I want to elaborate on the strategic arguments for strongly materially supporting Ukraine. It is often claimed to justify Western aid that Russian occupation of Ukraine would itself be a grave threat to Europe. The argument goes: if Russia is able to annex Ukraine (or part of it) it will next attempt an invasion of Poland or the Baltic states. This line of reasoning is subsequently attacked by those who oppose arming Ukraine on the grounds that if Russia is so weak that it can be defeated by a Western-backed Ukraine, then it is too weak to pose a threat to Europe.

I agree with the assessment that Russia poses little threat to Europe, but there is still a strong strategic argument for arming Ukraine. In this post, I’ll explain why conquering Ukraine would not enable further Russian aggression and why allowing Ukraine to be defeated would nevertheless be extremely costly to both Europe and the United States.

The Death of Conquest

In an era of nationalism, nuclear weapons, and post-industrial economies, conquest is not a profitable prospect. Nationalism means peoples will engage in bitter and protracted struggles to secure their independence. Overcoming this force, even for the strongest states, requires an uncommon level of expenditure, sacrifice, and political will. Nuclear weapons mean that great powers cannot conquer one another, whether for strength or security. The nature of post-industrial economies further devalues conquest—you can’t invade your way to your own Apple or Pfizer. Territory has little utility in itself. The natural resources it holds can be valuable, but compared to the cost and risk involved in war they rate poorly. Adding citizens to your nation by conquest was powerful historically, but the proliferation of nationalism means facing murderous hostility from any conquered populace.

Putin therefore mimics the imperialism of centuries past without understanding why that world order could not endure. He also fails to understand that colonial empires were driven to expansion by ideological reasoning and incorrect understanding of markets. Looting other places doesn’t get you wealthy compared to industrialization. It is telling that it was German industrial might that drove fears of dominating Europe—this at a time when the British and French empires spanned the globe and the German empire was little more than a small sausage factory in Tanganyika.

But the ingredients for a prosperous society and strong state are not accessible to Putin’s Russia. Achieving these things would require destroying the political system on which he has built his regime. Putin of course is unwilling to admit his own role in keeping Russia weak and impoverished and so alternative explanations are sought. The idea that conquering territory and victorious war strengthens the nation has a clear appeal that makes the blemish of its falseness easy to ignore.

The invasion of Ukraine was therefore a wasteful blunder from the start. It was born of paranoia and mistaken conceptions of geopolitics that took root in the minds of Russian leadership and has been fulfilled in the years of fruitless attritional struggle Russia has now found itself in. Even in the most successful of circumstances, there was nothing Russia could have gained that would have compensated for the long term economic harms brought about by sanctions and the instability. Russia would have been in a much stronger position to harm the West—on whatever level—had it chosen not to undertake this scheme.

Whatever bad intentions the Russians hold towards the West, the occupation of Ukraine can therefore do little to further them. If the country desires an ultimate confrontation for hegemony over Eastern Europe, Ukraine will not serve as a springboard. The burden of occupying a defeated Ukraine would be enormous, particularly in terms of personnel. Too much should not be made of Ukraine as an opportunity to gain experience in modern war. Important developments have occurred, particularly in regards to drones and electronic warfare, but the character of the war in Ukraine is vastly different from one involving NATO-standard forces. While Ukraine has received NATO equipment and training, it should go without saying that piecemeal supplies and adaptation under fire are severe limitations. Russian experience in fighting Leopard 2s or operating drones does not compensate for its lack of modern fighter aircraft or endemic corruption. Therefore, even if Russia managed to fully defeat Ukraine, the endeavor has already been so costly as to make another war of conquest practically untenable.

That being said, it was unlikely and unwise for Russia to attempt a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but it did so nonetheless. When dealing with an autocracy, it is unwise to trust in prudence or sound judgment. Systems are idiosyncratic and individuals all the more so. Further weakening Russia is therefore clearly beneficial for Europe, even if war is unlikely. Some will find protecting against this contingency worthwhile even at these long odds, whereas others may judge the risk too remote to be worth guarding against. However, there is another reason to weaken Russia, even if war is unlikely: signaling.

Signaling (in)competence

The fundamental question is whether the West can act strategically. If it (further) bungles the war in Ukraine, the signs of incompetence will be read clearly at home and abroad. Revanchist powers will more seriously consider action. The fact that the Russians have blundered into a war beyond their capacity with no strategic recourse to Western action makes Western failures all the more impactful. If the West cannot handle the simple task of providing materiel to Ukraine—something costless in blood and negligible in terms of treasure—why should it be expected to rise to greater challenges? Why should the public trust the government to meet the manifold challenges of policy when it cannot put two and two together? Why should adversaries constrain themselves for fear of Western action? In words often misattributed to Talleyrand, “Worse than a crime, it is a mistake.”

