Policy Memo

Geopolitics and Economic Statecraft Project

Testing Assumptions About the War in Ukraine

Policymakers are relying on poorly understood assumptions in the war in Ukraine. Not all of them are accurate

Unstated assumptions are often at the core of our foreign policy decisions, and play a major role in crises like the ongoing war in Ukraine. Policymakers are relying on conventional wisdom about the course of the war, the sustainability of Western support, and the circumstances under which the war might end. Some of these are accurate, but many are not. This paper explores ten commonly heard arguments or assumptions about the war in Ukraine and assesses whether or not they are accurate.

Unstated assumptions are often at the core of our foreign policy decisions; whether they realize it or not, policymakers are drawing from implicit beliefs and mental models of how the world works to answer critical questions.¹ These assumptions can be big and wide-ranging, i.e., whether China is a revisionist power, whether the world is multipolar, or whether democracies fight wars better than autocracies. Many have been subject to academic study by political scientists and historians, though policymakers may not necessarily be aware of this fact.

Nowhere have untested assumptions become more problematic in the last few years than in discussions of the war in Ukraine. Indeed, because the debate on Ukraine has become so politically charged, many of these arguments are themselves increasingly polemical in nature, designed to provoke an emotional response in one direction or the other. Many also contain a kernel of truth, while obscuring important or broader points. Yet understanding which of these assumptions are true, which are false, and which are more nuanced is necessary if we are to understand how the war might develop – or how it might end. This paper examines ten of the most common arguments and assumptions about the war in Ukraine.

Arguments About Spending, Trade-offs, and Burden-Sharing

1. The United States Can/Cannot Afford to Continue Funding Ukraine

This is a question that cannot be answered easily; whether any policy choice is affordable or not depends on your own views about government spending, the national debt, and the priorities of the U.S. government.² But here are some concrete facts about the costs of support for Ukraine and how it compares to other spending: In the first two years of the war, Congress appropriated about $175 billion related to the costs of the war in Ukraine, predominantly for arms.³ This amounts to approximately $60 billion dollars per year – if one assumes the most recent supplemental lasts about a year – and is equivalent to about seven percent of the annual U.S. defense budget per year.

Critics would argue that this is a bargain: the ability to attrite the Russian military for less than ten percent of our annual military spending is a great deal. They are undoubtedly right when talking about 2022, and perhaps even 2023. Where this assumption becomes more problematic, though, is in the long run. Spending seven or eight percent of the defense budget per year on Ukraine will add up significantly over time, contributing not just to spending levels, but also – as we learned during the war on terror – ramping up the national debt. This level of cost repeated over five to seven years is far less sustainable than a one-time addition to the defense budget; it’s also a cost with diminishing marginal gains.

Opportunity cost is perhaps the most relevant metric here. Depending on where you land on the political spectrum, perhaps you would prefer to spend this money on domestic programs, or on returning money to taxpayers. But even if we were to assume this money would get spent on national security regardless, seven or eight percent of the defense budget per year to Ukraine is a significant opportunity cost for money that could potentially be spent elsewhere on improving U.S. capabilities or readiness. This amount of money could double the budget of the State Department, for example, purchase multiple aircraft carriers, or fund four of the new ballistic missile submarines needed to modernize the nuclear triad.⁴

2. Most Aid to Ukraine Actually Stays in America/ Boosts Our Own Military

The Biden administration and some of its Republican supporters have been keen to point out that most of the money that the United States is ‘sending’ to Ukraine remains within the U.S. economy.⁵ The Pentagon spends money primarily with defense contractors to produce weapons which are then sent to Ukraine. In doing so, proponents argue, the spending creates American jobs and strengthens our defense industrial base.⁶ This argument is often combined with the idea that the president’s use of his drawdown authority to aid Ukraine – the process through which the United States sends military surplus overseas and backfills with new, more modern equipment – is improving U.S. capabilities as a result of these upgrades.⁷

There’s a kernel of truth to this: much of the money appropriated for weapons will in fact go to U.S. defense contractors to manufacture armaments. However, again, it is worth considering the question of opportunity costs in government spending. Military Keynesianism – spending on weapons and defense to bolster the domestic economy – is one of the least effective means of stimulating economic growth.⁸ It’s likely that if this money were spent elsewhere, it would create more growth and more jobs than it is for the purpose of supplying arms to Ukraine.

