When is it right to stop fighting?

Over at First Things, Rusty Reno has argued that Ukraine’s continued resistance is not morally justifiable because the probability of resolution of the conflict through force is very low, even if they are fighting a just war against an unjust aggressor. Gil Meilaender responded in support of Ukraine’s continued resistance and argued that the United States ought to continue, on the basis of Just War principles, to support Ukraine. Their exchange gets at one of the fundamental challenges in all wars: when to stop fighting.

Distinctions are important, especially when it comes to tricky and complex deliberations that are required in fighting a war. As to the ius ad bellum criteria in Just War ethics, the arguments about the justice of Ukrainians’ defensive actions are decidedly in their favor. Ukraine has a just cause (aggression against sovereign territory), authorized by right authority, and with right intention to restore national boundaries. Their case of just resistance appears unassailable to their supporters.

And yet, we cannot forget that this issue is not so cut and dried. There’s history here. As John Mearsheimer has persistently pointed out, the United States and NATO are not innocent in this matter. Promises were made to Russia that NATO expansion was off the table only to have the United States push NATO closer and closer to Russia’s borders. Putin made statements time and again to this effect, and was simply ignored or sloughed off.

Does the potential extension of NATO justify Russian aggression? No, but that is a self-justifying response. If a country with the history and military of Russia lays down red lines, those should be taken seriously and treated with great sensitivity. Not taking Russia’s core security interests seriously was an act of culpable foolishness. We poked the bear one too many times.

I am influenced enough by Reinhold Niebuhr to know that the stories we tell ourselves about our own righteousness and innocence are often in the service of our own self-interest and not the selfless humanitarianism we profess.

Back to distinctions. Just War tradition is not a calculus problem to be solved, but a deliberative framework to be constantly debated. Just War ad bellum considerations have a set of prudential criteria built into them, proportionality being the most important. Does more good than evil result from continued resistance? War is a lethal activity in which death and destruction are used as political tools. We can never forget that fact. I agree with Meilaender that the United States should encourage nations fighting against unjust aggressors, but there comes a point when the proportionality judgment tips against that resistance, and I believe we are there now.

There was a time for Ukraine to resist and fight. They improbably fought back the Russian army from the outskirts of Kyiv to the far Eastern oblasts. That was impressive and courageous. Reality, however, set in pretty quickly that summer when the Ukrainian offensive stalled and the war of attrition tilted towards the Russian advantage. And now the Ukrainians find themselves on the back foot.

It is easy to understand why. The Russian state is fully committed to waging war with all its resources. They are regenerating their forces more effectively. They have a larger population to draw from and are willing to suffer staggering casualty levels, even for minor gains. They have revived their military industrial capacity and have a more plentiful stocks of munitions. In most categories that matter for waging war, Russia has the advantage and is using it to slowly grind down the Ukrainians. War is a matter of will, but in the type of attrition-style warfare being fought in Ukraine, quantity becomes a quality of its own.

That, combined with the lack of will and capacity in Europe and the United States to match Russia, speaks volumes. The United States is struggling to give precious resources to Ukraine that it can ill afford, given our own degraded military industry. Europe’s recent rallying to Ukraine is a positive sign, but should have happened decades ago. Now, it is too late.

And finally, a word about American security. Under Donald Trump the United States has taken a more decidedly realistic approach to foreign policy. After 25 years of the global war on terror that ended with two failed wars, trillions in debt, massive destabilization of the Middle East and Central Asia, thousands dead, and not much to show for it, it is no wonder why. How we view this war must also be funneled through a hard-nosed calculation about our greatest threats. Even the most ardent Russia hawk knows that China and the Asia Pacific, not Europe, is the primary theatre of concern.

With limited resources and a degraded military industrial base at home, the United States needs to make tough decisions about where to use finite resources. To some, this sounds cruel and callous. Many in our foreign policy class are still wedded to the pieties of the past “liberal world order” and the end of history. That age has passed. It no longer exists. What America needs to focus most of its time and resources upon is China, and so bringing the Ukrainian war to some sort of resolution is a necessary component to securing our own future.

We live in a contested multipolar world that will require careful and cautious statesmanship that pursues our national interest with foresight. What looks like callousness to some is in fact the primary moral duty of all heads of state: to put their country’s own good at the forefront.