By Ramzy Mardini, The National Interest, 8/12/22

Ramzy Mardini is an Associate at The Pearson Institute and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Chicago, where he studies the intersection of social networks and civil war dynamics, with a focus on the Islamic State.

As the United States continues to deepen its involvement in Ukraine, policymakers say the dangers and costly sacrifices are still warranted. “As long as it takes,” stressed President Joseph Biden at the NATO summit in Madrid this July, “so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine.” This escalatory approach is sustained by twin assumptions about the war, which claim Russian president Vladimir Putin resorted to an “unprovoked” military invasion of Ukraine to fulfill “maximum” aims of conquest.

But these purported assertions are erroneous.

And yet, they’re propagated, repeatedly, within the Western discourse over the war. The purpose of the narrative they conjure up is straightforward. The distortion and inflation of the threat serve to compel and enable Western governments to pursue—and maintain—hardline policies to deny Russia a victory in Ukraine.

Early on, with bias run amok in the West, the media’s glaring and lopsided access into the conflict had also undercut its legibility of what was happening on the ground. By default, it over-relied on information furnished by one side of the war’s ledger. This empowered Washington (and also Kyiv) with nearly unfettered access to shape the interpretation of the war and its events to Western audiences without facing much, if any, scrutiny.

In effect, the American public has been bamboozled into supporting a costly and risky proxy war against Russia. Then, it was actively led to believe that Ukraine was winning the fight, despite later reports that the U.S. intelligence community has lacked an accurate portrayal of the war on the ground from its very onset.

As a tool of foreign policy, threat inflation involves concerted and deliberate actions to misrepresent information and manipulate public perception so as to inspire overblown fear and outrage. In turn, this helps to justify costly and risky policies that would otherwise fail to earn sufficient political and public support. Such efforts not only amplify the threat posed by an adversary, but also characterize the source of aggression as an intrinsic quality of its leadership. This is to discredit the belief that its behavior may be a reaction to one’s own policies or actions motivated by circumstance. Thus, the course of action desired is situated within the public discourse as the only reasonable path forward.

Needless to say, Putin started an illegal and unjustified war. Yet, to enable a course correction toward a diplomatic solution, it’s the Western-based narrative about the war that requires a repudiation.

Take, for instance, the purported certainty in the West that Russia’s military sought to conquer a heavily populated and fervently nationalistic country nearly the size of Texas—and initially, intended to do so in a matter of days, no less. This belief is entirely baseless. In fact, even the U.S. military is incapable of pulling off such a feat in that little time. And yet, the falsehood, which formed the West’s perception of Russia’s intentions, remains unabated. So too is Washington’s incessant deflection of holding any responsibility for provoking the invasion, despite its ubiquitous and escalatory involvement in the precipitating crisis.

Today, the narrative of an unprovoked and maximum-aim war persists and dominates the public discourse in the West. There’s no doubt that it has advanced popular and political support for a noble cause. Not only does it help to punish Russia’s aggression in invading a sovereign country, but it also helps Ukraine defend itself. Now surpassing $53 billion in total aid since the war began on February 24, the notable U.S. commitment aims to keep Ukraine in the fight over the long term. By extension, it prolongs the effort to bleed and degrade Russia’s military in hopes of ushering in its retreat from Ukraine.

However, the trade-off in keeping a distorted reality intact undermines better judgments in bringing the war ravaging Ukraine to a responsible end. Indeed, despite the strategic and moral goals the narrative is meant to facilitate, its propagation has also obstructed diplomacy, expanded the consequences of the war beyond Ukraine, and intensified its modes of destruction within it. More troublingly, the blowback continues to compound. Since the West’s approach was founded on misleading assumptions to enact it, ensuring its continuation over time will become more difficult and inextricably bound up with risky military escalation and greater adverse effects on the global economy.