The benefits to the U.S. industrial base and defense stockpiles are also mixed. It is undoubtedly true that earlier in the conflict much of what America was sending – to Ukraine or to European allies as part of swap arrangements – was older equipment, thereby allowing the Pentagon to backfill its own stocks with more modern systems and newer ammunition. But this argument looks weaker going forward. For one thing, it presents clear diminishing returns over time; once equipment has been upgraded, then any future drawdown will simply have to send more expensive, more modern weapons to Ukraine with no backfill benefit. For another, the U.S. defense industrial base lacks the capacity it needs to meet all demands placed upon it; companies have not kept pace with the need for weapons, and in some cases backfilling these systems has been slow and inefficient.⁹

The Pentagon has struggled in recent months to meet the demand for supplies to Ukraine, Israel, and other uses; this shortage was also behind the decision by the Biden administration to send old, stockpiled cluster munitions to Ukraine back in 2023.¹⁰ Under current circumstances, there are concrete tradeoffs created by this capacity shortfall that make it difficult to send Ukraine everything it needs while also supplying other U.S. partners and maintaining U.S. military readiness.¹¹

3. Europe Is Now Spending More Than the United States in Ukraine

For the first year of the war, it often seemed that European states were not contributing as much – particularly in military aid to Ukraine – as the United States. It is also true that these states were simultaneously bearing the brunt of refugee costs and the energy crisis, both of which were indirect results of the war; though experiencing inflation, the United States has not been impacted as severely by these costs.¹² In direct aid, however, it has taken some time for Europe to catch up. Today, Europe and the United States are nearly neck-and-neck in the amount of aid spent on Ukraine.¹³ Where the difference emerges is when one looks at total commitments to Ukraine, where Europe leaps ahead in the amount of money pledged to Ukraine in coming years.¹⁴ Yet this is mostly budgeting chicanery: where the European Union (EU) and some European states can promise future aid over a longer time horizon, the White House cannot preauthorize spending without congressional approval. Comparing future U.S. and European commitments, therefore, is an exercise in comparing apples to oranges, one which has the effect of inflating perceptions of European commitments to Ukraine. About $65 billion of these pledges from Europe, moreover, are loans, not grants, and come with the expectation of future repayment.

Another way in which such perceptions are often inflated is by comparing contributions to Ukraine as a percentage of GDP, a choice which has the effect of catapulting small European states in the Baltics and Scandinavia up the table of contributors.¹⁵ But though these efforts are laudable, they are still small by absolute standards. These states are also closest to the conflict; it is unsurprising that they would feel compelled to contribute more to Ukraine’s defense. These states typically do not have security concerns in other regions and can focus all their spending and efforts in Eastern Europe. Indeed, the data shows that when controlling for distance, U.S. contributions still stand far ahead of the pack, with only Germany, France, and the United Kingdom in the same league.

Arguments about the Course of the War

4. Russia Won’t Be Able to Fight after its Economy Declines in 2025

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) does indeed predict that Russia’s economy will grow more anemically in coming years as the effects of decoupling from Europe, Western sanctions, and the costs of the war itself begin to bite; IMF economists predict that Russia will move from a period of GDP growth of about three percent this year to as little as one percent in 2025.¹⁶ But the organization has also upgraded estimates of Russian growth several times in the last few years, and it is widely acknowledged that the Russian Central Bank has done an excellent job of managing the fiscal headwinds created by the war and the associated economic turmoil.¹⁷

Russia’s economic performance in the last few years has belied many predictions of imminent ruin. This is partly because of overoptimistic assessments of what sanctions can achieve; sanctions can be effective at creating economic pain – if not necessarily creating policy change – but are always going to be less effective when targeted at a large, oil-exporting economy like Russia.¹⁸ Indeed, despite the oil price cap and European transition away from Russian fossil fuels, the Kremlin has been able to find other buyers for its oil and gas and equip a fleet of so-called ‘shadow tankers’ that are not tied to Western financial markets. Russian oil routinely trades above the $60 price cap.¹⁹

Rather than civilian economic activity, however, the Russian economy is increasingly driven by demands in the military-industrial space. Much of the growth is driven by increased production in sectors such as metals, electronics, or heavy industry. In short, much of the growth is driven by the military-industrial complex, replacing equipment destroyed in Ukraine, or manufacturing ammunition and armaments.²⁰ Other increases in spending come from construction inside occupied areas of Ukraine; military pensions; and payments to veterans and defense industry workers. Though not a model for robust economic growth over the long term, this is undoubtedly sustainable as a means for the Russian state to subsidize demand and employment within the Russian economy.

Another problem is increasing levels of indirect support from China, which is now a major supplier of non-lethal equipment that supports the Russian war effort, including machine tools and microelectronics. Trade between Russia and China more generally is up over sixty percent since the start of the war.²¹ Russia is also growing its financial and trade ties with India, Southeast Asia, and the Gulf States. The country has also been effective at sourcing replacements for components and technology restricted by Western export controls.²²

Unfortunately for Ukraine and the West, it is increasingly clear that, with sufficient political will, even an anemic level of economic growth can likely sustain the Russian war effort for years to come. Russian leaders clearly understand this dynamic; recent reshuffles in political leadership have placed technocratic elites in charge of the Ministry of Defense, the military-industrial complex, and other vital components of the war effort.²³ In short, though it is possible that sanctions or export controls will continue to attrite Russian capabilities over time, they are not likely to prove disastrous for Russia’s war effort.

