U.S. Strategy in Ukraine, With Charles Kupchan

LINDSAY:
Welcome to The President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States. I'm Jim Lindsay, director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is U.S. strategy in Ukraine.

 

With me to discuss whether it is time for the United States and the West more broadly to rethink its strategy on the war in Ukraine is Charles Kupchan. Charlie is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University. Charlie has served on the staff of the National Security Council in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations. From 2014 to 2017, he was special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs.

 

Charlie has written numerous books about world affairs. The most recent is his splendid work of political history, Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World. Charlie has also recently written an article for Foreign Affairs with Richard Haass, the Council's president. It's titled, "The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine." Charlie, thanks for joining me.

 

KUPCHAN:
Good to be with you, Jim.

 

LINDSAY:
Let's jump right into it, Charlie. There's been a lot of talk in recent months that Ukraine plans to launch a large-scale spring offensive. It has yet to happen. And of course, it could start between now and when this episode airs. I should also note that Russia has claimed in the last several days that Ukraine has launched drone attacks on the Kremlin. We're not sure where that is going to go. But putting both of those events on hold, how do you assess the current state of the war in Ukraine?

 

KUPCHAN:
The war has gone much better than I think anybody expected, anybody being Ukrainians, Americans, West Europeans, in the sense that the Ukrainian military has outperformed even the most forward-leaning expectations. Ukraine has demonstrated remarkable resolve and resilience. President Biden, since before the war started, put together a coalition of Atlantic democracies that continue to flow arms and money to Ukraine. And as a consequence, Ukraine has succeeded in foiling Russia's effort to topple the government in Kyiv, and has taken back about half of the territory that Russia initially took after invading in February of 2022.

 

So the situation now, I would say is one in which the Russians have been trying, with little success, to take back some of the land they lost in Donbas. As far as we can tell, Putin's objective in the north is to try to get to the oblast boundaries of Luhansk and Donetsk. That's why they're little by little trying to push forward into Bakhmut.

 

LINDSAY:
And these are the republics that they claim to have annexed and made a part of Russia?

 

KUPCHAN:
It's two of the four oblasts that they have annexed. They are the ones that the separatists, the Russian-backed separatists took pieces of in 2014. They loom, to some extent, larger in the Russian imagination as areas of Ukraine that they consider to be more russified. The Ukrainians appear to be focusing more on the south, aiming to break what we call the land bridge that connects Donbas, those two oblasts in the north to Crimea, through two provinces called Kherson and Zaporizhia. As far as we know, Jim, we're getting close to the beginning of that offensive. The Ukrainians have been waiting for two things.

 

One, to get as many pieces of armor, tanks, armored personnel carriers, mine-clearing vehicles as they need to carry out the operation. And secondly, they're waiting for the weather to warm up and dry up because it's still pretty muddy in these two areas. And as a consequence, it's difficult for tanks and heavy vehicles to maneuver. We do see the Ukrainians taking strikes against logistical targets in Crimea. Recently, there have been some attacks on train lines along the border area. That suggests to me that Ukraine is trying to make it harder for the Russians to resupply their troops in Ukraine, which would indicate that the offensive may begin in the next week or two.

 

LINDSAY:
And what is happening on the diplomatic front? Are we seeing any signs of negotiations?

 

KUPCHAN:
No. I would say that there has been one data point on the diplomatic front, and that is that Xi Jinping called President Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. This call, I think was expected coming out of Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow a few weeks ago. The Chinese are waging what I would call a charm offensive, in the sense that they seem to be combining their commercial outreach to the world through Belt and Road with a desire to exercise more diplomatic and geopolitical sway. Beijing brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to reestablish diplomatic relations. Then Xi Jinping goes to Moscow and they discuss the 12 point peace plan that the Chinese have put out. Then Xi Jinping calls Zelensky. They talk for about an hour.

 

I don't think that there's a lot of "they're" there. I don't think that the Chinese, at this point, are going to play an important diplomatic role. I do think that at the right moment, perhaps later this year, when diplomacy might emerge as a more viable option, then maybe Xi Jinping could play a more important role. I think principally, by putting pressure on Putin. If there's anybody out there who has leverage over Putin, it's Xi Jinping. So at the right time, under the right circumstances, it's conceivable that he could be an important diplomatic operator.

 

LINDSAY:
I take that point, Charlie. But I infer from what you have just said that the conditions are not really ripe right now for any kind of negotiated settlement.

