Introduction
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked the most ambitious and accelerated U.S. military aid effort in the last 30 years. In just five months, the United States has provided at least 6.9 billion in military assistance and equipment to Kyiv, more than Washington provides annually to Israel or Egypt combined and more than the U.S. gave to Afghanistan in the final year before its withdrawal. And while the merits of this massive military aid enterprise have been broadly publicized and appreciated – including by President Biden himself – a dispassionate assessment of the associated risks has largely occurred behind closed doors and certainly not with any significant public engagement.
Ukraine’s right to self-defense, taking a stand against an illegal war of conquest, and exacting a toll on Russia that might limit its future expansionist ambitions are all reasonable imperatives that can justify the Biden Administration’s course of action. Indeed, the remarkable success of Ukraine’s defense owes much to the West’s pipeline of arms and support. Nevertheless, thinking carefully and deliberately about the risks associated with the current effort is an essential act of sound strategy and responsible foreign policy. Waiting until the conflict ends to begin this conversation is too late. Inundating Ukraine with arms and military equipment does not come risk-free, and while the ends may justify the means, there are a variety of national security and strategic consequences that policymakers, legislators, and the public should consider carefully now in order to put safeguards in place to prevent future conflict, violence, and instability.
Escalation and Conflict Spillover
The most obvious and immediate risk of the arms build-up in Ukraine is provoking an escalatory spiral with Russia who, at least rhetorically, has suggested that international military support to Ukraine is tantamount to participation in the conflict. Russia’s early battlefield shortcomings have likely made Moscow all the more sensitive to Western military backing for Ukraine and the degree to which it has blunted Russia’s war aims.
Recent transfers of more advanced systems, with their longer ranges and at least technical ability to reach into Russian territory have been seen as especially provocative. High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Helicopters, and possibly a new slate of armed drones could all pose a more direct threat to Russian troops operating in Ukraine’s east, but also to Russia itself. Ukraine has already conducted cross-border raids, raising the stakes and risking further escalation. Those who will pay the most immediate price for a Russian escalation are Ukrainians. The commitment of HIMARS, for example, prompted the first Russian missile attacks on Kyiv in over a month, and new threats from Moscow that it would begin striking targets it had thus far spared.
Russia has already taken aim at Western supply lines to Kyiv, particularly the country’s rail network, though with only limited success. Russian missile attacks on targets in Lviv and other cities in Ukraine’s far west that have served as military transit hubs have come alarmingly close to the borders of NATO member states, many of whom are also providing important military support to Kyiv. Though limited, there remains a serious risk that an accident or miscalculation could bring Russia into direct conflict with one of NATO’s Eastern European members, triggering treaty obligations that could easily spark a wider confrontation. The risk to the expansion of the conflict beyond Ukraine’s border remains prescient.
More troublingly, President Putin has taken to frequently rattling Moscow’s nuclear saber, implying some degree of nuclear risk in the West’s support for Ukraine. The United States has insisted that they’ve seen no changes to the operating status of Russia’s strategic forces, but nuclear weapons remain a part of Russia’s conventional military playbook. In the event that Russia felt its battlefield position was sufficiently vulnerable, the use of unconventional weapons could not be counted out.
Despite these clear and obvious risks, Western arms transfers to Ukraine have accelerated, both in pace and sophistication. Transfers have evolved from man-portable shoulder-fired anti-armor systems to never before used drones, advanced multi-launch rocket systems, heavy artillery, and aircraft.
President Biden insists that risks are being carefully measured and that U.S. support to Ukraine, while robust, is not, and does not herald, a direct intervention by the United States. Moscow may read the situation differently. Indeed, predicting escalation dynamics is a perilous business and history is replete with examples of escalatory spirals that defied the intentions of the powers involved. Whatever the intent, Washington is walking a fine line that it cannot truly see.