5. Any Russian Gains in Ukraine Will Result in A Broader War

This argument has become more prevalent in recent months, partly due to the congressional fight over the supplemental, as proponents of further aid have sought to emphasize the potential negative repercussions of Russian gains in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zelensky has been particularly forward-leaning on this point: he told a CBS news team in March 2024 that if Ukraine falls, then Putin will want “Kazakhstan, then the Baltic states, then Poland, then Germany. At least half of Germany.”²⁴ The message is clear: any Russian gains in Ukraine will embolden Putin, who will come for NATO member states next, sparking a broader war.²⁵ Americans who make this case often focus on Europe as a whole, either on the economic costs of instability on the continent or embracing George W. Bush's infamous post-9/11 dictum: ‘We will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.”²⁶

Few would dispute that a proxy war – in which Ukraine fights Russia on behalf of the United States – is better than a direct conflict between NATO and Russia; U.S. troops are not dying in Ukraine, and the risks of nuclear escalation remain far lower than they might in the event of direct conflict with Russia. But it does not necessarily follow from this that the logical result of failure in Ukraine would be a Russian attack on NATO. Indeed, something that has been very clear in the last two years is that NATO’s Article 5 does appear to have significant deterrent power. Russia has been careful not to cross the line into direct, attributable attacks on NATO territory or troops, even as it has disregarded other norms and rules of international conduct.²⁷

Indeed, despite the significant flows of arms and equipment from NATO countries into Ukraine, Russia has taken no steps to interdict them outside of Ukrainian territory. This suggests something important: attacking a NATO member state is a distinct proposition from attacking a non-member state. Even if Russia did have the intention to seize other parts of Eastern Europe, the calculus for starting such a conflict would be very different.

Perhaps the most problematic form of this argument is the notion that Russian victory in Ukraine could destabilize Europe and undermine trade with one of the biggest economic partners of the United States. Europe is indeed a major trade partner for the United States, and stability in Europe remains a substantial strategic interest for the United States. But it is disingenuous to link smaller failures in Ukraine to the fate of Europe as a whole. Two years of war in Ukraine have not destabilized Europe economically, and the focus of EU-U.S. trade tensions is mostly in other areas.²⁸ The war itself remains the primary drag on growth.²⁹ The Cold War example is also instructive: the United States and its European partners held out against the Soviet Union for decades, prospering economically, even when Ukraine was an integral part of the USSR.

6. Ukraine is/is Not Capable of Winning the War on the Battlefield

Wars are always fundamentally uncertain, and even analysts with significant expertise and knowledge of a conflict often must reassess their priors because of events. This is the phenomenon referred to by Clausewitz as the ‘fog of war,’ or by management gurus as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous).³⁰ Predicting the specific turns and twists of a war is therefore often a fool’s errand. The fact that a significant number of military analysts expected early Russian military victory in this war, for example, is treated in hindsight as a failure of analysis – but it was largely a reflection of poor assumptions. It was also a reflection of the inability of analysts to predict whether peacetime forces translate into effective fighting power, or to assess the importance of intangible factors like the ‘will to fight.’³¹

At the same time, we are now two years into this war, which has enabled all parties to gather significant information about how the two parties have sustained and managed their war effort thus far – along with lessons about how new technology is shaping the future of war.³² As a result, analysts now have a much better idea of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Ukrainian and Russian militaries and can predict where the plausible outcomes may lie.

In a war of attrition like the one in Ukraine, the most important attributes for a nation are personnel and economic industrial strength. These are the attributes which – if a state is able to turn them into military power – enable combatant states to hold and occupy territory. The war has thus far confirmed this point. Russia has a deep well of manpower, a substantial stockpile of legacy Soviet military equipment to draw upon, and, despite corruption and significant failures, has shown a remarkable ability in the last two years to repurpose its economy towards wartime production.³³ It may not be sustainable in the long term, but for the short-to-medium term – potentially a period of several years – Russia has the advantage.³⁴ Ukraine is a smaller nation, with significantly lower reserves of manpower and a demographic deficit; its entire economy is hostage to Russian strikes. Thus far, Ukraine has compensated for this with inflows of Western weapons and technology. But there are very few remaining areas where technology is likely to provide a significant boost, and Ukraine is facing serious pressure in manpower, where Western support cannot compensate for weakness.³⁵ All of this suggests the grinding war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is likely to continue, with Ukraine at a disadvantage, but Russia struggling to translate its power into major battlefield gains. The most plausible range of scenarios for the war suggests grinding conflict that moderately advantages Russia, but only in the costly conquest of tiny amounts of territory.

