Opinion: Economic incentives could finally move Russia on Ukraine

The future of European defense and security is based on two interrelated issues: the outcome of the war in Ukraine and long-term relations with Russia. The challenge is that the strategic conversation is overwhelmingly about the former, while there is almost no practical discussion of the latter.

Resolving the war in Ukraine in a way that ensures Kyiv’s long-term security and defensibility is central to the question of the West’s relationship with Russia. It is, however, only one part of the equation.

While Russia may experience operational defeat on the battlefields of Ukraine, failing to achieve its objective of total dominance, it will not suffer defeat in grand strategic terms. Only the most vocal and delusional commentators believe that Moscow will fall, or that “decolonization” of Russia is possible or desirable.

Even a degraded, diplomatically isolated and economically inward-looking Russia is and will remain a power on the European and Asian continents, pursuing its interests further afield, as in sub-Saharan Africa and the Arctic.

So given that Russia is not going anywhere, what should a managed relationship with Russia look like in the long term? More pressingly, what do the U.S. and NATO want the relationship with Moscow to be based on? Answering this question first requires acknowledging certain strategic realities.

First, Russia is unlikely to be a productive, participating member of the Western-led liberal international order. President Vladimir Putin has said as much and believes that the West is in conflict with Russia. This will not change.

There is nothing the West can do or could offer Moscow to change Russian strategic perceptions, interests and, most certainly, behavior. These factors are immutable and intrinsic to Russia. The West can certainly shape the conditions affecting them, but it can no more change Russia’s strategic culture than Moscow can change Washington’s.

Second, the U.S. and NATO are in a far stronger military position regarding Russia than is generally acknowledged. Europe’s military posture is improving at an accelerated rate while Russia’s is conventionally weakening — meaning the West is operating and negotiating from a position of increasing strength.

Even if Russia rebuilds its lost tanks, armored personnel vehicles and artillery, it will face challenges in reconstituting the human capital lost on the battlefields of Ukraine. Any improvements in Russia’s armed forces in the near term must recognize this reality. It will have to rebuild from a severely depressed level while NATO forces continuously improve.

Russia’s defensive posture will also need to factor in NATO’s expanded frontier. Finland’s accession adds nearly 800 miles to Russia’s border with NATO, much of it within short range of the strategically important Kola Peninsula . But this is not to say that Russia cannot challenge NATO, for example through destabilizing operations in Moldova or strategic capabilities such as nuclear escalation or cyberwarfare.

The U.S. and its European partners must be clear in their intentions and heed the lessons of past negotiations and engagement. Maintaining realistic expectations, demonstrating clear and firm resolve, calling out duplicity and avoiding the diplomatic shell games that Moscow likes to undertake are vital to managing future relations.

As a starting point, strengthening strategic stability and arms control is a foundation for future relations. Resuming these discussions, even at the lowest of levels, is sensible and practical. Diplomacy and engagement are neither a carrot nor a stick, it is the most basic form of statecraft and vital to ensuring miscommunications are avoided.

Russia, despite the rhetoric of its propagandists, no more wants nuclear war than those in the West. Ensuring the operational lines of communication remain open is a start, but resuming conversations about arms control, limitation and reduction, and addressing cyber and space issues is critical — even more so with the emergence of China’s strategic, tripolar ambitions.

On Ukraine, Washington must also look to diplomatic and economic coercion as much as armaments. Neither side will resolve this war through force alone. The current trajectory is either a frozen conflict or a forever war.

A negotiated settlement is the only likely outcome, and this requires leverage, punishments and inducements. These must coexist at the same time — Russia ceding territory in exchange for unlocking frozen funds; Ukraine launching long-range strikes into Russia with Western arms as punishment for violations of agreements and building a Ukrainian military that can repel any level of operations by Moscow.

More broadly, with Russia, carrots are needed as much as sticks. But Washington has overwhelmingly relied on punishments without offering off-ramps or incentives. In the long-term, offering Russia measured, controlled and severable economic connectivity with the West — on the West’s terms — could well induce and shape Russian behavior. Limited leverage is better than no leverage.

The U.S. must also look to identify long-term opportunities to divide or weaken Moscow’s growing relationship with China. This must exist within the art of the possible — there is only so much Washington can do to influence this partnership.

Simply abandoning the effort will, however, push Moscow into the embrace of Beijing, precisely at a time when Washington should be working to sow division and discord between a regional adversary and a strategic competitor.

Washington should ensure that its support sees Ukraine as a measure of victory, but strategic success is as much about defining what a viable, managed relationship with Russia looks like. Both are critical to Europe’s security and America’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific, and a positive outcome in one is only a partial strategic success.

Joshua C. Huminski is senior vice president for National Security and Intelligence Programs at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress and a George Mason University National Security Institute senior fellow.

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