Ukraine

Maria: Does incursion into Russia not producing large reaction from Russia indicate that Western hesitance to provide weapons was misguided?

Rob Lee: First, background. Not first incursion into Russian territory. However, this larger, regular military. Possible that Ukranian intelligence not even told about operation in runup due to compartmentalization of information. Possible that objectives have changed as Russia's response became apparent. Ukraine's leadership said that purpose was to draw as many Russian forces away as possible to slow down Russian offensive forces. Russia has pulled forces, though they have prioritized other areas to pull from, not from critical offensives. The fact that Russia didn't do so may have affected where Ukraine decided to take this operation. To get back to red lines...not sure that there are specific red lines in war. Russia probably actually judging response on case-by-case basis. Russia may not respond in Ukraine, but to US interests elsewhere; may be providing weapons to people that we don't want Russia to provide weapons to. For example, we know that Russia has established a much-closer relationship with Iran and North Korea than they did before. Hard from my perspective to say what impact is, because my area of expertise not all US interests around world. Question more one of, for providing given one on battlefield, how likely and how painful any response relative to interests. Hard to assess for us on outside, because Russia may signal that they are unhappy with something by taking actions that are only visible to US intelligence. I can't analyze that. I do think that escalation risks are something that Biden administration has.

Host: Mike, what is your take on that? It seems like it's not possible to win a war without pushing into Russian territory, but Western governments seem determined not to have war going into Russian territory, whereas Ukraine seems determined to push into Russian territory. To what extent do you think that this is true? To what degree has Ukraine exposed any bluff from Kremlin? If anything sets off Russia, would think that invasion of Russia would do it.

Mike Kofman: It's an interesting argument. Not clear to me how much more Russia can escalate against Ukraine. But question really what degree West material party to war and how much Western countries supporting Ukraine be involved with attacks and incursions into Russian territory. To me, red lines conversation is a fairly low-information discussion. Over course of a war, often many parties set thresholds and end up testing them. These thresholds may fall away with new ones being established. Some are claimed by a party, some are just perceived by other parties. May be wrong about those thresholds; no 100% certain way to know. That's not unusual; this should be thought of as escalation thresholds that are set by parties. Everyone has an incentive to communicate thresholds and to bluff. Over course of this war, US and other countries have fairly consistently gone through thresholds that they believe Russia had; from outset of war on material aid, intelligence, certain types of assistance. Important to note that sometimes policymakers don't want to do things for their own reasons, and hide behind threat of escalation as a justification; they have a series of other factors that they are managing, like domestic politics or other reasons that they don't want to. Thresholds not going to go away, because boundaries have to be set. Not knowing where those limits are, but somewhere between provision of basic missiles and B-2 stealth bombers, the US is going to say "no". Could be because they don't make sense, because don't want to give them. Some are really about cost-benefit. US has constraints in number of capabilities it has. Sometimes people confuse not wanting to provide capability because not sure of benefits relative to readiness issues, and people say that administration is using to hide behind. Yes and no. The Pentagon, a place of Excel spreadsheets, does monitor stocks jealously. Sometimes the Pentagon may have ability to give something but does not want to. Not necessarily because Pentagon perceives red line, but because that's how bureaucratic wrangling plays out. Another factor is that some weapons do require direct involvement from provider for use of weapons, would mean US or other country directly being involved in strike into Russia. Some people may not consider that a meaningful threshold, but other people who are responsible for escalation do. What are their main concerns? I want to be clear that I do not know this for a fact. I do not think that the concern is nuclear escalation. First concern, if any, is horizontal escalation. Russians countering that by transferring technology, weapons, and know-how to countries like Yemen, the Houthis, to enable targeting of major maritime shipping. That would be a problem, not just for the US, but for pretty much everyone who uses that commercial route. Another is the expanding Russian sabotage campaign in Europe and the trajectory that it might take, which has become rather notable over the past year. There are some other conventional ways that Russia can retaliate. Some people can say "that's already happening already, not something to be worried about". I'd say that that might be a perfectly-fair argument, but I am trying to convey how policymakers think about these issues into what is what I think is a fairly low-information discussion at this point. From a cost-benefit perspective, people who have to cross the threshold need to be convinced that the benefits are worth the cost. I and Rob are generally-supportive of expanding Ukraine's strike campaign; we've been writing about that for a long time. Sometimes when you make that argument, the benefits that you are arguing don't appear sufficient to policymakers in terms of costs. It's not just a matter of "being deterred", but that you're not doing a good job of selling them on the benefits. Maybe you need to do a better job of conveying to them the benefits of a policy. Maybe it's their fault that they don't see the benefit. But sometimes it's your job, that you aren't doing a good job of speaking to the facts.

Max: Maybe we can unpack that a bit. What are the military benefits of unleashing Ukraine to do whatever it wanted, so to speak? My own take is that the US is aiming to "boil the frog", to gradually add new capabilities without reaching a really dangerous escalation threshold, and we're in a pretty good place, and a lot of demands for pushing the boundaries...I ask, what are the benefits?