Arguments about the End of the War

7. Ukraine Cannot Be Secure Without NATO Membership (or Comparable Security Guarantees)

Much of the talk in DC over the last year or so has centered around the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine at the end of the war, with some arguing that if the West does not guarantee Ukraine's security as part of a peace deal, then Russia will be incentivized to attack again, salami-slicing off ever-increasing chunks of Ukraine.³⁶ This sounds reasonable but has a critical logical flaw: the role of Western credibility. The United States and its European partners have demonstrated since 2022 that they do not intend to fight a direct war with Russia over Ukraine, suggesting that any commitment to do so in the future might be viewed in Moscow merely as a paper promise.³⁷

A similar problem exists for promises to admit Ukraine into NATO at some unspecified future date. Indeed, it was this kind of credibility failure that contributed to the start of this conflict in 2014. The commitment by the George W. Bush administration at the 2008 NATO summit – against the advice of many other member states – to admit Georgia and Ukraine to NATO was seen as threatening by the Kremlin. At the same time, Bush’s pledge offered no credible path to membership for these states – and thus no deterrent value against Russia, producing multiple wars.³⁸ In short, paper promises are problematic. And admitting Ukraine into NATO as a member also carries the risk of undermining the credibility of Article 5 more broadly; if Ukraine is not worth sending American troops to fight and die in 2022 or 2024, why would accession to full NATO membership suddenly change this calculus for a U.S. president?

There is one major exception to the ‘security guarantees’ argument. A concrete commitment from Western states to arm Ukraine and help it build its own defenses post-war may well be a vital component of any peace settlement. Unlike a promise to directly defend Ukraine, this is a highly credible commitment; it is, after all, what Western states have been doing for the past two years. Committing to arm Ukraine, train its soldiers, and boost its military capabilities would increase Ukraine's own deterrent abilities and reduce the likelihood of future conflict – without the risks posed by offering Ukraine formal security guarantees.

8. A Ceasefire in Ukraine is Impossible

A frequent refrain from policymakers and pundits over the last two years is that a ceasefire or peace settlement in Ukraine is simply impossible.³⁹ More reasonable versions of these arguments are time-bound, and focus on concrete facts, arguing, for example, that it might be better to delay negotiations until the balance of forces better favors Ukraine. But there are also more extreme versions of this argument, which posit that Russia will never abandon its absolutist goals, or that it is not rational enough to make an agreement.⁴⁰

These arguments are fundamentally at odds with scholarly understandings of how wars end. Indeed, for political scientists, rationalist theories of war portray conflict as part of a bargaining process, or as a continuation of the political process.⁴¹ Though this may sound faintly ridiculous, it is an effective framework for understanding conflict. States that cannot manage their disagreements through political or economic means sometimes resort to force to do so, and others assume that they will get a better outcome with force than diplomacy. Wars end when both sides have extracted enough information from the conflict about the actual balance of military power – and the probability of achieving their objectives through force – that they are willing to make some kind of settlement. Settlements tend to occur when both states do not perceive significant additional benefits to continuing to fight and are willing to make concessions to avoid further bloodshed.⁴²

This is easier theorized than put into practice. Today, either Russia or Ukraine may be disincentivized from negotiating if they perceive benefits to continuing the conflict. Worse, it may not be obvious at the time that a window has opened for negotiations; such opportunities often only become apparent in hindsight. One could make a plausible argument, for example, that Ukraine had a stronger negotiating position in the fall of 2022 than it does today. At the time, however, the prospect of future gains increasing Kyiv’s leverage at the negotiating table was persuasive – and no ceasefire emerged.

The longer a war continues, however, the more the true balance of forces on the ground is revealed; states should therefore begin to adjust their war aims accordingly. We have seen this process begin to occur in practice in Ukraine. After the first few months of the invasion in 2022, Russia largely shifted away from its most ambitious war aims – seizing all of Ukraine and toppling the government in Kyiv. Since that time, it has instead focused on territorial acquisition in the Donbas, and on grinding down Ukrainian resolve.⁴³ Undoubtedly, the Russians would prefer to return to those earlier war aims, but facts on the ground continue to mitigate against it. Ukrainian war aims, on the other hand, have grown. At the start of the war, it was clear that Kyiv’s central goal was to defend its own sovereignty, with policymakers even willing to negotiate on the questions of NATO membership and neutrality in the early months of the war.⁴⁴ Today, Kyiv’s policy of territorial reacquisition is more ambitious.

But while Russia and Ukraine's war aims may remain at odds today, they will not always be so; the inability of the parties to find a ceasefire today does not preclude the possibility that they may be able to in the future.