Diversion
Diversion is a risk already inherent to all arms transfers but becomes especially acute in the context of active hostilities and when made at such a vast scale without appropriate safeguards in place. The United States has transferred at least $6.9 billion worth of arms to Ukraine in the last four months, more than two and a half times what it provided to Ukraine in the seven years between 2014 and 2021. Such an unprecedented surge and vast accumulation of new military hardware has likely overwhelmed Kyiv’s absorptive capacity despite battlefield needs. Managing the logistics of such a vast effort is difficult under the best of circumstances, but with attention understandably focused on the frontlines, the risk that equipment could be lost or find its way to illicit markets is dangerously high.
Moreover, Ukraine has an unfortune history as a hub of the illicit arms trade. In the wake of the USSR’s collapse, Ukraine’s considerable stockpiles of Soviet arms became all too lucrative a source of funds for criminal entrepreneurs. Estimates place Ukrainian military equipment losses between 1992 and 1998 at $32 billion, about six times what Ukraine spent for its entire defense budget in 2021. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine became a centerpiece of the global illicit arms market, with its weaponry providing the means of violence for battlefields in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, and many others, all the while enriching criminal networks in Ukraine.
In many ways, Ukraine’s experience after Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula holds some familiar and stark warnings of what may be to come. Looking to bolster Ukraine’s defenses against Russian-backed separatists in the country’s East and against further military activity from Moscow, the United States and western partners began to expand their military assistance to Kyiv. A flood of new weaponry, loose controls, rapidly shifting political and governance dynamics, and active hostilities led to widespread looting of military and security facilities. A Small Arms Survey study found that at least 300,000 small arms and light weapons were looted or lost between 2013 and 2015, helping sustain criminal enterprises that will certainly be eyeing the opportunity of the latest influx of weaponry.
Those risks are compounded by the sensitive nature of many of the transfers the west has made to Ukraine. In addition to small arms, anti-armor and anti-aircraft systems are especially prized in the illicit market and by sub-state armed groups. The thousands of Stinger missile systems Washington has provided, for example, have long been a source of serious concern for the U.S. counterterror community, who have frequently objected to their transfers in other contexts. The resurgence of the U.S. MANPADS task force, which had been founded in 2006, after the 2002 near miss of a shootdown of an Israel civilian jet in Kenya and numerous examples of U.S. provided stinger missiles putting U.S. interests at risk in the early 2000s, highlights the emergent need to address the security of these systems.
It is a tragic story we’ve seen before. Washington, with all the best intentions, embarks on a massive military assistance enterprise only to see its hardware lost, diverted, or stolen, creating new risks for U.S. interests. From Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond, the lessons learned from these endeavors should not be forgotten in Ukraine. The lifespan of many of these weapon systems is long, and many will assuredly outlive the current conflict. One can easily imagine the economic incentives that could exist after a devasted Ukraine, awash with prized weaponry, emerges from this conflict, with serious implications for regional security and beyond.
Misuse
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has showcased its deliberate and barbaric targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. Evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity have contributed to the West’s determination to provide Kyiv the means of defense.
But as the war moves into a more protracted phase defined by heavy artillery and long-range rocket exchanges, the risks to civilians who remain in contested areas will grow. And while Russia has been overwhelmingly responsible for the virtual destruction of entire cities, the risk of civilian harm at the hands of Ukrainians using American weaponry remains high. Ukraine’s war in the Donbas has been active since 2014 and has included indiscriminate attacks by Ukrainian forces. Over the years human rights organizations have derided the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effect in urban areas and unguided rocket systems by both sides of the conflict, something that should be a key concern for arms providers as new, deadlier weapon systems pour into the country.
Additionally, the urgency in improve Ukraine’s battlefield position and with the torrent of new weapons pouring into Ukraine, the United States risks providing material support, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to units with sordid histories or who have committed violations of the laws of war. The concerns are not new. In the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress barred the United States from arming the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian militia turned national guard element, whose forces included avowed neo-Nazis. Their role in key Ukrainian theatres creates risks that arms could be diverted to Azov troops in contravention of U.S. law. Azov’s role in Ukraine’s defense is small and cynically exaggerated by the Kremlin as part of the fabricated pretext and justification for its invasion. Nevertheless, the provision of American arms to such forces risks abetting Russia’s deceptions.
