Self-deterrence does not work

In responding to the hellish, outrageous and criminal Russian onslaught into Ukraine, the Biden administration has taken certain direct military options off the table of counter measures. The president and NATO have declared that none of its military forces will be deployed to Ukraine. So far Russia’s “red line” against transferring MiG-29 fighter jets to the Ukrainian air force has been accepted by the West. All this produces what is a policy, intended or otherwise, of self-deterrence.

And the threats of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to use nuclear weapons and the hints that chemical agents may not be off the table have been taken very seriously. 

The Western strategy, if it can be called one, is to watch, wait and, while Ukrainian cities are being viciously bombed and rocketed, provide as much, admittedly limited, weaponry of Stinger surface-to-air and Javelin anti-armor missiles along with other small arms as quickly as possible. The argument for denying fighter aircraft to Ukraine was based on the false assumption that the purpose of these systems was to control the skies. That was not the case. 

The need for attack aircraft is to neutralize the ground-based heavy artillery, missiles and rockets that out range Ukrainian weapons that are pulverizing Ukrainian cities. Whether a covert or other operation will provide these vitally needed jets or not remains to be seen. But has self-deterrence run its course? Is it time for more aggressive actions to take the initiative away from Putin?

The counter argument is that this is not 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then, while it did not recognize it, the United States maintained overwhelming nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. That imbalance and the Kennedy administration’s rearmament program compelled Nikita Khrushchev to outflank America’s dominance by stationing shorter range-nuclear missiles in Cuba. That imbalance does not exist today. And Russia has a large numerical advantage over the West in non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons.

Hence, caution is essential. But as history shows, excessive caution can be perceived as weakness. But this is not 1938. NATO did not exist then. Britain and the U.S. were militarily unprepared. Nor had Britain’s and France’s militaries operated together. All those conditions fortunately do not exist today. 

What can be done? First, the United States immediately should announce that the use or threat of use of any weapon of mass destruction by Russia is intolerable. The United States will respond appropriately, and all options can be considered. To that extent, whether it is the U.S. military exercise that will be getting underway in Europe or some other venue such at the NATO Response Force, the U.S. should show that it is able to mount an attack capable of simultaneously destroying hundreds or thousands of land-based targets. 

The intent is to underscore the vulnerability of Russia’s logistics network and major command and control in Ukraine to American smart weapons.

Second, NATO and the U.S. should make binding commitments  to supply Ukraine with needed weapons systems, aid and other needed items much as the U.S. underwrote Britain and the Soviet Union with the Lend Lease program.

Third, Ukraine needs the means to counter Russia’s long-range bombardment weapons and its naval warships. Perhaps fighter aircraft can be transferred. Long-range missile systems should be considered, although Ukrainian personnel will need operational and maintenance training that may not be feasible given the time that would take both to deliver the systems and learn how to use them.

Fourth, what Churchill called “dirty tricks,” namely taking actions to disrupt, terrorize, disorient and dismantle an enemy’s forces, must be adopted now in guerrilla-like warfare that can persist if Russia is able to roll back Ukraine’s military.

Fifth, a much more active and vibrant information warfare campaign must be launched against both Russian military in Ukraine and the Russian public on the atrocities that are being committed in Ukraine. Access has been denied to the flow of information into Russia, as it was during the Cold War. But surely we learned enough then to apply now.

Above all, the U.S. and West need to be smartly and cunningly more aggressive, not to provoke major escalation but enough to take the initiative away from Russia. Self-deterrence needs to be used sparingly and carefully. It is also no way to change the will, perception and thinking of our number one target: Vladimir Putin.

And if Putin is unwilling to change his aims, self-deterrence must be discarded for what Clausewitz called “other means.”

Harlan Ullman, Ph.D, is senior adviser at Washington, D.C.’s Atlantic Council and the primary author of “shock and awe.” His latest book is, “The Fifth Horseman and the New MAD: How Massive Attacks of Disruption Became the Looming Existential Danger to a Divided Nation and that World at Large.”