 

KUPCHAN:
I would say that that is accurate, Jim. The Ukrainians have really been focused very much on the battlefield. No signs that Zelensky is interested in diplomacy for now. The vast majority of the Ukrainian people support Zelensky in his effort to reclaim every inch of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and all of Donbas. Not just the 2022 borders, but going back to the 2014 borders. And so for now, I think the focus of this conflict will be how much territory is Ukraine going to be able to take back in the coming weeks and months.

 

I do think that when this offensive hits its limits, later this year when it gets muddy again, when winter starts to set in, then we may see the opportunity for diplomacy because of exhaustion on both sides. Because I think it's going to be a bloody summer, Jim. I think you'll see a lot of casualties on the Russian side, a lot of casualties on the Ukrainian side. It may be that at that point, the U.S. can take the lead in pivoting from the battlefield to the negotiating table. That's the case that Richard Haass and I lay out in our recent Foreign Affairs piece.

 

But it will take some pushing. Because I think given Zelensky's own predilections, given where the Ukrainian population is, right now, they are prepared to keep fighting until they have reclaimed territorial integrity.

 

LINDSAY:
I want to get to the piece that you wrote with Richard in a minute, Charlie. But first, could you lay out for me what you see as the strategy that the United States and the West are pursuing in Ukraine? And I don't know if you draw a distinction between U.S. strategy and Western strategy.

 

KUPCHAN:
Well, one of the most notable features of the strategy is that there isn't daylight between the U.S. and Europe. And I do give the Biden administration a lot of credit for doing its homework before this war started. Disclosing intelligence information to make clear that they had pretty good advanced warning of Russia's invasion. And then preparing all three lines of effort: arming and supporting Ukraine economically, bolstering NATO's eastern flank with additional American troops and European troops, and imposing heavy sanctions on Russia. All those three lines of effort were ready to go on day one.

 

And there have been very few moments of dissent of contrasting views across the Atlantic. In fact, I would say the U.S. and its allies have moved in lockstep. They have decided over time to increase sanctions, as well as to cross certain red lines when it comes to armaments. A few months ago, no tanks were going to Ukraine because of the fear of escalation. Now the Europeans are providing Leopards, and the United States is readying to transfer some Abrams. So there has been, I would say, considerable unity across the Atlantic. And I think the idea is to give Ukraine the best shot that we can at making progress on the battlefield.

 

Is it possible that Ukraine could achieve victory? Sure. The Ukrainian armed forces have been quite capable. The Russians, much less so. However, I think it's probably a safer bet that this is an offensive that will make some progress on the battlefield, that will succeed in breaking through Russian defenses here and there. My best guess, Jim, is that by the end of this fighting season, we will see a new stalemate, not the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity.

 

LINDSAY:
So Charlie, you've remarked on the remarkable solidarity in the West in its approach to the war. Do you think that consolidation of Western support is likely to persist, or is it at risk of fraying?

 

KUPCHAN:
I have to say, I've been struck by the steadiness of democracies on both sides of the Atlantic. If you and I, Jim, had had this conversation at this time last year, and you had said to me that a year hence, May of 2023, solidarity will be as strong as it is now, I would've said, "I don't think that's right, Jim." Because we've got inflation, we've got energy shortages, we've got refugees flowing into Europe. This is more than the traffic can bear. But bottom line is both sides of the Atlantic have stayed the course. 

 

We've only see seen one real crack in the wall. And that was in the last few weeks when several NATO members in Central Europe began to object to the continuing inflow of Ukrainian grain. Because it depressed grain prices and it left a lot of farmers in Poland and its neighbors unable to sell what they had grown. It's the first time we've really seen members of this alliance supporting Ukraine crack.

 

That having been said, I don't think that the steadiness is of unlimited duration. And here in the United States, as we head into the presidential election, we see public opinion softening. We see a significant divide in the Republican Party between hawks who want to make sure that Ukraine has everything they need to win, and the America First wing of the party that says, "You know what? We don't necessarily have a full dog in this fight. Let's begin to titrate, to pull back on what we provide to the Ukrainian."

 

So things are getting more complicated. My sense is that the administration has what it needs to continue supporting Ukraine, probably until the middle of summer. It may then need to go back to Congress to ask for further appropriations. That's not going to be easy, I don't think Biden will get everything that he wants. And I think on the other side of the Atlantic, especially in Western Europe, in France, in Germany, in Italy, there too, you're beginning to see some wobbliness and some splits. Because in central Europe, in Poland and the Baltic countries, very firm. Let's make sure that Ukraine wins this war. Different views, I think as you go further west.

