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OPINION
GUEST ESSAY

The U.S. and Russia Need to Start

Talking Before It’s Too Late
July 27, 2022

Igor Bastidas

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By Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro

Samuel Charap is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Jeremy Shapiro is the
research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

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In the five months since Russia launched its war in Ukraine, the
United States has pledged about $24 billion in military aid to
Ukraine. That’s more than four times Ukraine’s 2021 defense
budget. America’s partners in Europe and beyond have pledged an
additional $12 billion, according to the Kiel Institute for the World
Economy.

And yet these tens of billions still fall short of the Ukrainian
government’s wish list for weapons, which President Volodymyr
Zelensky’s government announced last month. This divergence
between what Ukraine wants and what its Western partners are
prepared to give reflects the reality that Western leaders are pulled
in two directions. They are committed to helping Ukraine defend
itself against Russia’s aggression, but they are also trying to
prevent the conflict from escalating into a major power war.

But escalation, though incremental and thus far contained in

Ukraine, is already underway. The West is providing more and
more powerful weapons, and Russia is unleashing more and more
death and destruction. For as long as both Russia and the West are
determined to prevail over the other in Ukraine and prepared to
devote their deep reserves of weapons to achieve that goal, further
escalation seems almost preordained.

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The United States and its allies should certainly continue providing
Ukraine with the matériel it needs, but they should also — in close
consultation with Kyiv — begin opening channels of
communication with Russia. An eventual cease-fire should be the
goal, even as the path to it remains uncertain.

Starting talks while the fighting rages would be politically risky

and would require significant diplomatic efforts, particularly with
Ukraine — and success is anything but guaranteed. But talking can
reveal the possible space for compromise and identify a way out of
the spiral. Otherwise, this war could eventually bring Russia and
NATO into direct conflict.

The current U.S. approach assumes that would happen only if the
Ukrainians are given particular systems or capabilities that cross a
Russian red line. So when President Biden recently announced his
decision to provide Ukraine with the multiple-launch rocket system
that Kyiv says it desperately needs, he deliberately withheld the
longest-range munitions that could strike Russia. The premise of
the decision was that Moscow will escalate — i.e., launch an attack
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against NATO — only if certain types of weapons are provided or if
they are used to target Russian territory. The goal is to be careful Early Europeans
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to stop short of that line while giving the Ukrainians what they Milk but Drank It
Anyway, Study
need to “defend their territory from Russian advances,” as Mr. Finds
Biden said in a statement in June.
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The logic is dubious. The Kremlin’s focus is precisely on making

advances on Ukrainian territory. The problem is not that providing
Ukraine with some specific weapon could cause escalation but
rather that if the West’s support of Ukraine succeeded in stemming
Russia’s advance, that would constitute an unacceptable defeat for
the Kremlin. And a Russian battlefield victory is equally
unacceptable to the West.

If Russia continues to push farther into Ukraine, Western partners

would likely provide yet more and better weapons. If those
weapons allow Ukraine to reverse Russia’s gains, Moscow may feel
compelled to double down — and if it is really losing, it might well
consider direct attacks against NATO. In other words, there’s no
mutually acceptable outcome right now. But talks could help
identify the compromises needed to find one.

The determination of both the West and Russia to do whatever it

takes to prevail in Ukraine is the main driver of escalation.
Western leaders should understand that the risk of escalation
stems from the complete incompatibility of their goals with the
Kremlin’s; carefully calibrating Western military support to
Ukraine might be sensible, but it is probably beside the point. The
impact of those weapons on the war, which is nearly impossible to
know in advance, is what matters.

The lack of precise Russian red lines might mean that supplying
the longer-range munitions Biden is withholding would not be as
problematic as feared. But even if no specific weapon system will
itself cause a major escalation, simply throwing more and better
weapons into the mix is unlikely to solve the problem. Western
weapons have clearly sustained the Ukrainian military on the
battlefield, but the Russians have been willing to counter with
whatever level of resources and destruction will be necessary to
win or at least not to lose.

We are witnessing a classic spiral in which both sides feel

compelled to do more as soon as the other side begins to make
some progress. The best way to prevent that dynamic from getting
out of control is to start talking before it’s too late.

More on Russia’s war in Ukraine

Opinion | Peter Pomerantsev

Ukraine Is the Next Act in Putin’s Empire of
Humiliation
July 26, 2022

Opinion | Tatiana Stanovaya

Putin Thinks He’s Winning
July 18, 2022

Opinion | Yaroslav Hrytsak

Putin Made a Profound Miscalculation on Ukraine
March 19, 2022

Samuel Charap (@scharap) is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation.

Jeremy Shapiro (@JyShapiro) is the research director at the European Council on
Foreign Relations.

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