Conclusion
Enabling Ukraine’s right to self-defense is a worthy endeavor, with both moral and strategic imperatives. The provision of that support is not incompatible with open-eyed assessments of the immediate and long-term risks, and neither the United States nor Ukraine is well served by failing to consider them entirely. And while it may be easy dismiss these concerns by assuming they’ve already been weighed and considered by the U.S. government, Washington’s track record for large scale security assistance efforts and lack of specificity on mitigation plans is far from comforting.
Moreover, clear eyed consideration of the risks of U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine provides the opportunity to implement mitigation measures now, when their impact will be most meaningful. This could include more robust end contextually tailored end-use monitoring procedures that reflect the difficulty and complexity of Ukraine’s operating environment. News that the Pentagon is weighing sending civilian weapon inspectors to Ukraine is a notable step in the right direction but should be part of a holistic approach and long-term monitoring plan.
Additionally, Washington should be developing mechanisms for enhanced unit vetting and robust monitoring, including by U.S. intelligence, of the use or misuse of U.S. weaponry. This monitoring should be paired with clear conditions in all transfer agreements between Washington and Kyiv related to indiscriminate attacks, civilian harm, and other IHL abuses. To this end, Washington should be as transparent as defense planning exigencies allow to ensure civil society – in both the United States, Ukraine, and elsewhere – can play their historic role as an additional and vital layer of accountability for U.S. arms transfers and their potential role in IHL or human rights abuses.
The United States is right to support Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. But arms transfers create new responsibilities for Washington and obligations it owes to the people of Ukraine, the global community, and U.S. taxpayers to ensure those transfers do not turn into new immediate risks or long-term liabilities. Developing risk mitigation measures now, in coordination with Ukraine, international partners, and civil society will ensure that investments in Ukraine’s self-defense don’t become self-defeating.
The United States should also be working with trusted Ukrainian interlocutors and external civil society experts to develop plans for secure weapons storage and stockpile management, tracking, inspections, and plans for returning or destroying surplus stocks, especially after the war ends.
The Risks of US Military Assistance to Ukraine
By Rachel Stohl • Elias Yousif
In Conventional Arms
A shortened version of this commentary was published on July 5th 2022 in Defense One.
Introduction
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked the most ambitious and accelerated U.S. military aid effort in the last 30 years. In just five months, the United States has provided at least 6.9 billion in military assistance and equipment to Kyiv, more than Washington provides annually to Israel or Egypt combined and more than the U.S. gave to Afghanistan in the final year before its withdrawal. And while the merits of this massive military aid enterprise have been broadly publicized and appreciated – including by President Biden himself – a dispassionate assessment of the associated risks has largely occurred behind closed doors and certainly not with any significant public engagement.
Ukraine’s right to self-defense, taking a stand against an illegal war of conquest, and exacting a toll on Russia that might limit its future expansionist ambitions are all reasonable imperatives that can justify the Biden Administration’s course of action. Indeed, the remarkable success of Ukraine’s defense owes much to the West’s pipeline of arms and support. Nevertheless, thinking carefully and deliberately about the risks associated with the current effort is an essential act of sound strategy and responsible foreign policy. Waiting until the conflict ends to begin this conversation is too late. Inundating Ukraine with arms and military equipment does not come risk-free, and while the ends may justify the means, there are a variety of national security and strategic consequences that policymakers, legislators, and the public should consider carefully now in order to put safeguards in place to prevent future conflict, violence, and instability.
Escalation and Conflict Spillover
The most obvious and immediate risk of the arms build-up in Ukraine is provoking an escalatory spiral with Russia who, at least rhetorically, has suggested that international military support to Ukraine is tantamount to participation in the conflict. Russia’s early battlefield shortcomings have likely made Moscow all the more sensitive to Western military backing for Ukraine and the degree to which it has blunted Russia’s war aims.
Recent transfers of more advanced systems, with their longer ranges and at least technical ability to reach into Russian territory have been seen as especially provocative. High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Helicopters, and possibly a new slate of armed drones could all pose a more direct threat to Russian troops operating in Ukraine’s east, but also to Russia itself. Ukraine has already conducted cross-border raids, raising the stakes and risking further escalation. Those who will pay the most immediate price for a Russian escalation are Ukrainians. The commitment of HIMARS, for example, prompted the first Russian missile attacks on Kyiv in over a month, and new threats from Moscow that it would begin striking targets it had thus far spared.
