Washington’s decision to abstain from opposing by force Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals a truth about the $800+ billion the US wants to spend in the next 365 days on military matters: none of the muscle is intended for use against powers of equal heft, i.e., China or Russia or India. Smaller countries had better beware.
Since 1945, the US has confirmed this principle through its own countless “special military operations” worldwide, usually against sub-par opposition. Each was an exercise in choice; there was no enemy at the gates threatening the existence of the American state. For that reason, their legitimacy will rightly remain debated in perpetuity.
The first Gulf War (1990) is an exception. President Bush, perhaps reflecting his WWII experience, reaffirmed the post-1945 principle that seizing another country by force was by definition illegitimate. He created a multilateral military coalition that, after extensive diplomatic efforts had failed, reversed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
Bush affirmed the rightness of that war by ending hostilities as soon as Iraqi forces had been driven from Kuwait. For this he was excoriated at home; the decision not to go to Baghdad to remove Saddam Hussein from power was deemed a job left undone. (The president’s son would do so two decades later via a fraudulent motive.)
The US knew in December 2021 that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. It alerted the world accordingly. But it also communicated—above all to the decision-maker in the Kremlin—that the US military, the one force that could deter Russia, would not stand in the way. “That is not on the table,” which was heard in Moscow as, “Full speed ahead!”
The White House presented the choice as being between sanctions and a third world war. The speed with which this was announced suggests reflex rather than thought. No one had threatened Russia. But only a credible threat of US force would have deterred Russia. No Russian invasion of Ukraine, no shooting at Russians … and no third world war.
The standard counter-argument has been that Russia has nukes, with more warheads than anyone else). The assumption is that a credible threat of American force against Russia’s unlawful military presence in Ukraine would have caused Moscow to resort to nuclear arms. Why it would risk self-immolation goes unexplained.
This assumption confirms that the US will never use force against Russia (or China), no matter how legitimate it would be to do so. How viable, then, are US defense commitments (“commitments”?), be they formal (by NATO treaty), or informal and intentionally ambiguous with respect to the defense of Taiwan?
The immediate consequences for Ukraine are dire. Sanctions and diplomatic isolation may, but are unlikely to, dissuade Russia from pursuing, unhindered and entirely at its convenience, Ukraine’s subjugation, dismemberment, or destruction. In the one instance where the use of formidable US military power would be justified, the US opts out.
That decision confirms the urgent need on the part of smaller countries confronting larger ones—Russia and China, in particular—to discount even the most fervent Washington assurances of military support to prevent (vs. react to) military aggression against them. The US only shoots at those who can’t seriously shoot back.
The question for American taxpayers compelled to finance the military enterprise and the industrial complex that comes with it: must the country really spend $800+ billion each year to make sure that the US can mop the floor with the world’s pesky but, in the end, inconsequential small-fry?