 

So it's in part because I don't have great confidence that the support to Ukraine can continue indefinitely at current levels, that I do think we need to have a conversation eventually about pivoting from the battlefield to the negotiating table. And beginning to envision a diplomatic endgame.

 

LINDSAY:
I should just note a couple of counter examples to the issue of flagging Western or U.S. support for the war. And I take your point on what it is that public opinion polls are showing in the United States, particularly in terms of support coming from Republicans. But just the beginning of this month, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was in Israel and was asked by a Russian reporter a question that began by asserting that Kevin McCarthy didn't support aid to Ukraine. And he shot right back and said, "Did he say I don't support aid to Ukraine? No, I vote for aid for Ukraine. I support aid for Ukraine. I do not support what your country has done to Ukraine."

 

Something else I thought was interesting is that the House Republicans surprised many people by coming together on their plan for raising the debt ceiling. That plan calls for steep cuts in a range of domestic programs, but interestingly enough, did not call for cutting any support for Ukraine. So I just wanted to put that out there as some evidence on the other side of the equation.

 

But I want to dive in, Charlie, to your call with Richard for a different U.S. approach to the war in Ukraine. I wouldn't call it a complete U-turn, but you really do talk about refocusing the strategy. You call for a sequenced two-pronged strategy. Walk me through it.

 

KUPCHAN:
Before I jump into that, let me just acknowledge the degree to which we don't ... No. Those are important data points that you just put out there, Jim. And I know you and our mutual friend, Ivo Daalder, have a different take on this issue. And I think it's a very credible take. Let's see how this plays out. And perhaps I'm a bit chastened coming out of the era of Donald Trump, where the America First narrative got a lot of traction in this country. So I guess my only further comment on this is, let's stay tuned. Let's keep an eye on where this debate goes in American politics.

 

On the two-pronged strategy, I think the logic of it is the following. Ukraine is determined to go ahead with this spring offensive. There's a good chance that it is able to take back a considerable amount of further territory from Russian occupation. Let's make that offensive as successful as possible. And Richard and I actually call for further armaments. Certain kinds of weapons, longer range missiles, for example, that the administration so far has not been providing. And we call for the beginning of the training of F-16 pilots so that down the road, if necessary, we can begin to transfer advanced aircraft. So that's prong number one.

 

Prong number two is to begin to think through, and ultimately discuss with our allies and with the Ukrainians, what happens if later this year, as this offensive winds down, we see a stalemate, a new military stalemate? And I think Richard and I both felt that more of same doesn't make sense. In part because there are knock-on effects of this war globally that have to be part of our conversation. High inflation, energy shortages, the inflow of refugees, the degree to which other American interests are at stake. We are spending down our own weapons stockpiles at a time when we may have other contingencies that we need to address, whether in the Pacific region or in the Middle East.

 

So the logic of our position is let's give everything that we can to Ukraine now to help us succeed, and then begin to try to set the table for a diplomatic end game once this fighting season begins to wind down. And we lay out in the piece a series of incentives, mainly to Ukraine, but also to Russia, to try to get both sides to a ceasefire and to set the table for a diplomatic conversation. And those incentives will be important, because it's by no means assured that either Moscow or Ukraine, or both of them together, are going to be willing to try to move from the battlefield to the negotiating table.

 

LINDSAY:
Your overall objective, it seems to me, Charlie, is to try to increase the chances that we could get to the fall and be in a situation in which negotiations are in fact ripe. That you have created the conditions where perhaps both sides are willing to talk. So I want to go through the first prong of that strategy, which is the argument to provide the Ukrainians with more weapons. You mentioned F-16s, the Army Tactical Missile System, more tanks, artillery, and the rest.

 

And I have an initial question, which is do we and our allies actually have enough supplies on hand to provide Ukrainians? Can we get those weapons to them quickly enough? And perhaps most important, can we train them not just to use these weapon systems, but also to maintain and repair them on the timeline you have in mind?

 

KUPCHAN:
It's a very important question. And one of the reasons that I think Richard and I are both cautious about where the war will head in the months ahead is that there are material limits, as well as political limits. We do not have an unlimited number of artillery shells. We don't have an unlimited number of HIMARS. These are the rockets that go into the tubes that have been very successful at hitting Russian targets behind the front lines. To train F-16 pilots, the Pentagon, not long ago, said takes eighteen months. That gets us well into 2024, which is one of the reasons that we may want to start training now just in case.