Russia has already taken aim at Western supply lines to Kyiv, particularly the country’s rail network, though with only limited success. Russian missile attacks on targets in Lviv and other cities in Ukraine’s far west that have served as military transit hubs have come alarmingly close to the borders of NATO member states, many of whom are also providing important military support to Kyiv. Though limited, there remains a serious risk that an accident or miscalculation could bring Russia into direct conflict with one of NATO’s Eastern European members, triggering treaty obligations that could easily spark a wider confrontation. The risk to the expansion of the conflict beyond Ukraine’s border remains prescient.
More troublingly, President Putin has taken to frequently rattling Moscow’s nuclear saber, implying some degree of nuclear risk in the West’s support for Ukraine. The United States has insisted that they’ve seen no changes to the operating status of Russia’s strategic forces, but nuclear weapons remain a part of Russia’s conventional military playbook. In the event that Russia felt its battlefield position was sufficiently vulnerable, the use of unconventional weapons could not be counted out.
Despite these clear and obvious risks, Western arms transfers to Ukraine have accelerated, both in pace and sophistication. Transfers have evolved from man-portable shoulder-fired anti-armor systems to never before used drones, advanced multi-launch rocket systems, heavy artillery, and aircraft.
President Biden insists that risks are being carefully measured and that U.S. support to Ukraine, while robust, is not, and does not herald, a direct intervention by the United States. Moscow may read the situation differently. Indeed, predicting escalation dynamics is a perilous business and history is replete with examples of escalatory spirals that defied the intentions of the powers involved. Whatever the intent, Washington is walking a fine line that it cannot truly see.
Diversion
Diversion is a risk already inherent to all arms transfers but becomes especially acute in the context of active hostilities and when made at such a vast scale without appropriate safeguards in place. The United States has transferred at least $6.9 billion worth of arms to Ukraine in the last four months, more than two and a half times what it provided to Ukraine in the seven years between 2014 and 2021. Such an unprecedented surge and vast accumulation of new military hardware has likely overwhelmed Kyiv’s absorptive capacity despite battlefield needs. Managing the logistics of such a vast effort is difficult under the best of circumstances, but with attention understandably focused on the frontlines, the risk that equipment could be lost or find its way to illicit markets is dangerously high.
Moreover, Ukraine has an unfortune history as a hub of the illicit arms trade. In the wake of the USSR’s collapse, Ukraine’s considerable stockpiles of Soviet arms became all too lucrative a source of funds for criminal entrepreneurs. Estimates place Ukrainian military equipment losses between 1992 and 1998 at $32 billion, about six times what Ukraine spent for its entire defense budget in 2021. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine became a centerpiece of the global illicit arms market, with its weaponry providing the means of violence for battlefields in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, and many others, all the while enriching criminal networks in Ukraine.
In many ways, Ukraine’s experience after Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula holds some familiar and stark warnings of what may be to come. Looking to bolster Ukraine’s defenses against Russian-backed separatists in the country’s East and against further military activity from Moscow, the United States and western partners began to expand their military assistance to Kyiv. A flood of new weaponry, loose controls, rapidly shifting political and governance dynamics, and active hostilities led to widespread looting of military and security facilities. A Small Arms Survey study found that at least 300,000 small arms and light weapons were looted or lost between 2013 and 2015, helping sustain criminal enterprises that will certainly be eyeing the opportunity of the latest influx of weaponry.
Those risks are compounded by the sensitive nature of many of the transfers the west has made to Ukraine. In addition to small arms, anti-armor and anti-aircraft systems are especially prized in the illicit market and by sub-state armed groups. The thousands of Stinger missile systems Washington has provided, for example, have long been a source of serious concern for the U.S. counterterror community, who have frequently objected to their transfers in other contexts. The resurgence of the U.S. MANPADS task force, which had been founded in 2006, after the 2002 near miss of a shootdown of an Israel civilian jet in Kenya and numerous examples of U.S. provided stinger missiles putting U.S. interests at risk in the early 2000s, highlights the emergent need to address the security of these systems.