The great blunder the Russians made in attacking Ukraine increases the danger. Had the Russians been more successful, there would have been no clear opportunity and the actions of the West would be judged under the self-evident limitations of the situation. To fail to reverse the Russian invasion is something that could be endured. Liberating territory without braving direct war between nuclear powers is no easy task. Even if the Russian invasion had been entirely successful and the whole of Ukraine occupied, a concerted effort at containment would have been sufficient to prevent strategic disaster. An isolated and contained Russia would have found its occupation an ulcer, bleeding it at the same time sanctions choked it.

From a humanitarian and moral perspective this would be absolutely disastrous. The atrocities of Russian occupation are well documented and no doubt would increase in scale and intensity. But strategically, Ukraine itself is of no great importance. It is in the reaction or lack thereof from the West that its strategic importance comes. The international order that the West has spent decades promoting explicitly places aggression amongst the highest crimes. How a state or bloc reacts to aggression is therefore some of the strongest signaling possible. Abandoning Ukraine sends signals of cowardice, incompetence, and dishonesty, all signals that come with a high price.

Dissonance and the Domestic

Enemy action can rarely cause a collapse of morale. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 lead to a groundswell of support for action by Americans. However, the perception of fecklessness is morally corrosive. The US Army virtually collapsed from poor morale in Vietnam. The rot spread from the head down. An ambiguous and often absurd approach to prosecuting the war left the average soldier—many of them conscripts—with a sense their leaders could not be trusted to act competently. Quickly, the concern shifted to staying alive rather than winning the war. Another instance of loss of confidence were the mutinies in the French Army during WWI. After years of sacrifice and attrition when called on for yet more, many men refused. Self-preservation of course played a role, but were it naturally overpowering, few wars would ever be fought. Rather, the instinct comes to dominate when there is a lack of confidence that sacrifices are being used wisely. Dolce et decorum est is not an “old lie” if you win something worthwhile by it. If you don’t think your sacrifice is part of a good strategy, you justly feel scammed.

A half-hearted defense of Ukraine sends a message to the public of nihilistic governance. The support appears disingenuous because state actions are incongruent with their commitments. This threatens the liberal world order writ-large as its leaders apparently fail to make a genuine attempt to uphold it. America (or rather the current administration) has openly abandoned the idea of maintaining the current order and is therefore destined to provoke a crisis of public confidence. Europe, meanwhile, may find itself sleepwalking into a similar outcome. To maintain public confidence in both the idea of liberal governance and in institutions like the EU, there must be a clear vision as well as actions congruent with that vision.

For example, German Chancellor Scholz’s declaration of a “zeitenwende” (“turning point”) in German policy was followed by a massive authorization in defense spending. But these funds were mostly unspent. Certainly providing lethal aid to Ukraine in substantial quantities is a change from the previous policy of closeness with Russia (particularly from Scholz’s party). However, it does not nearly match the rhetorical commitment. More importantly, it does not match the logic of the facts as presented. If Ukraine is fighting for Europe’s freedom, why were arms supplies slow-rolled? Why was there a hullabaloo about supplying main-battle tanks? Why has it taken so long to scale up artillery shell production? This inconsistency comes across to the public not just as incompetence, but as double-dealing. The result is that retrenchment is viewed as more appealing by the public and abandoning the attempt to maintain any kind of international system will seem justified, even as this runs directly counter to actual national interest.

The Death of Deterrence

Public opinion is idiosyncratic to the point that even manifest foreign policy failures may have only ambiguous domestic political effects. However, the effects of incompetence on deterrence are much more clear. If you’re Xi Jinping contemplating whether it’s possible to seize Taiwan without ending up in a nightmarish war of attrition with the United States that could escalate to a nuclear conflict, you’re likely to look to recent examples of American behavior. If America can’t scrounge up the political will (let alone artillery shells) to punish the Russians for returning war to Europe, how’s it going to find the will to fight and die over an island most Americans can’t find on a map? Likewise, if Europeans cannot arm Ukraine why should anyone believe they have it in them to die for Tallinn?

Of course, incompetent handling of one situation is not necessarily predictive of another. The nature of democracy means radical shifts in priorities are always possible. Assuming that the West is strategically moribund because of a failure to handle the war in Ukraine would be far from a safe bet. But there is no certainty in international relations and so signals are scrutinized. Errors of judgment are inevitable, but signals make certain kinds of errors more likely. Deterrence means reducing the chances somebody makes an error in favor of war. Sending signals of ineptitude and weakness makes it more likely deterrence fails. Adversaries have no better yardstick by which to assess intentions than actions. The West has explicit and implicit commitments to support Ukraine. Failure to do so provides a compelling argument for the West’s incapacity. If Western powers wish for their adversaries and their publics to not come to this conclusion, they must back Ukraine in line with their commitments. If not for the sake of Ukraine, then to maintain deterrence in their own interests.