The strategic West’s regime based on post-World War II norms and the deterrent credibility of the NATO alliance is being put to test perhaps harder than ever since its inception. Despite heavy Russian losses and a strengthened sense of Western unity, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues undeterred in his efforts to subjugate Ukraine. The primary Western response has been sanctions, with some arming of the Ukrainian forces. None of this will be enough to stop Putin because of his understanding of world politics and his traditional understanding of deterrence. The world is witnessing events that will undoubtedly chart the course of history, and the Western response is failing to turn the tide. As international order is being put to the test, it seems possible for it to break in the face of Western hesitance. What we are witnessing is major deterrence failure on the part of NATO, and this may have reached a point of no return.
Putin is not a Western-minded leader, he thinks in traditional terms of military strength. He is a realist and for him, matters of policy come down to militaristic factors and whether the enemy will fight or not. It’s awfully simple, it all boils down to security and survival, which can never be guaranteed. Over the years, through Georgia, Crimea, his assassinations abroad and now Ukraine, Putin is testing to see whether the West is willing to respond by fighting or if it leans toward other costly alternatives.
The West is misinterpreting aspects of Putin’s behavior and misjudging the impact of sanctions through which the West intends to make a strong statement. For a man of empire like Putin, however, they mean far less. The strategic West failed to deter Putin from making these advances, and it needed to demonstrate a stronger military commitment and willingness to fight for its interests. Now that the West cannot seem to make a credible commitment, there is very little that can be done to halt Putin’s advances.
Putin is much more in touch with the traditional military power-based realities of politics than his Western counterparts who have fallen out of touch during this short-lived golden age of free trade, democracy and economic interdependence. The perception, therefore, that economic penalties weigh as heavily on Putin as the West believes, lacks nuance. The reality of Putin has become apparent over the years – he is a realist who looks at what he can do to denigrate his strategic nemesis, the West’s norms-based regime, while his escalations take advantage of the fact that the West shows no will to fight Russia under any circumstance. Ukraine matters for Putin because to successfully invade Ukraine means to uproot the entire system upon which American and Western supremacy are based. The disproportionately restrained response of the West given the historic implications of Putin’s invasion is what will likely cause Putin to continue until he sees real resolve from the West.
Strong, but not strong enough
To be sure, there is no doubt that the coordinated response from the West has surpassed Putin’s expectations. U.S. President Joe Biden made a major political sacrifice in sanctioning Russian oil, a move he initially swore against given the impact it is going to have upon U.S. consumers. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also broke a decadeslong taboo of German foreign policy practically overnight, agreeing to arm the Ukrainians. This is a significant U-turn in policy given the fact that Germany was very hesitant to respond due to the Nord Stream II pipeline, thus, it was probably a move that Russia did not expect. The world coordinated on a set of punitive measures against Putin with remarkable unity, but the question is whether these responses will be enough to show Putin that the West will no longer tolerate his actions. Even these responses have been slow and shown too much hesitance to send Putin a strong message. The EU has not even unanimously sanctioned Russian gas, a move that should not be a matter of discussion if the West is serious about deterring Putin. The signaling on the part of the West has been so weak that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even made an open statement telling NATO to "let Ukraine know" if it wants it as a member or not. Given that Biden has ruled out military action, it is also unforeseeable that NATO will set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine as per Zelenskyy’s request.
Putin sees the West weaken
Putin is playing a classic game of war that might be referred to as a signaling contest. He wants to know what it will take for the West, specifically NATO, to respond militarily. Until he is deterred, he will continue to denigrate the norms regime established by the West in order to dethrone the U.S. from the seat of global power. This is the clear purpose behind its gradual escalation, from its violation of international sovereignty norms in Crimea up to every single move made in Ukraine now. With every additional escalation followed by a nonmilitary response from the West, the West is implicitly telling Russia that a military response is too costly and that violations of norms are ultimately tolerable.
Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu framed the situation perfectly, stating days ago that had the world responded appropriately when Putin annexed Crimea, we would not be witnessing the current onslaught. Prior to the annexation of Crimea, Russia annexed and occupied territories on its border with Georgia. The trend here is abundantly clear. Putin repeatedly has tested the West’s resolve and willingness to make significant and costly commitments to preserve its norms regime, and the West has repeatedly signaled that its norms regime is not valuable enough for it to engage militarily or sacrifice. Therefore Putin, calculating and intelligent despite Western perceptions, feels confident in carrying out more and more policies that fly in the face of human rights and state sovereignty.
