This past year the Institute for Future Conflict launched its first annual essay contest, open to undergraduate students at Colorado State University, CU Boulder, Denver University, the United States Air Force Academy, and University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.
The prompt asked students and cadets: Explain what – if any – actions the United States could have taken, beginning in July 2021, that would have successfully deterred Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Over the next few weeks we are proud to publish the four winners of the contest.
On 24 February 2022, the world awoke to find that Russian troops had crossed the border into Ukraine. Despite efforts by the United States and the EU to deter the Russian invasion, President Vladimir Putin gave the order anyway, launching a war that has now dragged on for over three years. Eight months after the invasion, the US Department of Defense issued a new National Defense Strategy focused on integrated deterrence. The new strategy aimed to fill gaps that allowed Putin to believe he could successfully invade Ukraine without interference from NATO.
What Failed and How
A strategy of integrated deterrence requires the United States to anticipate the actions that adversaries are likely to take, then make those actions so difficult that our adversaries decide not to proceed. At the start of 2022, the action in question was the potential invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military. Unfortunately, by the time the United States made any attempt to deter the Russian government, the decision had already been made, and the United States was out of time. The decision to proceed with the invasion was first made in February 2021 when exercises began on the Ukrainian border. Over the next few months, any doubt Putin had remaining in his mind was alleviated as actions by the international community amounted to nothing more than empty threats. No significant military action was made. By April 2021, Ukrainian intelligence reports indicated up to 110,000 Russian troops were stationed at the Ukrainian border. By this point, Putin was sound in his decision to proceed, and deterrence had failed. The only question became how much longer he could afford to extend the buildup and how much he could get out of NATO before the invasion.
By July 2021, deterring the invasion would have been impossible. There were already enough Russian troops on the border to justify an immediate invasion order should any attempt be made at military action by NATO. All diplomatic efforts had resulted in a negligible effect. The United States declassified and released intelligence on Russia’s observed troop build-up and invasion plans up to the invasion in 2022. They even identified a mismatch in military strength between the Russian invasion force and Ukraine’s standing military. Russia’s invasion size failed to meet the standard three-to-one ratio and instead pressed forward with fewer Russian troops than Ukraine had on active duty. Still, the only overnight military solution to stall 100,000 Russians flooding into Ukraine would have been a nuclear one. Even if NATO had promised military support to Ukraine that summer, it likely would have prompted Putin to simply launch the invasion earlier.
Economic sanctions were not going to sway Putin either. Sanctions were a failed response to the 2014 invasion of Crimea it was too little, too late for 2022 as well. Therefore, as of July 2021, there was no action that the United States or its allies could have taken that would have convinced Putin to call off the attack. All of Putin's incentive structures and past experience encouraged him to invade Ukraine.
Putin has had an abiding interest in Ukraine, stretching into the Cold War. In 1989, Vladimir Putin was a young KGB officer stationed in Dresden, as the Berlin Wall collapsed. While the Soviet Union would take another two years to totally collapse, the fall of the Berlin Wall remains a symbol of its demise. For Putin, it was an embarrassment, the empire he had served was gone. Putin’s actions in Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 indicate a desire to rebuild the fallen USSR and return Russia to its former glory, a quest he has been on for over 30 years.
Missed Opportunities
Deterrence is a long-term strategy. In the case of today’s Russo-Ukrainian war, successful deterrence would have required actions at least as far back as 2014. Eight years before the full invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces launched a small-scale invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. Russian “little green men” took over Crimean government buildings, replacing Ukrainian flags with Russian flags. Vladimir Putin officially claimed the territory as under Russian control. While NATO provided some resistance through sanctions and statements against the invasion, Russia got away with very little punishment. The sanctions did not cripple the economy, and Russia still holds control of the Crimean Peninsula today. Had the United States been more aggressive, those operators could have been defeated before Russia claimed the territory. When the “little green men” first arrived in Crimea, Russia denied any connection to them. The United States could have leveraged that claim to justify supporting the Ukrainian military in removing the operators from the peninsula. Russia would have then had to choose between continuing to disavow any tie to the men or starting a war with the United States over a small piece of territory. While the Russian response cannot be guaranteed, a war with NATO would devastate Russia even worse than the war with Ukraine has. The risk would be too great and would likely deter further Russian action. By directly challenging Russia’s attempt to take Crimea, the message would have been sent that the United States would protect state sovereignty, even if it meant using force to defend non-allied nations.
This deterrence position could have been further solidified by the US Navy intervening to halt early Chinese attempts at island building in 2012, and conducting bombing raids in Syria in 2013 instead of allowing Russia to undercut a supposed “red line.” If Putin’s first invasion attempt in 2014 had failed and there was a real risk of the US military getting involved, then Putin would have had an entirely different calculus.
Conclusion
If the United States is going to deter its adversaries, then it must build roadblocks to prohibit them from achieving their goals. . In the Russo-Ukrainian War, deterrence failed long before troops were sent to the border for an exercise in February 2021. To summarize, deterring Putin would have required the United States to take actions far earlier in the conflict by maintaining its self-appointed role as the global police. The United States needed to investigate Chinese island building in 2012, uphold red lines in Syria in 2013, and remove disavowed Russian operatives in Crimea in 2014. Through these efforts, the United States would have placed itself in firm control of the world order and established fear in its adversaries, forcing any adversary to think twice before trying to alter the international status quo. It would have forced Putin to seriously consider the possibility of World War III in his calculus for invading Ukraine – a war that would almost certainly result in a loss. His reconsiderations might have included saving his regime and possibly his life.
Ryan McCauley is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Military and Strategic Studies.