As with other civilized versions of our species, am caught in the dilemma between attention and distraction. Helplessness in the face of barbarism is excruciating. We want to know what is happening, chiefly in hope that the right side—and there very much IS a right side—will prevail. But hope is a thin reed. The news, generated by the hour, is routinely grim even if occasionally brightened by acts of remarkable individual courage.
At a remove of some 5,000 miles, the inability to affect outcomes on the ground in Ukraine reaches a point where tuning out is the tool of choice if an emotional equilibrium is to be preserved. But this seems a moral affront. How can one look away? So we find a compromise: we reckon with those in our own country who aim to explain away or even blame someone other than Russia for what is happening.
Opinions on the matter are countless, as are the motives of those who express them. Their worth—in terms of a positive tangible impact on anything—is questionable. Words vs. bombs; we know who wins. A positive impact is not even the point. We (at least some of us) string and disseminate words as affirmation of a shared humanity, our own fractiousness notwithstanding. Maybe there is a consensus on something after all.
There are, however, two common and especially enervating views, both of which blame the West: NATO’s expansion eastward caused Russia to invade Ukraine, and the war continues because the West refuses to, but must, offer Putin an “off-ramp,” the chance to extract himself from what commenters describe as the strategic dead end he created for himself and Russia. But wishful thinking is not evidence.
NATO Expansion as Casus Belli
We can assume the displeasure of a nostalgic former intelligence officer and his like-minded countrymen with former Warsaw Pact members’ accession to NATO. Yet in the 18 years between the last such accession and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, displeasure never led to a shooting war. Russia accommodated itself politically and militarily to the new reality. It placed and targeted its missiles accordingly. It also fostered and benefited from Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
Further, Moscow has long known two things: that NATO is a defensive alliance with no appetite for using armed force against Russia. And—through its close relationships with and intelligence penetrations of the French and, especially, German governments—that there was no chance these two countries would approve NATO membership for Ukraine. In contrast to the Americans, they have been consistently sensitive to Russian security concerns about Ukraine.
With that knowledge, the motive(s) behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be something other than NATO. More likely is the change of the narrative prevailing in Ukraine, which began with the 2014 defenestration of Yanukovich, Putin’s man in Kyiv, and the subsequent democratization and growing legitimacy of Ukraine’s government. And, of course, the orientation away from Russia and toward Europe.
One can argue that this, too, is speculation. But Putin, in his manifesto on Ukraine, warned the world by denying the existence of a sovereign Ukraine, that is, a Ukraine that may be a neighbor of and have centuries of cultural ties with Russia, but which has legitimacy as a national entity separate and apart from that of Russia. Putin’s denial of the obvious—a rhetorical foundation for what was to come—has nothing to do with NATO.
Let’s test the it’s-NATO’s-fault theory. If NATO had not expanded eastward, but Ukraine, through its own democratic processes, chose to align itself economically and culturally with the EU, would Russia have invaded? Unprovable, but, again, we have Putin telling us that Ukraine exists solely at the pleasure of Russia. That’s in addition to the decades of Russian interference in Ukraine, including through the eight-year deadly insurrection in Donbas.
To blame NATO is easy to do because a cause-and-effect relationship can be said to exist not because it does but to score points against political opponents at home. The assumption is that few will bother to examine the claim. Critics also invoke Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of bad faith on the part of the West. Poor analogy aside—motive alone is a distinguishing characteristic—neither of those endeavors, even if wrong, justifies Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Lastly, assuming NATO was Russia’s motive, there is no evidence that the Russian government approached Ukraine or the West to negotiate terms by which Ukraine would not pursue NATO membership. That’s what a party acting in good faith would do. But that never was Putin’s aim. Exactly when he decided to subjugate Ukraine by force is unknown, but he only ever saw force as the tool to be used. NATO is merely a narrative for domestic consumption.
Who’s Looking For an “Off-Ramp”?
Not a few commentators insist that the only solution to the war in Ukraine is a negotiated settlement with Russia. “We have to give Putin something,” says Fiona Hill. Others claim that Putin has made a strategic blunder, has backed himself into a corner, and has underestimated Western unity and resolve. For him to abandon his war on Ukraine he must not be seen as having lost.
In the same breath, these same commentators readily acknowledge that Putin has a decades-long record as a sociopath. They accept that he’s not trustworthy, and that he deeply resents the demise of the once powerful Soviet empire, not because he was a Communist but because he’s a fervent nationalist who, like many of his kind, sees power as a zero-sum game. He must win and everyone else must lose.
In their opposition to an armed Western response to an obvious menace that extends beyond Ukraine, commentators point to Putin’s barely disguised threat of resorting to nuclear arms if anyone dared meddle in his “special military operation” in Ukraine. This is the bluff of bluffs. Putin will risk much, but is it credible to believe that he would accept the guaranteed incineration of his country were he to cross the nuclear threshold?
Further, there is no evidence that Russia’s government believes the invasion to have been a mistake, regardless of its operational problems. Every Western leader’s trot to Moscow to beg for peace talks is met by the same response from Putin: Sure; just give me everything I’ve asked for, namely, the surrender of Ukraine. This does not sound like someone looking to get out of a dilemma. Why, then, does anyone believe concessions to be useful?
Negotiated solutions to conflict require a common predisposition by both sides, the interest in ending the mayhem. What signs do we have that that is of interest to the Russian government? If personal resentment and historical grievance (both of which Putin has shared with the world in abundance and which are of sociopathological dimension) are driving Russian policy, the prevention of further death and destruction is a secondary concern.
Russia unambiguously wants what it wants in Ukraine. The West says (ad nauseam) that it objects to what Russia is doing and, to its credit, has taken tangible steps to register that objection. But Russia continues to tell the world that sanctions will not dissuade it. And it continues to demand the world’s acceptance of a Russian conquest. Moral hazard aside, this makes proposals of “off-ramps” delusional, a characteristic exercise in Western projection.