9. Ukraine Cannot Survive If It Doesn’t Take Back All Its Territory

If there has been one constant throughout the last two years, it has been the fixation of Western policymakers on Ukrainian territorial integrity, which manifests in assertions that Ukraine cannot survive or thrive if it doesn’t return to its 1991 borders.⁴⁵ Such statements imply a second, unstated assumption: that a return to these borders will inevitably produce a more durable peace settlement. Both these notions once again contradict scholarly understandings of war termination.

Within rationalist models of war, another big obstacle to ending a conflict is what political scientists call indivisible interests. In brief: there are certain issues that may be so important to one side or the other that they are unwilling to compromise, or – perhaps more commonly – there are issues on which one cannot compromise for a variety of reasons. Only one person can be king of a country, for example, and many cities cannot easily be divided in two. Resolving an indivisible issue requires the wisdom of Solomon; one cannot simply ‘split the baby.’⁴⁶

Political science literature suggests that indivisibility is perhaps less important than one might assume. But even so, the war in Ukraine features several indivisible issues. Ukraine can either join NATO or remain neutral, for one; it cannot be half-in and half-out of the alliance. Ukraine cannot both embrace a fully Western identity as a state and remain within Russia’s sphere of influence. And some of the concessions that Russia has demanded in Ukrainian domestic politics are incompatible with the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state, such as poorly defined Russian demands that Ukraine ‘de-nazify’ its government.⁴⁷

But it is important to note that the one thing in this conflict that is not indivisible is territory.⁴⁸ Indeed, much of what Ukraine and Russia are currently fighting over – at least in territorial terms – is almost irrelevant to big picture questions of Ukraine's economic viability, or its integration into the Euro-Atlantic system. This contrasts strongly with Russia’s attempts earlier in the war to seize the port of Odessa, something which would have undermined Ukraine’s economic viability.⁴⁹ Whether or not Ukraine takes another twenty miles of territory in the Donbas, however, the conflict’s underlying issues will remain unaddressed. This should cause us to question the idea that reclaiming territory is the most effective way to peace.

10. Any Ceasefire Will Inevitably Produce Future War

Rounding out our tour of rationalist explanations of war, we find a third argument against any ceasefire in Ukraine: the problem of credible commitments.⁵⁰ The literature on war termination argues that unless the parties to a conflict can be persuaded that a ceasefire deal is credible – and that their opponent will not simply pocket concessions and return to fighting – they will not move towards settlement. Because intentions are impossible to discern from the outside, it’s not enough just to trust the promises of the other party in a peace deal; those promises must be believable or enforced in some way.

This is undoubtedly the biggest obstacle to peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. With a decade and a half of mistrust arising from the 2014 invasion, the simmering war in the Donbas, and the failed Minsk peace process, both sides are primed to expect the other party to renege on commitments. And indeed, a ceasefire or freezing of the lines in Ukraine that grants Russia some territorial concessions while failing to address any of the conflict’s bigger picture issues might well produce future conflict; either side would have an incentive to build up their forces, break the ceasefire, and push for further territory.

A broader settlement that incorporates outside entities such as the United States, however, might well be more successful. So might a settlement that addresses big questions about Europe's security architecture – and Russia’s place in it – going forward. Assurances to Russia about future NATO expansion, or conventional arms control limitations on either side, could help to defuse concerns about future conflict and improve the odds a settlement will succeed.⁵¹ Precisely because they are controversial, however, these issues will be significantly harder to reach agreement on.

Finally, it is worth questioning the assumption that a halt in fighting in Ukraine now, followed by a resumption of conflict at a later date, would necessarily disadvantage Kyiv. Both sides would undoubtedly benefit at this point from a pause to permit rearmament and mobilization, but Ukraine might benefit more from the cessation of Russian attacks on its critical infrastructure and cities. Moreover, a cessation of hostilities would favor Ukraine in regard to its manpower deficit; every day where Ukrainian soldiers are not being killed is a win. In short, though the broader problem of a Russian-Ukrainian rematch after ceasefire remains, policymakers should also engage with the hypothetical: are Ukraine's defensive capabilities best improved in wartime or in peace?

Conclusion

Each of these arguments – though commonly heard in debates over U.S. support to Ukraine – are more nuanced and challenging than commonly assumed. Indeed, each of the arguments explored in this paper represents one or more implicit assumptions. Though policymakers may rely on these suppositions, they rarely examine them, or think through their implications. Adding nuance to them – and attempting to ascertain the extent to which these are true or false – is thus a vital part of an informed debate about the role of the United States and Europe in the war in Ukraine. Also notable is the fact that none of these ten assumptions answers the question of whether and to what extent Ukraine matters to U.S. interests and the resources it is willing to commit to the conflict. Arguments about the difficulties of finding a settlement, about Ukrainian membership in NATO, or even about Ukraine’s battlefield prospects do little to help us understand what U.S. interests in the conflict are and the limits of those interests. This is why it is so important to frame the Ukraine debate not as an all-or-nothing proposition, but as a question about the scope of U.S. involvement, the scope of U.S. interests, and how we find a strategy that marries the first to the second.