 

So there are real limits on the numbers that we can provide, and we do not, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, want to so spend down our own stocks that we end up in a situation of strategic exposure. One other consideration ... we haven't really talked much about this yet, Jim. Is the risk of escalation.

 

LINDSAY:
That was going to be my next question.

 

KUPCHAN:
Okay. And there has been, in my mind, a warranted monitoring of the potential for certain kinds of weapons systems to trigger an escalation in the war. President Biden said early on, no U.S. boots on the ground, no to a no-fly zone. So far, no to longer range weapons systems that the Ukrainians could use to hit Russian territory. And as far as we know, there is a tacit agreement between the U.S. and the Ukrainians that they will not use weapons provided to them by the U.S. or its allies to hit Russia proper. Even though there have been some strikes inside Russia, as far as we know, they are carried out by drones and other kinds of systems that are Ukrainian and they're not provided by the West.

 

In the article that I wrote with Richard, we try to argue that we can't be self-deterred. That we should not be in a situation in which Putin saber rattles with nuclear weapons and we say, oh, we can't afford to press the case. And that's, I think, because it's very unlikely that Putin will escalate. Simply because he's having a hard enough time fighting Ukraine alone, I don't think he wants to fight Ukraine plus thirty-one NATO members. And it is thirty-one, because Finland has just joined. And Finland has a 800-mile border with Russia.

 

LINDSAY:
And it may go to thirty-two before the end of the year.

 

KUPCHAN:
I am guessing that it will. We've got the elections in Turkey coming up soon. And after those elections are done, Turkey may back down on its blockage of Swedish membership. 

 

So this is a consideration. I think the risks of escalation are low, but this is a dangerous war, right? We've seen three, that I can think of, moments in which my blood pressure went up. One, some missiles landed on Polish territory. The initial suggestion was these were Russian missiles. We found out that they were errant Ukrainian missiles, but that's a dangerous moment. Two, Russian fighter jets forced down a U.S. drone. Three, we've recently seen a couple drones, so far unidentified, even though the Kremlin says they were sent by Ukraine with U.S. backing, hit the Kremlin. These are dangerous moments. This is a war that does have the potential to escalate. We need to keep a close eye on that because were NATO and Russia to become direct combatants, who knows where that war could go.

 

LINDSAY:
Charlie, do you worry that China may decide to arm Russia, whether overtly or covertly?

 

KUPCHAN:
I do worry about that, Jim. The logic of the position, and I think Richard and I put this in the piece, is that Xi Jinping has bet on Putin. Xi Jinping has a close relationship with Putin. So far, as far as we know, the Chinese are not arming the Russians. But I'm not sure that Xi Jinping would tolerate Putin's defeat.

 

And as a consequence, were the Ukrainians to come streaming into Zaporizhia and Kherson, breakthrough successive lines of Russia's defensive position, pose a military threat to Crimea, I'd say the chances are better than even that the Chinese would begin to send arms to Russia. Because I don't think they want Russia to lose this war.

 

LINDSAY:
I would imagine in that case, Charlie, you would then have the issue of how long it would take the Chinese to get those weapons to the Russians, or the Russians to get them to the front. I'm not an expert on the interoperability of Chinese weapons versus Russian weapons, but you also have the challenges of training troops to use those weapons to repair them, maintain them, and the rest. So it can get quite complicated on that score.

 

But let's talk about the diplomatic piece. I think most people share your assessment that by the time we come to the fall, we're likely to see a stalemate. The question only is one of whether ... or how favorable those boundaries will be to Ukraine. I don't see many people saying that by the fall, Ukraine will have taken back not just the eastern portion of the country, but also Crimea. 

 

So this gets us to the question of will we in fact be in a situation that is more ripe for negotiations? And I ask that question, Charlie, against the backdrop of that age-old adage, I am losing. How can I negotiate? I am winning. Why should I negotiate? How do you get those two parties to want to talk about a negotiated settlement when each might hold out the hope that continued fighting will get them more or save them from losing less?

 

KUPCHAN:
Well, I think that if you look back at history, wars tend to move toward negotiations when there's a stalemate on the battlefield. When both sides feel they've knocked themselves out, they're exhausted, and they begin to question whether they're going to make much more progress on the battlefield.

 

LINDSAY:
That's the Iran-Iraq war.

