‘Walking Away’ from Ukraine Will Be a Logistical Challenge

Foreign Affairs

‘Walking Away’ from Ukraine Will Be a Logistical Challenge

The U.S. is already deeply entangled in Kiev’s business.

Credit: Milan Sommer

Amid a brief halt in arms shipments to Ukraine and new spending commitments reached at the recent NATO summit, Washington faces a rare opportunity to scale back its overcommitment in Europe. But that path is far from guaranteed. As American diplomacy pushes for an end to the Ukraine war, it’s worth examining the long-term security entanglements the United States may be drawn into under a post-war settlement

First, the United States will probably have a significant logistical stake in maintaining Ukraine’s American-furnished equipment. Ukraine has been furnished with the full spectrum of U.S. systems. This includes Patriot, NASAMS, HAWK, and a myriad of other air defense assets; HIMARS, howitzers, and mortar systems for the artillery fight; and Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and Strykers for the maneuver forces. Supplying parts is not a zero-sum game, either. Modern military equipment is not just soldered together; it is highly engineered and intricate, relying on sometimes hundreds of physical subcomponents and software components. Many of these components, critical to the employment of a given system, do not have robust inventories in place. Supplying them requires robbing Peter to pay Paul: A given part will have to be drawn from elsewhere in the NATO or U.S. inventories. 

Second, because Ukraine has been furnished with American kit, the United States will be tasked with integrating Ukraine’s military into the broader European defense scheme. This stems from Ukraine’s increased embeddedness in the NATO security architecture. As recently as last year, NATO called for Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.” This is not just rhetoric. Ukraine receives intelligence and targeting data that is timely and actionable enough that the United States is “part of the kill chain now,” according to New York Times reporting. Ukraine is receiving not just legacy equipment like American Stinger missiles, but also data-linked American systems that feed the data streams of operations centers and friendly platforms. 

Furthermore, continued U.S. support is unlikely to be substituted by Europeans. These systems are not just technically complex. They often require American-supplied data in order to execute their functions, and there are also significant obstacles to information exchange because of proprietary information that cannot be legally shared with non-American entities. Within the alliance, risk tolerances diverge on what a postwar deterrence posture should look like. Though the United States has adopted a more cautious approach to the war’s final settlement, European allies may pursue a reassurance force with a physical presence in Ukraine. In this scenario, it would be harder for Washington to successfully extricate U.S. support from Ukraine and from the European continent more generally. 

Ukraine’s embeddedness with NATO will also require it to transform the way it fights in the future. In Ukraine’s current war, expediency trumps uniformity, and its need to win fosters flexibility and adaptation. In a postwar environment, this need for ad-hoc solutions will give way to the rigidity that comes with fighting in an alliance (whether Ukraine be a de facto or a de jure member, it will transform along these lines). Thirty-two nations can’t fight disparately and incohesively in a large-scale conflict; standardization and shared operating picture is the endstate that NATO tends toward. The emphasis on a high-technology war reflects the American-led doctrinal change in NATO that emphasizes dominance in all domains: land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace.

Part of this is the Link 16 architecture, which provides a shared air picture between air, land, and sea assets. Importantly, this is meant to eliminate the communication gap between a sensor and a shooter, allowing for targets to be engaged as soon as they are detected by a sensor in the network. To illustrate, Ukraine currently fields handicapped F-16s without Link-16 software. The result is that these fighters have about one-third the engagement range of their Russian opponents. Ukraine, having been given the equipment for a multidomain fight, will only be able to fight effectively if it is integrated into the data environment of NATO. There is also the additional problem that European military logistics are still dependent on American capabilities. Given Kiev’s deep reliance on the U.S., Ukraine’s inclusion in Europe’s future security architecture will present considerable barriers to American disengagement with the continent.

The American stake in Ukraine will also be economic. This is especially the case since the United States and Ukraine signed a minerals deal. But this also poses complications. Much of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals are in Russian-controlled Donetsk, and, even for minerals in Ukrainian controlled territory, it would require massive investment to rebuild its energy infrastructure to support the machinery needed to extract these minerals. Exploiting these resources itself requires significant private investment from the United States. This increases pressure on Washington to have a permanent security stake in Ukraine’s future.

The conditions are primed for the U.S. to have a long-term stake in Ukraine. But this is poised to be a frozen conflict, given the probably inconclusive nature of the war’s termination. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin reiterated his demand that Ukraine have no future role in NATO. In a negotiated settlement, Ukraine is likely to be deprived of Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk. This will be painful and bitter for Ukraine to accept. Consequently, Ukrainian irredentism may be a concern in the postwar era. Recall that from 2014 to 2022, Ukraine and Russia fought in a grayzone low-intensity conflict. From Ukraine’s perspective, it will still have an armed and hostile state on its borders which occupies territory that it sees as rightfully Ukrainian. From Russia’s perspective, Ukraine will remain a de facto NATO bulwark threatening the Volgograd corridor and Russia’s primacy in the Black Sea. With Ukraine’s integration into European security, Russia’s perceived threat will increase rather than diminish. These are causal factors that point to a resurgence of prolonged low-intensity conflict even after the current war between Russia and Ukraine abates. Washington will have to consider if it is prudent to have hundreds of defense contractors, uniformed servicemembers, and a significant private sector presence in a country whose borders are going to be actively contested for years or even decades.

The United States has a clear interest in deprioritizing the European theater in favor of pivoting to the Pacific. This has been made clear in every National Defense Strategy since 2012, yet the United States has not fully committed to this aim. In light of the diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine war, current policy is unlikely to extricate the United States from European commitments. The current trajectory will result in a permanent American stake in Ukraine, which is likely to remain in conflict, though in a less intense state. This does not seem to achieve the end goals which policymakers are striving for. Lest it be left unsaid, there are two nations that can end civilization: the United States and Russia. For all the failings of its conventional forces, Russia’s nuclear arsenal is still capable of wiping out billions of human beings in less than an hour. This threat should not go understated. U.S. intelligence estimated a 50 percent chance of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine in 2022. Where would the ensuing escalation spiral have ended? This is not an academic exercise, but a forgotten reality that the continuity of civilization is jeopardized by a conflict between Russia and NATO. Diplomacy should be encouraged. America’s European allies should be empowered to take charge of their own security; but the United States should pursue its own strategy towards Russia.

The post ‘Walking Away’ from Ukraine Will Be a Logistical Challenge appeared first on The American Conservative.