Notes

1
Stephen Walt, “Leaving Theory Behind: Why Simplistic Hypothesis Testing Is Bad for International Relations,” European Journal of International Relations 19, no. 3 (2013): 427-457.
2
“America’s Fiscal Future,” Government Website, U.S. Government Accountability Office, May 8, 2023, https://www.gao.gov/americas-fiscal-future.
3
Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, “How Much U.S. Aid Is Going to Ukraine?,” Council on Foreign Relations (blog), May 9, 2024, https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine.
4
Emily McCabe and Cory Gill, “Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs: FY2024 Budget and Appropriations” (Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service, January 24, 2024), https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47579; Mallory Shelbourne, “Cost Estimates for Lead Boat in Columbia-Class Program Grow by $637M,” USNI News (blog), June 7, 2021, https://news.usni.org/2021/06/07/cost-estimates-for-lead-boat-in-columbia-class-program-grow-by-637m.
5
Marc Thiessen, “Ukraine Aid’s Best-Kept Secret: Most of the Money Stays in the U.S.A.,” Washington Post, November 29, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/29/ukraine-military-aid-american-economy-boost/.
6
C. Todd Lopez, “Ukraine Security Assistance Strengthens Nation’s Defense Industrial Base,” U.S. Department of Defense, November 29, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3601120/ukraine-security-assistance-strengthens-nations-defense-industrial-base/; Elizabeth Hoffman et al., “How Supporting Ukraine Is Revitalizing the U.S. Defense Industrial Base” (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 18, 2024), https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-supporting-ukraine-revitalizing-us-defense-industrial-base.
7
Mackenzie Eaglen, “Most of the Money in the ‘Foreign Aid’ Bill Would Stay in the U.S.,” The Dispatch, February 16, 2024, https://thedispatch.com/article/most-of-the-money-in-the-foreign-aid-bill-would-stay-in-the-u-s/.
8
Jan Toporowski, “The War in Ukraine and the Revival of Military Keynesianism” (Institute for New Economic Thinking, January 9, 2023), https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/the-war-in-ukraine-and-the-revival-of-military-keynesianism; Benjamin Zycher, “Economic Effects of Reductions in Defense Outlays” (Washington D.C.: Cato Institute, August 8, 2012), https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/economic-effects-reductions-defense-outlays; Heidi Garrett-Peltier, “War Spending and Lost Opportunities,” Costs of War Project (Providence, RI: Brown University, March 2019), https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/March%202019%20Job%20Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20War.pdf.
9
William LaPlante, Jamie Morin, and Jennifer Stewart, “Is the U.S. Military Industrial Base Prepared?” (Council on Foreign Relations, May 3, 2023), https://www.cfr.org/event/us-military-industrial-base-prepared; Seth G. Jones, “Empty Bins in a Wartime Environment: The Challenge to the U.S. Defense Industrial Base” (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 23, 2023), https://www.csis.org/analysis/empty-bins-wartime-environment-challenge-us-defense-industrial-base; John Barrett, “You Go to War With the Industrial Base You Have, Not the Industrial Base You Want,” War on the Rocks, August 16, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/08/you-go-to-war-with-the-industrial-base-you-have-not-the-industrial-base-you-want/.
10
Mark F. Cancian, “Cluster Munitions: What Are They, and Why Is the United States Sending Them to Ukraine?” (Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 10, 2023), https://www.csis.org/analysis/cluster-munitions-what-are-they-and-why-united-states-sending-them-ukraine; Oren Liebermann Bertrand Natasha, “US Eyes Weapons Stockpiles as Concern Grows about Supporting Both Ukraine and Israel’s Wars,” CNN, October 11, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/politics/us-weapons-stockpiles-ukraine-israel/index.html.
11
Jennifer Kavanagh and Jordan Cohen, “The True Military Assistance Tradeoff Is Between Israel and Taiwan,” War on the Rocks, November 21, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/11/the-true-military-assistance-tradeoff-is-between-israel-and-taiwan/; Alex Velez-Green, “Managing Trade-Offs Between Military Aid for Taiwan and Ukraine” (Washington D.C.: Heritage Foundation, August 31, 2023), https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/managing-trade-offs-between-military-aid-taiwan-and-ukraine; Michael Poznansky, “The Ukraine-Taiwan Tradeoff,” Foreign Affairs, January 5, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/ukraine-taiwan-tradeoff.
12
Yuru Guan, Klaus Hubacek, Yuli Shan, and Jin Yan, “Russia-Ukraine War Has Nearly Doubled Household Energy Costs Worldwide – New Study,” (Davos: World Economic Forum, February 20, 2023), https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/russia-ukraine-war-energy-costs.; Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Dominic Rohner, “The Economic Consequences of the War,” CEPR, May 17, 2024, https://cepr.org/debates/economic-consequences-war.
13
“Ukraine Support Tracker – A Database of Military, Financial and Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine,” (Berlin: Kiel Institute), https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/.
