Congress recently approved a $60.8 billion package to address the war in Ukraine. While President Joe Biden has expressed that the United States will stand with Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” a specific strategy and end state for the war in Ukraine has not been articulated. More money, ammunition and weapons may provide support to forces at the tactical level of war, but they do not necessarily provide answers to vital strategic questions about the direction of the war in Ukraine.
Is Ukraine waging an unlimited war to retake all occupied territory since 2022? Does its leadership also seek to retake Crimea? Or does it seek another strategic end state, such as locking in today’s battlefield lines? Each of these courses of action describe in loose parameters what “winning” would look like under a theory of victory and would elicit unique strategic, operational and tactical responses. Unfortunately, at a time when the United States continues to pump more money into the war, a theory of victory has not been clearly described by Ukrainian or American leaders.
It is also unclear how more weapons, money and ammunition on their own will substantially remake the war, as Ukraine has pushed past its culminating point with diminishing returns, even after the United States and allies have provided billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine.
By summer 2022, Ukraine reached a culminating point. It achieved a string of victories against Russia, including by retaking significant territory in the Kherson region. However, Ukraine and American leaders, drunk on the victories of the summer of 2022, pushed past this culminating point, some even calling for the recapture of Crimea, and demanding regime change in Russia.
By continuing past this culminating point, Ukraine runs the risk of diminishing returns. Carl von Clausewitz warns that “to overstep this point, is more than simply a useless expenditure of power, yielding no further result, it is a destructive step which causes…disproportionate effects.”
While it is possible for a force to achieve multiple culminating points, it is unclear if another will materialize, even with more foreign assistance. Prior to this most recent tranche of aid and since the onset of the war, Congress enacted four separate packages of aid for Ukraine, totaling $113.4 billion in emergency appropriations.
Last summer, Ukraine’s planned offensive met strong resistance, and could have achieved another culminating point, but did not. By November 2023, then Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi explained that the war had reached a stalemate. Within five months, Ukrainian forces had only managed to reclaim 17 kilometers, or ten miles, of territory.
However, it seems that Russia’s forces appear to be strengthening, at least in size, with a plan to grow its force from 1.15 million people to 1.5 million people. Though Ukraine calls for more aid, it is arguably their lack of adequate manpower that is a more pressing concern. Ukraine lowered its age for draft-eligible men, but has yet to invoke it.
Despite challenges faced by Ukraine, complex questions related to war termination have also not been answered.
Specifically, it is unclear how Ukraine will rebuild after the war. Will the United States and the international community foot the bill or is Ukraine expected to rebuild on its own?
Additionally, it's unclear if the US and allies will provide security guarantees to Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently suggested that Ukraine will join NATO. However, leaders have promised Ukraine membership into the alliance for over a decade. Any actualized entry of Ukraine into NATO may jeopardize a peaceful settlement, as Russia feels strongly that Ukraine should not be part of the alliance.
It is true that the enemy gets a vote, which makes it unwise to disregard Russia’s perspective at the negotiating table. States have imposed wide-sweeping sanctions on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and its allies may need to address what conditions Russia will need to meet in order to remove those sanctions. States have seized Russian assets, some of which may be repurposed for the war in Ukraine. But out of what remains, what conditions will Russia need to meet in order to reclaim these assets?
In addition to Ukraine and the United States, other members of the pro-Ukraine coalition, including European allies and partners, could play a role in war termination, simply because these states will need to live with the realities of a war-torn country in their neighborhood.
This doesn’t even take into consideration perhaps the most complex question of territorial claims. What will the actors in the conflict do with Russian occupied territory? Will the international community view it as it viewed Crimea after Russia took it by force in 2014? Would Ukraine and Russia accept a demarcation zone, similar to the one separating North and South Korea? Or would Ukraine and Russia seek another approach?
The devil is in the details. Simply standing with Ukraine for “as long as it takes” is not a strategy. If the United States is investing another $60 billion of US taxpayer dollars in Ukraine, Americans deserve answers on the fundamental strategic approach of the war, as well as a theory on what will happen when it is over.
Demri Scott Greggo is a Contributing Fellow at Defense Priorities.