Enabling Denial by Proxy

In late 2021, as pessimism over the crisis ramped up, Biden pledged to put together “the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult” for Putin to “do what people are worried he may do.” This included deterrence of both the punishment and denial variants. Deterrence-by-punishment involved a range of retaliatory sanctions inflicted on Russia’s economy if it invaded its neighbor. Deterrence-by-denial centered on manipulating Putin’s calculus to avoid an invasion by making it unlikely to be successful. Additionally, this also prepared the U.S. to burden, complicate, and spoil Russia’s chances of a speedy and economical victory should it resort to war.

But problems with U.S. strategy persisted. On the one hand, hesitancy in Europe, given the continent’s economic dependence on Russian energy exports, hindered the credibility of deterrence-by-punishment. To sanction Russia risked retaliatory measures in kind. On the other hand, deterrence-by-denial was inoperable through direct military engagement. Ultimately, Russia’s nuclear arsenal eliminated that possibility and neither the U.S. nor NATO intended to send troops to Ukraine, fearing escalation toward nuclear brinksmanship. To issue threats of direct war would be regarded as a bluff by Moscow and fail to deter its aggression.

Thus, to fill the coercive void and strengthen and signal resolve, Washington turned to threat inflation. This sought to buttress ongoing threats of sanctions and facilitate a deterrent strategy of indirect military engagement—or denial-by-proxy. Since the U.S. cannot directly prevent Russia from achieving its aims in Ukraine, it can try to rally Western support to overburden its strategy, resources, and tactics—rendering an invasion more costly to pursue and less likely to succeed if pursued. Without threat inflation to secure political and public buy-in, commitment to help defend Ukraine would fail to launch, be reduced to symbolic gestures, or fizzle out as soon as risks and costs mounted.

The driving logic is to shape the narrative because the narrative enables an indirect form of deterrence-by-denial. The Russian military may, ultimately, achieve some degree or outcome of victory on the battlefield in Ukraine. However, the blow to the West—and the liberal international order it seeks to preserve—is mitigated if that victory comes at great cost to Moscow, so much so that it turns the narrative of the war into Putin’s blunder.

No doubt, the prospect of another foreign policy calamity weighed heavily on the White House. In 2021, the fiasco ensued by the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan—prompting an unforeseen swift takeover by the Taliban—had damaged the post-Trumpian image of Biden’s competence and credibility on the world stage. At home, he never fully recovered. A Russian military victory in Ukraine would deliver an even more consequential and humiliating defeat for the West, especially the United States. Some feared that back-to-back debacles abroad could weaken U.S. deterrence extended to Taiwan, emboldening China’s efforts to control the islands. Accordingly, from an intelligence, political, and strategic standpoint, Washington faced enormous pressure to overcorrect on the crisis in Ukraine.

As such, the Biden administration went to great lengths to deny Russia any semblance of a speedy victory—be it a swift military triumph or a quick political capitulation by Kyiv. Initially, the U.S. worked to bridge the divide among its NATO allies. To allow for a more credible deterrent threat to materialize, it shared intelligence on Russia’s military buildup at a two-day conference in Riga, Latvia, held on November 30 and December 1, 2021. But Putin’s resolve appeared to only harden. By the start of 2022, it was apparent that deterrence-by-punishment was failing to de-escalate the crisis. In turn, the U.S. intensified efforts at deterrence-by-denial.

In January 2022, the Biden administration leaned forward to get ahead of an invasion that hadn’t yet occurred—but one that it had to be ready to confront, nonetheless. Three key pieces of evidence pointed to an intensification in the U.S. approach. First, U.S. officials began to publicly estimate that an invasion was an ever-growing likelihood. “My guess is he (Putin) will move in,” said Biden on January 19, “He has to do something.” This was a change from the previous position, which emphasized that Putin’s intent to invade was unknown or inconclusive. Second, the U.S. incorporated denial-based plans to pre-empt and stifle the likelihood of a speedy Russian victory in case an invasion did happen. Finally, noticeable indications of threat inflation began to appear in the public discourse, whereby Russia’s ostensible aims and projected danger to the West were deliberately exaggerated.

These changes occurred as the U.S. knowingly prepared to officially dismiss Russia’s diplomatic proposal later that month. Centering on grievances and concerns over NATO’s role and its eastward expansion to induct Ukraine, Russia put forth a draft agreement in December 2021 to reset the post-Cold War security arrangement with the West. But in a delivered letter, the diplomatic proposal was declared by the U.S., in clearest terms, to be a non-starter. “There is no change. There will be no change,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken on January 26, in regards to the U.S. commitment to uphold NATO’s open-door policy to prospective members, including Ukraine.

A Blindspot within American Intelligence

Within the media discourse, the American intelligence community was “spot on” in predicting an invasion of Ukraine. But this assumption is misleading, at best, and dangerous, at worst. It has allowed statements and warnings issued by U.S. policymakers, who cite the authority of intelligence, to go unchallenged. Upon closer scrutiny, an examination of the rhetoric of the Biden administration in the lead-up to the war suggests good reason to question the quality of their information. Undoubtedly, the lack of access into the decisions and deliberations inside the Kremlin extends to the lack of insight into Russia’s intentions. Hence, the certainty espoused by U.S. leaders when maximizing Russia’s war aim is unsubstantiated and constitutes an overreach.

A healthy dose of skepticism about the veracity and depth of American intelligence—or, at least, how political elites portrayed it to the public—is needed. First, given the rhetoric and actions by Washington throughout the crisis, there’s no credible indication that access into Moscow’s deliberations over aims, strategy, and intentions was ever obtained by the U.S. intelligence community. Second, the eleventh-hour upswing in alarmism from U.S. officials was also intertwined with an intensified information campaign that sought to preempt and inflate the Russian threat so as to deter it. Importantly, evidence of threat inflation had well preceded the shift to assert a near certainty of an invasion. This makes it difficult to disentangle and discern if the alarmism was derived from new streams of intelligence—or if it stemmed from political decisions to strengthen deterrence-by-denial. Finally, there existed profound political and strategic incentives for U.S. policymakers (and the intelligence community) to hedge their bets. After the debacle in Afghanistan, the uncertainty and inaccessibility to the Kremlin would likely incentivize widening intelligence estimates or political statements to incorporate some level of plausibility over the worst-case scenario. As such, there’s little doubt that avoiding the surmountable damage of being caught flat-footed again was of paramount concern, driving an overcorrection.

Contrary to popular depiction, the U.S. forewarning of an invasion of Ukraine doesn’t necessitate that intelligence access into Russia’s intentions, aims, and strategy drove its decision to issue a prediction. In fact, it was only in the final week of the yearlong military escalation that U.S. officials signaled some modest level of certainty about the prospect of a Russian invasion, yet were still engaged to find a diplomatic solution. Warnings ratcheted up over the likelihood of war as the crisis visibly escalated to a boiling point. In Washington, concern grew over Moscow’s costly signaling after it publicized its ultimatum on December 17, 2021, whereby its rejection would set up a pretext to invade. Some believed Russia’s mere issuance of the demands had indicated that an invasion was a foregone conclusion.

In its public engagement, Washington hedged its threat assessment. It signaled that a Russian invasion was a growing likelihood, inflated the threat to help buttress ongoing deterrent efforts, but still couched those warnings within continued uncertainty regarding Putin’s plans and intentions. This rhetorical balancing act served to preserve the public perception of American credibility regardless of how events unfolded. If Russia invaded, the U.S. credits the accuracy of its intelligence to advance preparations to confront the threat; absent an invasion, it credits its deterrent strategy that kept Russia’s aggression in check.

Up until the closing days, U.S. officials had, repeatedly, stressed that its intelligence had not revealed Putin’s calculus. Throughout the crisis, not to mention the years preceding it, the U.S. intelligence community had been encumbered by a critical blind spot into reading Russia’s intentions. It acknowledged an inability to pinpoint decision-making inside the Kremlin, which required obtaining access to Putin and his deliberations or penetrating his inner circle. The uncertainty forced U.S. intelligence, in large part, to rely on interpreting Russia’s visible military posture and maneuvers along the borders with Ukraine. Indeed, former U.S. intelligence officials doubted if access inside the Kremlin was ever obtained, believing that assessments had to rely on imagery and signals intelligence on Russia’s military deployment, particularly as final orders came down the chain of command.

Indeed, leading up to the invasion, a snapshot into the rhetoric used by U.S. leaders points to the general but imprecise nature of information. In early 2022, the White House estimated an invasion between mid-January and mid-February. On February 11, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the U.S. intelligence community had “sufficient confidence” of a “distinct possibility” that an invasion occurs before the end of the Beijing Olympics, which concluded on February 20. But he also added, “We are not saying that…a final decision has been taken by Putin.” Meanwhile, in an hourlong call, Biden warned Western leaders that an invasion was expected to happen on February 16. Of course, that turned out to be incorrect. “Putin has put in place the capacity to act on very short notice,” said Blinken on that day, “He can pull the trigger. He can pull it today, he can pull it tomorrow, he can pull it next week.” On February 17, Biden said that there was “every indication” Russia prepared to attack Ukraine “in the next several days.” He added, “I guess it will happen.” The next day, on February 18, he stretched that prediction’s timeframe to “in the coming week, in the coming days,” but still emphasized it wasn’t too late for a diplomatic path.

This rolling-basis framing of prediction suggests that Western intelligence assessments suffered from a lopsided composition in source material. Analytically speaking, insight into Russia’s intentions exhibited an overreliance on its capabilities because the U.S. lacked access into the deliberations inside the Kremlin. Indeed, as late as February 17, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg emphasized the ongoing lack of entry into Putin’s inner circle, saying that “we know about their capabilities but of course we don’t know with certainty about their intentions, so it remains to be seen what they will do.” This may have been sufficient to make estimations on general outcomes and provide an early warning system of an invasion’s final ground preparations. But the lack of direct access into Russia’s intentions undermined efforts to determine critical details, such as its strategy, military plans and objectives, and ultimately, political goals.

As such, U.S. predictions were made in the context of Russia having positioned its final military pieces. In February, Putin had claimed a partial withdrawal of Russian forces from the border. But evidence contradicted any signs of a pullback. “So far we have not seen any de-escalation on the ground from the Russian side,” said Stoltenberg on February 15, “Over the last weeks and days we have seen the opposite.” This suggested an invasion was on the horizon, and likely prompted U.S. officials to get ahead of it and elevate their warning status. The chances of an invasion are “very high,” Biden said on February 17, “because they have not moved any of their troops out,” but instead “have moved more troops in.”

Another sign of the unbalanced and limited nature of U.S. intelligence was the wide-ranging projections into the mechanics of a military invasion. Devoid of knowing Russia’s war-aim and military strategy, U.S. estimations of how an invasion would look relied on deducting plausible scenarios. Essentially, it focused on information gleaned from Russia’s mobilized military capabilities, force posture, and unit compositions.

Speaking from a White House podium, Sullivan suggested on February 11 that an invasion “could take a range of different forms,” with “a possible line of attack” being “a rapid assault on the city of Kyiv,” whereby the Russians “could also choose to move in other parts of Ukraine as well.” On February 17, in a speech to the United Nations Security Council, Blinken described a wider range of scenarios, even as he admitted: “We don’t know exactly the form it will take.”

Surely, at the individual level, U.S. policymakers were also incentivized to overcorrect and safeguard their reputations. Back in summer 2021, Blinken’s dismissal of a hyperbolic scenario he conceived—that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan wasn’t going to happen over the span of a weekend—had ironically turned out to be the reality foreshadowed. Now, the incentives at using hyperbole were reversed. Akin to throwing spaghetti on the walls at the UN, he warned of a false flag operation in the form of “a fabricated so-called ‘terrorist’ bombing inside Russia, the invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake—even a real—attack using chemical weapons,” whereby Russian leaders “may theatrically convene emergency meetings” that greenlight an invasion. In the attack stage, “missiles and bombs will drop across Ukraine,” whereby “communications will be jammed,” and “cyberattacks will shut down key Ukrainian institutions,” all occurring prior to soldiers marching in “on key targets that have already been identified and mapped out in detailed plans.”

Needless to say, the forewarnings turned out to be wildly incorrect. Despite laying out an array of possibilities, the U.S. still missed Russia’s decision, days prior to the invasion, to recognize the independence of the two Russian-speaking breakaway provinces in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. This represented even more evidence of Washington’s lack of access to the decision-making calculus in Moscow. Moreover, the expectations over how Russia might conduct its war strategy were so overly generalized that military observers noted they “mirror-image” how the U.S. would conduct an invasion of its own….

A War to Bargain, Not Conquer

For Russia, a maximum aim was not only out of reach, but it never even attempted the preparations to grasp it. Upon closer scrutiny, its invasion reflects a limited-aims war waged as an extension of Russian statecraft. In essence, Russia seeks not to conquer Ukraine, but to coerce it. Its use of military force is a mechanism to gain bargaining power so as to strong-arm Kyiv’s compliance and coxswain Ukraine’s orientation, whereby it doesn’t threaten Russia’s security or its geopolitical interests.

In the opening salvo of the invasion, Russia’s northern front, operating from Belarus, deployed a small but rapid military force that quickly arrived at Kyiv’s doorstep. In real-time, U.S. officials publicly proclaimed the maneuver was intended to “seize” the capital city of 3 million people and “decapitate” the Ukrainian government in 48 hours. In the West, the mad dash straight toward Kyiv had all but confirmed the purported theory that Russia’s intent was to enact regime change. And henceforward, the Western media fallaciously adopted it as an empirical fact.

The assertion, however, was an artifact of American distortion. Such a military endeavor was impossible with the size and type of forces deployed. Kyiv is a vast city of “broad, sweeping avenues, bisected by narrower streets often paved with lumpy cobblestones,” with “extensive basements and cellars” inhabiting many of its structures. By itself, this renders any task to establish control over the city to be a bloody slog, lasting many weeks, if not months. “None of our leaders, neither the president nor anyone else, has ever said that we would like to capture Kyiv,” said Russia’s ambassador to the U.K., “I do not believe that it is possible to capture or occupy Kyiv. It is a big city.”

In reality, Russia’s military maneuver toward Ukraine’s capital was about coercive signaling, not conquering it. The military invasion, in fact, paralleled a diplomatic track, which explicitly sought to coerce Kyiv to promptly enter into negotiations. The goal of Russia’s Plan A was to elicit a conditional-based surrender favoring its terms, while keeping the bulk of its mobilized forces on the horizon. In exchange to comply early, Ukrainian leaders could avoid a destructive and devastating war that plays out on their soil.

Furious and disappointed with NATO’s initial hesitancy to offer support, Zelenskyy, in fact, publicly signaled (and threatened) on February 25 that he might accept Putin’s delivered request earlier that day “to talk about Ukraine’s neutral status.” Days later, he called on a national resistance to fight the invader and rejected Russia’s proposed talks in Belarus, where a delegation from Moscow waited. Yet, he was forced to send a delegation the next day since his public rejection gave Putin a propaganda victory. Nevertheless, no agreement emerged, but further rounds of negotiations were expected, and each sought to improve their bargaining position on the battlefield.

In the West, Zelenskyy’s bravado was heroized. But this rash defiance wasn’t driven by an abrupt change in personal conviction. Instead, it was motivated by a Western commitment, along with unprecedented actions by Europe, to assist in Ukraine’s defense. Quite possibly, it represented an overpromise given the Ukrainian leader’s subsequent and public frustrations with the actual level of support delivered.

To be clear, Moscow’s plan for a so-called “quick-and-decisive victory” wasn’t about capturing the flag; it was about expediting, under duress, a negotiated settlement over neutrality. In effect, Plan A wasn’t spoiled by a military defeat, but rather because it failed to coercively extract political compliance. Immediately thereafter, Moscow initiated its Plan B, which sought to enhance its bargaining power.

But with the faulty assumptions of an unprovoked and maximum-aimed invasion still intact, Western observers initially perceived Russia’s follow-on military behavior as an effort to “double-down” on still conquering Ukraine. Later on, it was said to have “downgraded” its earlier ambition and now seeks control over partial territory as opposed to the entire country. Both of these misinterpretations are driven by confirmation bias, given the misplaced certainty in the prevailing narrative.

Thus far, there’s no indication that Moscow has relegated its original war aim. Plan B, in fact, seeks the same principal goal in shaping Ukraine’s orientation as Plan A. Essentially, the change hasn’t so much occurred in the substance of Russia’s primary aim, but rather in the type of military strategy to secure it. Having preferred to obtain an agreement and avoid a costly war, Russia has been in the process of inflicting those costs to force the desired submission.

As already demonstrated, Russia’s contingency plan embarked on the arduous endeavor to establish hard facts on the ground to first position its bargaining power. This parallels a separate coercive campaign to build pressure and squeeze the acquiesce of Kyiv (and the West) to begrudgingly comply with Moscow’s terms for peace. Having targeted global food and energy supplies, the compellence phase is likely to expand and exploit other vulnerabilities. This can include attacks on infrastructure in parts of the country largely left untouched, which could extend to targeting civilians.

Nevertheless, the plethora of contradictions on the battlefield hasn’t forced a reevaluation of the axioms that underpin the distorted interpretation of the war. Despite the persistent confusion over the Russian military’s behavior, the tendency in the West has been to uphold the maximum aim of conquest and then erroneously attribute any shortfalls and irregularities as symptoms of Russian ineptitude, irrationality, or weakness.

For example, the miles-long Russian military convoy, which entered Ukraine in late February from Belarus, was expected to encircle and enforce a siege of the capital and topple the government. Despite arriving promptly outside Kyiv, Western observers were then baffled by the convoy’s perpetual stagnation. Appearing to be “sitting ducks,” the convoy was alleged in the media to have been impeded by “logistical problems” and “fierce resistance.”

In reality, the purpose of the Russian convoy wasn’t to seize Kyiv. Instead, it served as a decoy operation to facilitate the efficacy of the contingency plan, initiated after Zelenskyy rejected talks.

Stationary-like, maintaining the convoy in striking distance from the capital city kept the Ukrainian military divided. Unable to prioritize and concentrate its maximum strength to defend against the other invading fronts, the decoy allowed Russian forces to make territorial advances in the south and east. Later on, the convoy’s withdrawal was misinterpreted by the West to be a sign of Moscow relinquishing its aim to “seize” Kyiv. But this optimism, which followed the closure of Russia’s northern front, was also misplaced. The convoy’s role was fulfilled and the purpose of its northern front phased out when it aided the completion of a land bridge that connected Russia’s southern and eastern fronts. With the Crimean Peninsula now reinforced from Russia’s own border, Moscow has hardened and entrenched its staying power, bolstering its bargaining position.

A Course Correction Toward Diplomacy

Today, the situation grows direr for Ukraine’s military. But there’s little appetite in the West to correct the narrative in making a pivot to diplomacy. The West continues to leverage a favorable, but fleeting, discourse to justify its policy of denial. Even as the narrative loses momentum, political elites will continue to propel it forward. “You can already see in the media that interest is going down, and that is also affecting the public, and the public is affecting the politicians,” said Ann Linde, the Foreign Minister of Sweden in July. “So, it is our responsibility to keep Ukraine and what Russia is doing high up on our agenda.”