14
“Ukraine Support Tracker: Europe Has a Long Way to Go to Replace US Aid – Large Gap between Commitments and Allocations,” (Berlin: Kiel Institute, February 16, 2024), https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/news/europe-has-a-long-way-to-go-to-replace-us-aid-large-gap-between-commitments-and-allocations/.
15
Wilson Beaver, “Yes, America Is the Biggest Military Donor to Ukraine,” (Washington D.C.: The Heritage Foundation. February 2024), https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/commentary/yes-america-the-biggest-military-donor-ukraine.
16
“Russian Federation and the IMF,” International Monetary Fund, April 2024. https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/RUS.
17
Huileng Tan, “Meet the Woman Who Engineered Russia’s Wartime Economy and Helped Secure Another Term for Putin,” Business Insider, April 1, 2024, https://www.businessinsider.com/elvira-nabiullina-russia-central-bank-governor-engineer-wartime-economy-putin-2024-4.
18
Agathe Demarais, Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World against U.S. Interests, Center on Global Energy Policy Series (New York: Columbia University Press, 2024).
19
Alan Rappeport, “Russia’s War Machine Revs Up as the West’s Plan to Cap Oil Revenues Sputters,” The New York Times, May 20, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/business/russia-oil-price-cap-policy.html.
20
“Russian Manufacturing Booms With Economy on War Footing,” Bloomberg, January 31, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-31/russian-manufacturing-booms-with-economy-on-war-footing.
21
Kelly Ng and Yi Ma, “How Is China Supporting Russia after It Was Sanctioned for Ukraine War?,” BBC News, May 17, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/60571253.
22
Steven Feldstein and Fiona Brauer, “Why Russia Has Been So Resilient to Western Export Controls,” (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment, March 11, 2024), https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/03/why-russia-has-been-so-resilient-to-western-export-controls.
23
Tony Barber, “Russia and Ukraine: Two Economies at War,”Financial Times, May 18, 2024 , https://www.ft.com/content/6c316feb-4bb2-4e1f-a125-fe4e913e8d51;
24
Charlie D’Agata, Justine Redman, and Steve Berriman, “Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Warns Putin Will Push Russia’s War ‘Very Quickly’ onto NATO Soil If He’s Not Stopped," CBS News, March 29, 2024, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-war-zelenskyy-says-putin-will-threaten-nato-quickly-if-not-stopped/.
25
Alila Slisco, “NATO Will Be Drawn Into War With Russia If Ukraine Loses: Lloyd Austin,” Newsweek, February 29, 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/nato-will-drawn-war-russia-if-ukraine-loses-lloyd-austin-1874913.; Stuart Lau, “Mike Pence Warns Putin Will Wage War on NATO If Ukraine Loses,” POLITICO, April 18, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/mike-pence-vladimir-putin-russia-united-states-nato-donald-trump-ukraine/; Patricia Lopez, “Ukraine Aid Shows MAGA Hasn’t Cowed Johnson,” Bloomberg, April 21, 2024 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-21/house-approves-ukraine-aid-deal-in-a-win-for-mike-johnson.
26
George W. Bush, “President Bush Addresses the 89th Annual National Convention of the American Legion” (Speech, 89th Annual National Convention of the American Legion, Reno, NV, August 28, 2007), https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070828-2.html.
27
Jens Stoltenberg, “Speech by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Heritage Foundation Followed by Audience Q&A” (Speech, Washington D.C., January 31, 2024), https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_222258.htm.
28
"U.S.-EU Trade and Economic Relations," Congressional Research Service, June 9. 2023, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10931.
29
Catherine Gaschka, “OECD: War in Ukraine to Drag on Global Economy into 2023,” AP News, September 26, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-inflation-health-paris-china-18d11f0a6fccd1ce48f1417993dd3d14.
30
Carl von Clausewitz et al., On War, (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1989); Nate Bennett and G. James Lemoine, “What VUCA Really Means for You,” Harvard Business Review, January 1, 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you.
31
Nomaan Merchant and Matthew Lee, “U.S. Intelligence Agencies Review What They Got Wrong on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” PBS NewsHour, June 4, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-intelligence-agencies-review-what-they-got-wrong-on-russias-invasion-of-ukraine.
32
Robert Rose, “Biting Off What It Can Chew: Ukraine Understands Its Attritional Context,” War on the Rocks, September 26, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/biting-off-what-it-can-chew-ukraine-understands-its-attritional-context/; Michael Kofman and Rob Lee, “Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months,” War on the Rocks, September 4, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/perseverance-and-adaptation-ukraines-counteroffensive-at-three-months/; Dara Massicot, “What Russia Got Wrong,” Foreign Affairs, February 8, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/what-russia-got-wrong-moscow-failures-in-ukraine-dara-massicot; Margarita Konaev and Owen J. Daniels, “The Russians Are Getting Better,” Foreign Affairs, September 6, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russians-are-getting-better-learning; Breaking Defense Staff and Lee Ferran, “What Pentagon Leaders Say They Have Learned One Year on from the Battle in Ukraine,” Breaking Defense, February 23, 2023, https://breakingdefense.sites.breakingmedia.com/2023/02/what-pentagon-leaders-say-they-have-learned-from-a-year-of-observing-the-battle-in-ukraine/; Mick Ryan, “Russia’s Adaptation Advantage,” Foreign Affairs, February 5, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russias-adaptation-advantage.
