BY
In responding to Russian thrusts in Ukraine and
Syria, the West has relied on economic sanctions or conceded initiative to
Moscow. Experience shows that direct measures—ones that target troublesome
behavior—are more likely to be effective.
In Ukraine and Syria, the West seems less sure
of its aims and less committed to achieving them. In contrast, Russia appears
to have clearer goals, cares more about outcomes, lies closer to the contested
theater and acts with dispatch.
This was also true when the USSR invaded
Afghanistan in 1979. President Jimmy Carter responded by seeking to organize a boycott
of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but only some Western allies went along.
Carter halted the export of U.S. grain to the USSR, but U.S. farmers were
outraged and a year later President Reagan canceled the embargo.
Responding to aggression in Afghanistan and the
imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981, Reagan banned U.S. companies and
their foreign subsidiaries from selling energy technology to the USSR. Within a
year, European protests forced him to lift the sanctions.
A lesson: Economic sanctions tend neither to be
sustainable nor cause Moscow to cease troublesome behavior.
In contrast to these indirect measures, the
British, Chinese, Saudis and Americans had more impact by providing substantial
aid to Mujahideen resistance fighters via Pakistan. In the mid-1980s, America
stepped up the pressure by providing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, enabling
the Muj to neutralize a devastating Soviet air campaign. Another help was
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's eagerness to reduce military costs and
lift popular morale. Thus in 1989, after a decade of war in Afghanistan, the
USSR withdrew its combat forces.
Direct Western responses have blunted other
Soviet moves. In the 1970s, the USSR began deploying a new intermediate-range
nuclear-armed missile aimed at Europe and Japan. NATO countered with its own
missile deployments, and in 1987 the United States and the USSR agreed to ban
both sides’ missiles.
These episodes suggest how the West might better
respond to Russian military thrusts in Ukraine and Syria. In Ukraine, the West
has emphasized sanctions against Kremlin-linked cronies and state enterprises,
economic aid to Ukraine and training of Ukrainian forces away from the war
zone. But NATO and its members have shied away from providing lethal defensive
arms, and from permanently moving NATO forces to the territory of its eastern
members, although some forces are being rotated through the region.
The West has responded even more modestly to
Russia’s deployment of combat air and ground forces to Syria, and warships with
advanced anti-aircraft missiles off its Mediterranean coast. The West has
voiced strong rhetorical concern, but not acted to impede Russian air attacks
on U.S.-backed rebels fighting against the Bashar al-Assad regime. This faint
response has convinced many in the region that Russia is more determined than
the West to shape events there.
Russia and America have agreed to technical air
safety protocols for the Syrian theater, but beyond this President Barack Obama
signals restraint: “We’re not going to make Syria into a proxy
war.” Washington opposes creation
of a no-fly zone in Syria to protect displaced persons. It also refuses to give
the rebels it backs hand-held anti-aircraft missiles, although it has boosted
supplies of anti-armor missiles.
Kremlin leaders may well infer from the West’s
restrained responses that it will not defend its interests or sees them as only
modest. The West should consider acting to reduce these risks. This would mean
rebalancing the tools used to influence Moscow's behavior.
Western sanctions seem inadequate to cause
Russia to withdraw from eastern Ukraine, much less Crimea, and political
dynamics in Europe suggest that sanctions may not long be sustainable.
Moreover, despite some financial pain, Russian society is adjusting to
sanctions and oil price volatility.
While maintaining U.S.-EU alignment on
sanctions, the West could give higher priority to direct, targeted measures. To
strengthen deterrence against possible future aggression, America could station
army brigades in Poland and the Baltics, and help arm the Ukrainian
military. In Syria, the West could establish a safe zone for displaced persons,
with America guarding the airspace and Turkey the ground. The West could rotate
more warships through the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Russia’s moves in Ukraine and Syria are fraught
with risk. The bloodless takeover of Crimea evidently emboldened the Kremlin,
but then in eastern Ukraine Russia met stalemate. In Syria, Russia is unlikely
to reverse the sagging performance of the Assad regime. Public support among
Russians for the Syrian intervention will undoubtedly drop if more Russian
troops are killed or there is a major terrorist incident at home.
For these reasons the Kremlin seems now to be
giving more attention to the Minsk peace process for eastern Ukraine, and to
the search for a political solution in Syria. In both cases Russian cooperation
with the West will be essential to success.
But military asymmetries in Ukraine and Syria
that favor Russia may cause it to resist needed compromise. By responding more
robustly to Russia’s interventions, the West could reduce the asymmetries and
improve prospects for negotiated outcomes.
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