 

KUPCHAN:
That's the Iran-Iraq war. It's the situation in Bosnia, right? That what was it that convinced the Bosnian Serbs with the support of Yugoslavia to go to Dayton? Well, it was the fact that the Bosniaks and the Croats were starting to push back. And as a consequence, they said, you know what? Maybe our best option is not on the battlefield. Same with the war in Kosovo. Same with the situation in other cases.

 

So the logic here is that the Ukrainians make a go of it. As I said, it's going to be painful, it's going to be costly. And they may decide by the end of the year that they've exhausted options on the battlefield, at least for now. And I do think Zelensky has a tough choice to make in the sense that, do you want ... let's pick 88 percent as a round number. 88 percent of Ukraine under Ukrainian control. No longer at war, rebuilding. Being integrated into the West, maybe EU membership, some kind of security guarantees. I'm not betting on NATO membership. But do you want to get 88 percent of the country back on its feet, or do you want to keep fighting? That's a question that I think Ukrainians may need to confront later in the year.

 

And I do think that you can put out some sweeteners, including significant reconstruction assistance. Security assurances of one sort or another, probably from a coalition of the willing. A fast track to membership in the European Union. And continued support from the United States and its partners in Europe to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself over the long run. For the Russian side, I think they will be looking at further significant losses. We're hearing that deaths and wounded are above 200,000. What if the Russians lose another 50,000 this summer? Eventually, it may be in Putin's interests to look for a ceasefire. And to declare victory, claiming that he has integrated 12 percent of Ukraine into Mother Russia, for now.

 

And then you begin the process of trying to preserve the peace, begin a conversation about an ultimate disposition of territory. And it may seem a little bit unrealistic for now, but Richard and I said, listen, let's hold out hope of restoring Ukrainian sovereignty at the negotiating table. It's worth keeping in mind that the United States never recognized any of the three Baltic countries as part of the Soviet Union. And today, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia are independent democracies and members of NATO. So who knows where things go. It may require Putin's fall from power to look to negotiations to restore Ukrainian sovereignty, but who knows?

 

LINDSAY:
Charlie, two words jumped out at me in your response just now. Those words were, for now. And that touches upon, I think a legitimate concern Ukrainians have. Which is that if they go to a negotiated settlement, that what will happen is that it will give Putin a chance to rest, to recover, and then retaliate.

 

How do you address that legitimate security concern on the part of the Ukrainians, especially given the ancillary fear that after the first peace deal, many countries in the West, particularly in Western Europe ... you mentioned French, you mentioned the Spanish, and the Italians. Will have very little interest in coming back and providing similar levels of support to Ukraine if fighting resumes.

 

KUPCHAN:
Well, I think that the debate is unnecessarily and unhelpfully black and white in some cases. And what I mean by that, Jim, is that some of the strongest supporters of Ukraine say, well, the Russians must be defeated. They must be driven from Ukraine, because otherwise they'll do this again. And my response to that is, the Russians may well try to do this again, no matter how this war ends.

 

LINDSAY:
History provides lots of examples on that score, Charlie.

 

KUPCHAN:
Yeah. I mean, the Russians have this in their DNA, right? This is Putin's game plan. He likes to invade other people's territory and try to grab it. And so if we push them out of Donbas and out of Crimea, he can still rest and recuperate and try again. If he has a piece of Donbas and Crimea, does that mean that he's necessarily going to be satisfied? No.

 

So I think no matter how this war ends, we need to have a long-term strategy to ensure that Ukraine has the capability to defend itself. Because it's only through deterrence and defense that we can rest assured that, number one, Russia is unlikely to try to do this again. And number two, if they do try, they will again fail. As I said, no matter when and where some new line of contact is, I think the West had better prepare to keep the arms flowing to Ukraine, even if at reduced levels, to make sure that they have what they need to keep Putin at bay.

 

LINDSAY:
On that note, I'll close up The President's Inbox for this week. My guest has been Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at CFR and a professor of International Affairs at Georgetown. Charlie, as always, a delight to chat.

 

KUPCHAN:
Jim, thanks for having me on the program.

 

LINDSAY:
Please subscribe to The President's Inbox on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And leave us a review, we love the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode and a transcript of our conversation are available on the podcast page for The President's Inbox on cfr.org.

 

As always, opinions expressed on The President's Inbox are solely those of the host or our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's episode was produced by Ester Fang, with director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks go out to Michelle Kurilla. This is Jim Lindsay. Thanks for listening.