33
Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, “Russian Military Objectives and Capacity in Ukraine Through 2024” (London: RUSI, May 20, 2024), https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024.; Jack Watling, “In Ukraine, Russia Is Beginning to Compound Advantages,” May 21, 2024, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/ukraine-russia-beginning-compound-advantages.; Stephen Feldstein and Fiona Brauer, “Why Russia Has Been So Resilient to Western Export Controls” (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 11, 2024), https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/03/why-russia-has-been-so-resilient-to-western-export-controls.
34
Alexandra Prokopenko, (Berlin: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2024), https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/03/is-the-kremlin-overconfident-about-russias-economic-stability?.
35
Andrew E. Kramer, Josh Holder, and Lauren Leatherby, “Can Ukraine Find New Soldiers Without Decimating a Whole Generation?” The New York Times, April 11, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/04/11/world/europe/ukraine-demographics.html.; Marc Santora, “Ukraine’s Parliament Passes a Politically Fraught Mobilization Bill,” The New York Times, April 11, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/world/europe/ukraine-war-mobilization-bill.html.
36
Dr. Benjamin Tallis, “Security Guarantees for Ukraine," (Berlin: German Council on Foreign Relations, June 30, 2023), https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/security-guarantees-ukraine-0.
37
Joseph R. Biden Jr, “President Biden: What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine,” The New York Times, May 31, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/biden-ukraine-strategy.html.
38
Paul Taylor, “Ukraine: NATO’s Original Sin,” POLITICO, November 23, 2021 https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-nato-georgia-europe-european-union-united-states/.
39
Dr. Jack Watling and Reynolds, “Russian Military Objectives and Capacity in Ukraine Through 2024.” (London: RUSI, February 13, 2024), https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024.
40
Jamie Dettmer, “Ukraine Is Ready for a Just Peace — Not Russia’s Version of One,” POLITICO, May 3, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-vladimir-putin-ukraine-ready-peace-russia-war/.
41
James D. Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War.” International Organization 49, no. 3 (1995): 379–414, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300033324.
42
H. E. Goemans, “War Termination,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.41. ; D. Wittman, “How a War Ends: A Rational Model Approach,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 23, no 4 (1979): 743-763. https://doi-org.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/10.1177/002200277902300408.
43
Victor Andrusiv, “Putin’s War of Vanishing Goals,” (Washington D.C.: Wilson Center (blog),
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-war-vanishing-goals.; “Russia Says It Is Changing Its War Aims in Ukraine,” The Economist, March 8, 2022, https://www-economist-com/europe/2022/03/28/russia-says-it-is-changing-its-war-aims-in-ukraine.
44
Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko, “The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs, April 16, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-could-have-ended-war-ukraine.
45
Benjamin Jensen and Elizabeth Hoffman, “Victory in Ukraine Starts with Addressing Five Strategic Problems,” (Washington D.C.: CSIS, May 15, 2024), https://www.csis.org/analysis/victory-ukraine-starts-addressing-five-strategic-problems.
46
1 Kings 3:16-28.
47
Anton Troianovskim, “Why Vladimir Putin Invokes Nazis to Justify His Invasion of Ukraine,” New York Times, March 17, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/world/europe/ukraine-putin-nazis.html.
48
Paul R. Hensen and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell. “Issue Indivisibility and Territorial Claims.” GeoJournal 64, no. 4 (2005): 275–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41148009.
49
John Hudson and Anastacia Galouchka, “In Repeat Bombing of Odessa, Putin Deepens Economic War on Ukraine,” The Washington Post, July 7, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/29/ukraine-grain-agriculture-russia-attacks/.
50
Robert Powell, “War as a Commitment Problem,” International Organization 60, no. 1 (January 2006): 169–203, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818306060061.
51
Samuel Charap and Miranda Priebe, “Avoiding a Long War: U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict,” (Washington D.C.:RAND Corporation, January 25, 2023), https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2510-1.html.