This past year the Institute for Future Conflict launched its first annual essay contest, open to undergraduate students at Colorado State University, CU Boulder, Denver University, the United States Air Force Academy, and University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.

The prompt asked students and cadets: Explain what – if any – actions the United States could have taken, beginning in July 2021, that would have successfully deterred Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Over the next few weeks we are proud to publish the four winners of the contest.

‍

‍Introduction

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II; it threatens European stability and risks global nuclear escalation. Between July 2021 and February 2022, integrated deterrence by the United States against Russia was poorly executed. It failed to effectively raise the costs of invasion and to reinforce the United States’ commitment to European peace and stability. To effectively deter Russia, the United States should have deployed a three-pronged approach: provide more defensive weapons to Ukraine, increase US presence in the region, and amplify separatist movements within Russia.

 

A Ukrainian “Porcupine Strategy”

Vladimir Putin believed that his forces would quickly annihilate Ukraine’s defenses, estimating a timeline of two days for control of Kyiv and ten days for all of Ukraine. William Burns, then-CIA Director and US ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, testified before the House Intelligence Committee shortly after the invasion that one of Putin’s four false assumptions that prompted the war was the weakness of Ukraine. The United States should have provided Ukraine with more defensive weapons leading up to the invasion. This would mirror the porcupine strategy in the Indo-Pacific that aims to increase the perceived cost of war in order to deter a superior adversary. It is important to note that Taiwan’s porcupine strategy has been in development for over a decade since 2008. Due to the inherent complexity of a porcupine strategy, it would have been unrealistic for its complete implementation in Ukraine within six months. However, even an initial defensive build-up would signal the augmentation of current and future Ukrainian capabilities, complicating Russian decision calculus and creating doubt in a successful invasion.

Since the invasion, the United States has provided $66.5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. If they had front-loaded a significant portion of that amount starting in July 2021, not only would that have deterred Russia and prevented the significant loss of life, but the level of US Department of Defense stockpile depletion would also have been significantly lower.

Two months before February 2022, the White House wavered in providing Ukraine with Javelins, counter-artillery radars, sniper rifles, small arms, and other equipment, believing that it was “too provocative.” Any action to deter Russia incurs some risk, but as the invasion in February has shown, inaction can lead to the same consequences as a perceived provocation. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s former chief, has highlighted this inaction: “We should have provided Ukraine with much more military support much earlier.”

Putin had sufficient reason to think that the United States would not get involved. When Russia illegally annexed Crimea in March 2014, the United States refused to provide any lethal aid, worried about the risk of uncontrollable escalation. Inaction in 2014 thus incentivized the 2022 invasion by a lack of US dedication to the region. If the US had increased its supply of defensive capabilities to Ukraine, it would have broken this dangerous precedent while signaling its commitment to regional stability.

 

Anchoring US Presence in Ukraine

The United States was not just inactive; in one respect, it cleared the way for Russia’s invasion. On February 14, 2022, the United States announced the closing of its embassy in Kyiv and removed the majority of military advisors.  Even when Nazi Germany threatened France in World War II, the United States refused to close its embassy in Paris and then moved it to Vichy to continue operations. By closing its embassy and removing personnel, the United States signaled to Russia a lack of commitment in the region and a lack of confidence in the Ukrainian armed forces. It also made Russia’s risk calculation easier by removing the possibility of American deaths in the invasion.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that these withdrawal measures were “absolutely necessary” because of the “distinct possibility, perhaps more real than ever before, that Russia may decide to proceed with military action.” This announcement came a few weeks after President Biden commented that a US response would depend on the scale of the Russian invasion, stating, “it’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion.” Amid fear of an invasion, these actions and comments sent a message of resignation rather than deterrence, further emboldening Russia to invade.

The United States should have maintained a presence in Ukraine to showcase its dedication to regional stability and to cause a wrinkle in Russian strategic considerations. With the eventual reopening of the US embassy in May 2022, despite the safety concerns of an ongoing war, the United States accepted the risks of having US personnel in a country at war. If the United States was eventually going to accept the current risks, then it should never have abandoned the area.

Keeping US personnel in Ukraine during the invasion would complement the previous point of sending more defensive assets to Ukraine, communicating US dedication, and increasing the credibility of the Ukrainian armed forces. If the United States had stayed, it could have bolstered the Ukrainian military through training programs and military advisors. As of May 2024, over 30 countries have trained around 127,000 Ukrainian soldiers, with the United States accounting for 16%. If the United States had committed to that level of training before the invasion, the reputation of the Ukrainian military would have been augmented, further diminishing Russian confidence in a quick victory.

 

Diverting Russian External Ambitions through Internal Strife

Prior to the invasion, the United States should have amplified the separatist movements in Russia to divert attention away from Ukraine. Through the signaling of potential domestic dilemmas, Russia would have been less likely to pursue external ambitions due to the risks of deploying security forces abroad for longer periods of time. This is historically rooted in the concept of Prometheism, a covert Polish program between World War I and II. It sought to augment Polish security by redirecting Soviet attention away from external ambition by supporting national independence movements within the Soviet Union.

The threat of Russian separatism has always been present. Later, in February 2023, five regions rallied to sign the “National Online Referendum on Self-Determination of National Republic,” resulting in over 5.634 million people voting to secede from the Russian Federation. Separatism has plagued Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, evident through multiple conflicts such as the Chechen Wars. Gennady Chufrin, a prominent Russian economist, has warned that “one of the most prominent [threats to Russia] is that of separatism, which could result in the Russian Federation being transformed into a loose federation or even the disintegration of the Russian state." Separatist sentiments in Russia stem from three main causes: unjust distribution of tax revenues, historical differences, and religious diversity.

The separatist slogan, “Stop Feeding Moscow,” has become increasingly popular in Ural, Siberia, and Yakutia, driven from receiving disproportionately less from the government than they contribute in taxes. In areas inhabited by Muslim ethnic groups, the idea of seceding into a unified state is common. The Siberian Battalion is a Russian unit fighting within the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). The unit includes ethnic Tartars, Yakuts, Siberians, and Buryats who claim to fight for the “self-determination of the peoples of Russia” and to claim independence from Moscow. All of this shows an abiding reservoir of resentment towards Moscow, even apart from foreign support. To respond to these various movements, in 2024, the Kremlin proposed legal action against the “Anti-Russian Separatist Movement,” particularly concerned with regionalists pursuing self-governance.

While the war in Ukraine has augmented these secessionist movements, the United States should have amplified these sentiments before the invasion through covert operations, financial support, and the magnification of the issue in international media. The Kremlin has attempted to weaponize secessionist movements in the United States. By using one of Russia’s own coercion techniques, the United States would avoid choosing an insufficient deterrence strategy due to a mirror-image misperception, which is the tendency to view other countries through the lens of one’s own culture and perspectives.

‍

Conclusion

To effectively deter Russia from invading Ukraine in 2022, the United States needed to diminish Russia’s confidence in a quick victory against Ukraine, augment US dedication to the region, and create domestic diversions to Russia’s external ambitions. This should have been accomplished by supplying more defensive weapons to Ukraine for cost-imposition on Russia, maintaining and increasing US presence in the region, and amplifying secessionist sentiments and prominence within Russian borders.

‍

‍

Emilia Dobek is a cadet second class at the United States Air Force Academy.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Air Force, the US Air Force Academy, the Department of War, or the US government.