It is a tragic story we’ve seen before. Washington, with all the best intentions, embarks on a massive military assistance enterprise only to see its hardware lost, diverted, or stolen, creating new risks for U.S. interests. From Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond, the lessons learned from these endeavors should not be forgotten in Ukraine. The lifespan of many of these weapon systems is long, and many will assuredly outlive the current conflict. One can easily imagine the economic incentives that could exist after a devasted Ukraine, awash with prized weaponry, emerges from this conflict, with serious implications for regional security and beyond.
Misuse
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has showcased its deliberate and barbaric targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. Evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity have contributed to the West’s determination to provide Kyiv the means of defense.
But as the war moves into a more protracted phase defined by heavy artillery and long-range rocket exchanges, the risks to civilians who remain in contested areas will grow. And while Russia has been overwhelmingly responsible for the virtual destruction of entire cities, the risk of civilian harm at the hands of Ukrainians using American weaponry remains high. Ukraine’s war in the Donbas has been active since 2014 and has included indiscriminate attacks by Ukrainian forces. Over the years human rights organizations have derided the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effect in urban areas and unguided rocket systems by both sides of the conflict, something that should be a key concern for arms providers as new, deadlier weapon systems pour into the country.
Additionally, the urgency in improve Ukraine’s battlefield position and with the torrent of new weapons pouring into Ukraine, the United States risks providing material support, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to units with sordid histories or who have committed violations of the laws of war. The concerns are not new. In the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress barred the United States from arming the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian militia turned national guard element, whose forces included avowed neo-Nazis. Their role in key Ukrainian theatres creates risks that arms could be diverted to Azov troops in contravention of U.S. law. Azov’s role in Ukraine’s defense is small and cynically exaggerated by the Kremlin as part of the fabricated pretext and justification for its invasion. Nevertheless, the provision of American arms to such forces risks abetting Russia’s deceptions.
Conclusion
Enabling Ukraine’s right to self-defense is a worthy endeavor, with both moral and strategic imperatives. The provision of that support is not incompatible with open-eyed assessments of the immediate and long-term risks, and neither the United States nor Ukraine is well served by failing to consider them entirely. And while it may be easy dismiss these concerns by assuming they’ve already been weighed and considered by the U.S. government, Washington’s track record for large scale security assistance efforts and lack of specificity on mitigation plans is far from comforting.
Moreover, clear eyed consideration of the risks of U.S. arms transfers to Ukraine provides the opportunity to implement mitigation measures now, when their impact will be most meaningful. This could include more robust end contextually tailored end-use monitoring procedures that reflect the difficulty and complexity of Ukraine’s operating environment. News that the Pentagon is weighing sending civilian weapon inspectors to Ukraine is a notable step in the right direction but should be part of a holistic approach and long-term monitoring plan.
Additionally, Washington should be developing mechanisms for enhanced unit vetting and robust monitoring, including by U.S. intelligence, of the use or misuse of U.S. weaponry. This monitoring should be paired with clear conditions in all transfer agreements between Washington and Kyiv related to indiscriminate attacks, civilian harm, and other IHL abuses. To this end, Washington should be as transparent as defense planning exigencies allow to ensure civil society – in both the United States, Ukraine, and elsewhere – can play their historic role as an additional and vital layer of accountability for U.S. arms transfers and their potential role in IHL or human rights abuses.
The United States is right to support Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. But arms transfers create new responsibilities for Washington and obligations it owes to the people of Ukraine, the global community, and U.S. taxpayers to ensure those transfers do not turn into new immediate risks or long-term liabilities. Developing risk mitigation measures now, in coordination with Ukraine, international partners, and civil society will ensure that investments in Ukraine’s self-defense don’t become self-defeating.
The United States should also be working with trusted Ukrainian interlocutors and external civil society experts to develop plans for secure weapons storage and stockpile management, tracking, inspections, and plans for returning or destroying surplus stocks, especially after the war ends.
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