As the West backs down and rules out direct conflict with Russia, Putin exceeds at the game of military deterrence, having stated at least twice now that he is willing to use nuclear weapons. If one thinks of this as a poker game, the West has been folding and Russia has been bluffing repeatedly with great success. The tension between the U.S. and Turkey has also been undeniably detrimental to the credibility of NATO. Not only was the Syrian offshoot of the PKK (named the YPG) being armed by the U.S. under former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, but the U.S. and Turkey almost clashed in northern Syria in 2019. This is no way to present a united NATO. How can the alliance be expected to fulfill Article 5 when its two largest militaries are steps away from a clash? Spending cuts to NATO under the Trump administration compounded the damage done and topped off the defanging of the alliance, and America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan made it clear that the U.S. was moving away from its interventionist tendencies.
The risk of a major conflict
Conventional wisdom explains that great power conflicts always start unexpectedly and as a result of a communication or signaling mishap. Such long and intense conflicts are always accidental to a degree because the costs are too high for all parties involved. The postbellum losses are so heavy that it would have been advantageous for all antebellum parties to have avoided war. Failures in deterrence and signaling cause countries to act under faulty assumptions, leading to more dire than expected consequences. In 1914 the Germans executed the Schlieffen Plan, invading Belgium first to knock out the Western front under the assumption that the Russians would not be able to mobilize in time, intending to avoid war on two fronts. What seemed like a minor incursion became the Great War. It is unthinkable that Germany would have invaded Belgium had they expected Great Britain to fulfill its treaty obligation and intervene on the side of Belgium.
History could repeat itself due to disastrous Western deterrence and poorly calculated signaling, where Putin is emboldened to make a move that will trigger an unexpected response that could lead to direct conflict between Russia and NATO powers. Such aggressive Russian moves are more likely now that Biden has clearly taken direct responses off the table and opened the floodgates for Putin. As the West also runs out of sanctions to slap on Putin, the Russian leader has a greater incentive to conquer areas that will be of financial benefit to his nation. Biden may have to backtrack and swallow these words if Russia draws its militarism out to a point of intolerability for NATO, a likely trajectory for Russia. Putin’s militaristic desires will surely extend beyond Ukraine because what the world is witnessing is only the continuation of his foreign policy over the last two decades. Putin is a traditional man who views the world in terms of empires and realism, and unless he sees an enemy with the resolve to fight him, he won’t be deterred from his aspirations.
In other words, the West has put itself in a precarious situation by ruling out a military response. Now that such statements have been made, it will be hard – if not impossible – to walk back. We might be heading for a deterrence and communication disaster, because Putin may believe that he can get away with more than what the West will allow. The dog that barks to warn off its enemy is safer than the one that bites suddenly without warning when the threat comes too close.
Chances of a Western comeback
How the Western world responds now is critical. Many believe that this could be a turning point where the Western world and the NATO alliance unite and reestablish dominance. The Russian invasion has made the West wake up and made many aware of the importance of deterring Russia. Dr. Hal Brands writes in Foreign Affairs that this moment could be similar to the post-World War II unity that the Western world found, and this unity could usher in a second "Pax Americana." This is mostly wishful thinking. The circumstances at the end of WWII were drastically different from those of today. Not only was the West under drastically higher pressure to establish an international regime, but the U.S. and the Western powers also had strong military credibility because they showed that they would not hesitate to sacrifice troops in order to achieve their aims. It would be misguided to think that the weight of the stick that America carries now comes anywhere near the weight of the stick it carried after WWII. It was with that stick that Pax Americana was established, making the reestablishment of Pax Americana a distant dream.
What now?
The hope that this invasion would cause Ukraine’s Western allies to unite and reassert the strength of NATO is far-fetched, the West does not feel the heat enough for this. The hesitance of the West has endangered its own allies because it emboldened Putin and gave him a pass. This could lead to conflict if the West suddenly decides Putin has gone too far. The stakes do not appear high enough for the Western powers to be willing to engage with Russia directly, and Putin is only emboldened every time the West sends the signal that it will not go to the lengths that Putin is going to. The West finds itself in a major dilemma, it is now dangerous to let Putin believe that the U.S. and NATO are not willing to fight directly, as it is equally dangerous to risk a direct clash with Russia. At this rate, there is little the strategic West can do to save its norms regime. Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton argues in a recent op-ed that Russia has already been practically handed victory by the West. Making the conflict costly for Putin through sanctioning is effective but only to the degree that it will tire him out, not deter him from attacking. Arming the Ukrainians without backing them with direct engagement is morally irresponsible because it increases the bloodshed without giving Ukraine enough of an edge to defeat Russia. The only hope for this situation to not spiral out of control is a diplomatic solution, which becomes less feasible by the day.