Calling NATO’s Bluff, Putin Shows Why Sanctions Are Not Enough

AMAC Exclusive – By Daniel Roman

Putin’s speech prior to sending his forces into Ukraine revealed a number of things about the world. It demonstrated that, for all the discussion about the strength of alliances depending on values and personal chemistry, at the end of the day, sometimes force is needed to repel force. Donald Trump’s criticism of NATO – that its dependence on the U.S. was not only freeriding but left European states unable to defend themselves – has proven prescient. The fatal flaw of relying on sanctions has been revealed, and NATO now finds itself in an inverse hostage situation where every sanction imposed to punish Russian aggression reduces the deterrents available in the future. Perhaps most alarmingly, the near panic in western capitals indicates there is no Plan B.

Not everyone was blind to these dangers. Donald Trump, when running for president in 2016, was openly critical of NATO, a stance he maintained while in office. He was accused of wishing to withdraw the United States from the alliance, and his attitude was treated as evidence of ignorance, with the response of “adults” such as Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and John Bolton being to try and “educate” him. They adopted this approach even though they conceded the substance of Donald Trump’s criticism that few countries made the spending commitment of 2% of their GDP. This was seen as a problem, but not a problem that justified throwing away a NATO, which wielded enormous soft power. After all, not only did NATO membership reassure the Baltic States and Poland, but the prospect of NATO membership allowed the West to exert influence over countries like Georgia and Ukraine. What were a few billion dollars compared to those benefits?

What they ignored by framing the issue as one of stinginess was that what mattered was not a few billion dollars, but what that money was not spent on. NATO’s collective security umbrella depended on the ability to respond to threats, and the lack of physical assets year after year made the gap between NATO’s ambitions and NATO’s abilities more apparent. The prospect of NATO expansion into Ukraine did not merely create questions about Russia’s physical security, it was a public challenge. Historically, public challenges are designed to force the other party to either accept the duel, or to retreat in embarrassment. There is always an element of bluff to international affairs, but the lack of spending by NATO member states was not a secret. It was public knowledge. Russia knew it. Hence by publicly challenging Russia without the strength to do anything to Russia (other than with major American military intervention), NATO was not exerting pressure but rather poking Moscow with a sharp stick. A strong NATO seeking to add Ukraine would be perceived by Putin as a threat. A weak NATO doing so was a public insult, and a challenge.

The lack of military capabilities in Europe has resulted in a lack of options with which to respond to Putin’s recognition of the two Eastern Ukrainian Oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk. This should not have been a surprise. It was on the more limited end of the actions the White House predicted could occur. Yet despite allegedly having intelligence about Russian moves for weeks, the Biden administration and its allies seem entirely confused about how to respond.

Biden has been clear for weeks that he has no intention of using American troops to defend the Ukraine, or even, for that matter, to help evacuate U.S. civilians. Taking that seriously, he appears to have gone so far as to evacuate U.S. diplomats not just from Kyiv, but from Ukraine as a whole, having them spend the night after Putin’s announcement in a hotel over the Polish border, despite no evidence of a Russian threat to Kyiv that day, much less the Western city of Lviv where they had been relocated.

In the meantime, Russian actions have revealed the weakness of sanctions. The problem is not that they are ineffective, though they obviously have serious limitations against force. It is rather that they have a fatal flaw. Any sanctions that are imposed in response to one action can no longer be used to deter subsequent actions. If Biden punishes Putin for recognizing the separatist republics with sanctions on specific banks or individuals, he cannot use the threat of such sanctions to deter Russian forces from occupying all the territory claimed by the separatists, more than 60% of which is in Ukrainian hands. If Germany blocks or cancels Nord Stream 2 in response to Russian moves in the East, then it cannot threaten to do so in response to a Russian move on Kyiv.

Contrary to the arguments of “soft power” advocates that sanctions provide a wider variety of non-violent options, they actually create an inverse hostage situation, in which every advance Putin makes creates a disincentive to impose sanctions, lest imposing them reduce the costs of a further advance, thereby encouraging him to engage in further aggression. The only deterrence which can be successful with Putin is a type which is sufficiently overwhelming that the Russian President could retreat without a loss of face. Sanctions which are purely punitive, in other words, designed to “punish” the Russian President for “misbehaving” but with nowhere near the strength to justify his abandonment of territory he has already seized with the loss of domestic prestige entailed, merely lower the costs of even further aggression in the future.

Ultimately, there is less—not more—standing in the way of Putin marching on Kyiv on February 23^rd than there was on February 20^th. Every sanction imposed is one which Putin no longer has to worry about facing if he marches on Kyiv. Now, the only force standing in the way of such a move is the physical force of the Ukrainian army itself. The failure to build an effective, modern fighting force, despite over $2 billion in Western aid, stands as a far more important factor than any psychoanalysis of Putin. As with NATO, Donald Trump made efforts to highlight the sham effort the U.S. had undertaken in Ukraine under Obama, which saw the Ukrainians providing photo-ops and investment opportunities for Westerners in lieu of spending aid money on actual reform. The obsessions which culminated in the first impeachment of Donald Trump blinded Democrats, and even some Republicans, to the dangers posed to Western security by Ukrainian corruption. If Western security relied on defending Ukraine against Russian aggression, then the existence of corruption in Ukraine as standard operating practice was a serious national security concern.

The Biden administration has ignored the Ukrainian forces even more than Obama did. The withdrawal of American diplomats represents a public statement of no-confidence with almost certain consequences for the morale of Ukrainian troops. Suggestions that President Zelensky should leave his capital risk providing a pretext for Russia to claim that the Ukrainian government no longer controls the country. Is the Ukrainian military an ideal instrument? No. But it is the primary one, and Biden needs to figure out how to make the best of it. It is his only real leverage.

In the longer term, the lesson is that only actual ground forces provide options. Putin gave himself options through his ability to mobilize and deploy 190,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders. It is unclear now if NATO could mobilize 19,000 combat-ready troops without the United States. This crisis would have gone far differently if NATO could have held joint exercises of its own in Ukraine. The reason it has gone the way it has is because (aside from the U.S. military) NATO quite simply has no forces with which to back up its demands.

The lesson is clear. Sanctions ultimately do not work to deter major powers with economically vital resources. We need guns, not just butter. If we do not heed these lessons, we risk being in the same situation if Putin decides to try this stunt in the Baltic or with Romania.

Daniel Roman is the pen name of a frequent commentator and lecturer on foreign policy and political affairs, both nationally and internationally. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics.