Michael Kofman writes: The release of a report this week calling for a vast expansion of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, titled “Preserving Ukraine’s Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression,” helped reignite the debate in Washington, D.C. on the provision of lethal weapons and a reassessment of the U.S. role in the conflict. The authors are prominent former diplomats and highly respected members of the national-security establishment, including Michele Flournoy, Strobe Talbott and Steven Pifer, amongst others. As a result, the president’s administration has come under heavy political pressure to reevaluate the existing policy of support for Ukraine. The prominence and experience of the political figures behind this report makes it impossible to ignore. It is a concise piece of argument, demanding the United States supply $1 billion per year in defense articles to Ukraine, ranging from anti-tank missiles to advanced air defense, and a variety of technical enablers for the Ukrainian military.

The proponents of this armaments proposal have treated support for arming Ukraine as a litmus test for supporting Ukraine in its hour of need. But this is a false equivalence. In fact, it is entirely reasonable to support Ukraine fully and simultaneously oppose sending additional weapons into a volatile conflict region. Indeed, the proposed arms shipments would do little to help Ukraine militarily and might actually worsen the situation. Kyiv is in desperate need of financial, technical and political support to achieve vital objectives, which include a fledgling reform agenda and negotiating a durable settlement to hold the country together. This in fact is the position adopted by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and other U.S./NATO allies.

Sending a mix of weapons to Ukraine is unlikely to improve the situation, given the overwhelming force-on-force mismatch the country faces against Russia, but it could add fuel to a fire that is steadily consuming the country’s chances of emerging as a new nation on a European path. Instead, the United States should provide equipment and supplies to sustain Ukraine’s fledgling military, save lives, double down on economic aid and increase efforts aimed at reforming the country. Ukraine needs a genuine army, not weapons. Creating a sustainable professional force in Ukraine is a long-term effort the West must undertake as part of an overall strategy for the country, and perhaps under the framework of a strategic partnership that should emerge from thought and deliberation. Sending weapons in and of itself is not a strategy, either for Ukraine, or for settling the conflict. The United States must focus on achieving a durable political settlement first. This report does not offer recommendations on a path to peace, and no explanation of how weapons shipments could result in a political settlement to the war currently raging in the Donbass.

At its essence, the report is intended to press the reluctant president into changing his course in Ukraine, and to make the United States a more active participant in the conflict. Its core premise is that by giving Ukraine the ability to kill more Russian soldiers, sending weapons would raise the costs of war for Moscow to an unacceptable level, thus forcing Russia to abandon its existing policy and thus deterring further aggression. The weakness in the armaments proposal is that it offers no vision for what a new political settlement to the current conflict might look like, or how to move beyond the failed Minsk ceasefire, but recommends an Afghanistan-like approach to dealing with the Russian invasion. [Continue reading…]