The interest to preserve the narrative’s tenets prolong efforts to punish and degrade Russia. But it also shapes how victory is defined. Certainly, the war looks abysmal for Putin if his original aim is perceived as maximum. However, if interpreted through the lens of a limited aim, the war’s trajectory is reversed in favor of Moscow, not Kyiv—and advocates of pursuing “victory” ought to take notice.

Either way, the West isn’t winning the war. A decisive victory in Ukraine is neither realistic nor worth the dangers or costs to try to achieve it. Even if more Western support arrives, it won’t stop Russia from escalating in kind. It also won’t do much to roll back the tremendous coercive leverage it has already gained. In reality, Russia’s terms for peace will be difficult to defy in any eventual settlement.

Moreover, prolonging the fight furthers the carnage and could likely worsen Ukraine’s negotiating power rather than boost it. Indeed, Moscow’s aims are, in fact, expanding over secondary interests beyond its primary interest of neutrality. This expansion is not only driven to justify the costs expended in the war but also because of emerging security concerns produced as a result of the war.

For instance, since Ukraine’s possession of newfound military systems, Russia is likely inclined to create a buffer zone that reduces the coercive value of those weapons. “Now, [our] geography is different,” said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister in July, “It is not only the DNR and LNR,” referring to the provinces in the Donbas region, “it is also the Kherson region, the Zaporizhzhia region and a number of other territories.” This would not only harden Moscow’s bargaining power, but also sustain its coercive superiority vis-à-vis Kyiv by reducing the efficacy of the latter’s retaliatory capability. “If Western countries supply long-range weapons to Ukraine,” Lavrov warned, territorial interests “will move even further.”

Inevitably, the misguided U.S.-led approach will be exposed by the merits of a hard and inconvenient truth: Russia’s resolve will likely prevail over the thin veneer of Western unity. As Europe steadily finds itself having to absorb the blowback of a U.S.-driven policy, escalation may accelerate its defection to seek accommodation with Russia. Moreover, NATO’s deepening involvement will only intensify a threat that Russia has deemed existential. This fuels its resolve rather than abates it. As demonstrated by the rattling of its nuclear saber, the vital interests at stake for Russia gives its leadership far more political will than the West in accepting the burdens and perils of escalation.

To end the fighting, recent calls have suggested Ukraine make territorial concessions to Russia. But neither a bilateral deal nor redrawing borders alone will bring about a lasting peace. This is because Ukraine is entangled in a proxy war. Its casus belli cannot be simplified as a territorial tiff between neighbors. Although such disputes played a role in the crisis, the taproot of the instability remains NATO’s living commitment—issued in 2008 and reiterated in 2021—to bring Ukraine into the Western alliance.

As such, the West must be a party to negotiations and a signatory to any lasting settlement. Without a multilateral agreement over Ukraine’s strategic orientation, the war could settle into a ‘frozen’ or recurring conflict. Putin may be content with either scenario. If diplomacy with the West remains an intractable path to pacify its security concerns, Russia will continue to hold Ukraine hostage in the broader dispute with NATO, as it has with Georgia. Doing so preserves a backdoor mechanism to obstruct Ukraine’s admission into the alliance, indefinitely.

A negotiated settlement is in the best interest for all parties. However, diplomacy has long stalled behind the scenes and given the multiple layers of actors on the Western side of the ledger, the prerequisite conditions will be slow and stubborn. Indeed, despite their perilous position, Zelenskyy’s domestic and foreign backers are adamant to prolong the fighting until a final victory is achieved. But for diplomacy to gain traction sooner rather than later, the U.S. and Europe must pivot in unison to pressure and empower him to seek the compromise that is necessary with Putin, which also requires the West to formally relinquish its position to bring Ukraine into NATO.

Before all else, Washington must come to terms with its role in provoking and now prolonging the war. Unfortunately, the conventional narrative dampens that realization and delays the course correction.

This reckless obduracy from afar will only add to Ukraine’s wrecking.