Assuming a Russian victory draws the wrong lessons from history

Although Ukrainians’ struggle against Russia has broad support in the democratic West, these supporters fall into two quite different categories. One set finds the Ukrainians’ steadfast defense of democracy inspiring and advocates giving them all the means necessary to reclaim their country. The other set views Russia as essentially unbeatable. These supporters want to give the Ukrainians enough aid to block further Russian gains but dismisses the idea of Ukrainian victory as impossible. These fatalistic supporters are sincere in affection for Ukraine and their revulsion toward Russia, but they have repeatedly constricted the flow of aid, costing time, lives, and enormous suffering in the process. 

The fatalists are fundamentally wrong.

They both grossly overestimate Russia and underestimate the Ukrainians. In particular, they are drawing precisely the wrong lessons from history.

Those assuming that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia fixate on the Soviet Union that defeated Nazi Germany and then stalemated our country through decades of the Cold War. This is a deeply flawed way to see today’s conflict. Most obviously, the Soviet Union and Russia are not the same: Back then, Ukrainians (and Georgians and Moldovans and many others) were fighting alongside the Russians; today, Ukrainians are fighting against Russia, with only Belarus among the 14 other post-Soviet republics clearly supporting its aggression.

Perhaps even more significantly, assumptions of Russian invincibility ignore the passage of time. The Battle of Stalingrad ended 80 years ago this month. A great deal can happen in 80 years, particularly in military capacity. The U.S. military at the end of the Cold War was incomparably superior to what we had at the end of World War II; today’s U.S. military, in turn, is night-and-day better than what we had at the end of the Cold War.

Russia is a very different story.

The economic collapse that ended the Soviet Union prevented Russia from maintaining, much less seriously updating, its armed forces. And the endemic small-scale corruption that gutted the Soviet Union in its final decades grew to titanic proportions in post-Soviet Russia. This rendered its armed forces incapable of reliably procuring weapons systems or doing the things necessary to maintain servicemembers’ morale.

If we are going to look to the Soviet era for a comparison, the wars against Finland can teach us much more. Stalin’s clumsy, arrogant attempt to bully Finland first resulted in a humiliating defeat. When he regrouped and tried again with far greater numbers, he eventually seized a significant part of Finland — but only at the cost of huge casualties and demonstrating the incompetence of his military, as Germany watched attentively. Ukraine has many times the population of Finland and is far-better armed.

The best metaphor for the current conflict, however, is a bit farther back: In 1904, a haughty Russia rejected Japanese offers to divide up east Asia, provoking war.

Remembering Russia as the country that turned the tide against Napoleon and having treated it as a player in European “great power” politics ever since, Western experts were convinced that a Russian victory was inevitable. This view was bolstered by the racist presumption that any European power could easily defeat any Asian one.

But almost 90 years had passed since the Napoleonic Wars, and Russia’s military had failed miserably to keep up with the times. It suffered one devastating defeat after another on land, and its navy was summarily punished whenever it dared to leave port. Ultimately Russia suffered one of the most devastating defeats in the history of naval warfare at the Battle of Tsushima Straits.

That Russia, like today’s, suffered from outmoded and ineffective weaponry: Its old battleships and cruisers lacked either the speed or the range of their Japanese counterparts, ensuring that they could be pummeled at a safe distance. That Russia, like today’s, lacked effective logistics to support a sufficient force in the field. And that Russia, like today’s, failed to provide its forces modern communications, leading to chaos that the radio-equipped Japanese calmly exploited.

Most importantly, Russia provoked a futile war with Japan and then spurned numerous offers of an armistice because its absolute monarch was too proud to end the war and nobody else’s voice mattered.  Russian President Putin has compared himself to a tsar, and the absence of counterweights within the Russian government let this war begin and prevents serious discussion about its termination.

Against Japan, Russia fought until it had virtually no navy left and its land forces had been driven out of all contested territory. Today’s Russia has wrecked its best units and equipment, forcing it to rely increasingly on released convicts, largely untrained conscripts with minimal leadership, and Soviet-era weaponry. Its fighting power is so depleted that experts cannot agree whether its vaunted “massive offensive” has actually started: Russian casualties are way up, but its uncoordinated attacks have done little more than swap villages with the Ukrainians.

Reminiscent of the fratricide Imperial Russia suffered as it lost to Japan, today’s Russian forces are now at each others’ throats. The most dynamic force on the Russian side has been the private Wagner Group. Relying on human wave attacks by paroled prisoners, Wagner has made a few modest gains. These, however, were enough to embarrass the regular Russian Army, whose recent accomplishments include getting chased out of Kharkiv, abandoning northern Ukraine and Kherson after the Ukrainians cut its supply lines, and several disastrous failed attacks in the south. Accordingly, the Army prohibited Wagner from recruiting any more prisoners and cut off its supply of arms and ammunition. This, in turn, led the Wagner Group to post a ghoulish video of masses of corpses, blaming the Russian Army’s arms cut-off for their deaths.

Although Russia’s armed forces have been humbled, sheer stubbornness may again draw out a lost war solely to save the tsar from embarrassment.

Sending the Ukrainians the long-range missiles they need to sever Russian supply lines — and advanced jets to secure their skies — can hasten the final Russian collapse and end this monstrous war. And unlike the Japanese in 1905, the Ukrainians’ terms are most merciful: They ask only to live in peace in their own country.

David A. Super is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Economics at Georgetown University Law Center. He also served for several years as the general counsel for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Follow him on Twitter @DavidASuper1