As Western leaders gather in Washington, D.C. for the 75th anniversary of the NATO alliance on July 9-11, 2024, the pressures for deeper American involvement in Ukraine’s War against Russia have continued to build up. The Biden administration, which immediately signed the $61 billion aid package approved by the US Congress in April 2024 and recently authorized Kyiv’s use of American weapons for limited retaliatory strikes within Russia’s territory, is expected to pledge additional assistance to Ukraine, enhance NATO’s indirect involvement in the war, and provide “a strong bridge” to the country’s membership in the alliance.
That trend is understandable. Russia has proved resilient and made new territorial gains with Iran, North Korea, and (above all) China’s help. It outmatches Ukraine in demographic and industrial-military terms. Moreover, the West must grapple with the rise of the Far Right in the EU, President Biden’s faltering re-election prospects, and the “radical reorientation” that former President Trump envisions for NATO should he return to power.
Yet the Biden administration’s buildup in Ukraine ignores how closely the US has tightened its encirclement of Russia, the diminishing returns of escalating without a clear endgame, and the unsustainability of its current course of action from a domestic political standpoint.
Although America’s Russia policy has inspired heated debates, its geostrategic underpinnings are clear: maintaining the balance of power in Europe (and other parts of Eurasia) to prevent local rivals from controlling the continent’s unmatched resources. This objective largely explains Washington’s post-World War I support for creating independent Central and European states between Germany and Moscow, containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and controversial expansion of NATO eastward since then.
Whether one blames it on Putin’s imperialism or the West’s attempts to bring Kyiv into its sphere of influence, the Ukraine War advances the same logic. First, the Biden administration has used Russia’s attack to re-assert NATO’s legitimacy and help the transatlantic relationship recover (for now) from the Trump presidency. Washington supplied its allies’ rearmament programs while encouraging them to bolster their defense budgets, supporting NATO’s expansion to Finland and Sweden, and promoting a growing US and allied presence along Russia’s Western flank.
Washington also encouraged EU leaders (especially Germany) to disengage from Moscow’s economy, reduce their dependency on Russian gas supply, and replace the latter with lucrative American LNG exports. Meanwhile, US-led Western sanctions devastated Russia’s financial system and technological potential.
Third, Washington exploited Ukraine’s turn against Moscow. Its assistance to Kyiv helped “degrade the Kremlin’s capabilities” without American casualties, making Russia suffer disproportionate losses in men and equipment without serious prospects of conquering and occupying Ukraine’s whole territory. Meanwhile, Washington, NATO, American banks, and US-led international financial organizations deepened their influence over Ukraine’s economy, politics, and security services. As such, the US can encircle Belarus and block Moscow’s access to the Carpathian mountains that overlook the NATO-dominated North European plain - whose topography made Russia vulnerable to multiple invasions in the past. Moreover, a pro-American Ukraine creates latent vulnerability for the city of Moscow, located 500 miles of flat terrain away, and exposes the lands that lead to the Russo-Kazakh border situated 400 miles east, which could obstruct the Kremlin’s access to the Caucasus, its only pathway to the Black and Caspian Seas.
Russia’s clout in the Black Sea region declined, too. Despite not having a Navy, Kyiv forced Moscow’s fleet to retreat eastward and threatened Russian supply lines in southern Ukraine. The region’s other coastal states, all NATO members except Georgia, hardened their Russia policy, further constraining Moscow’s projection of influence toward the Mediterranean Sea, the Middle East, and Africa. Combined with NATO’s goal of Georgia membership, this situation complicates the Kremlin’s ability to counter any resurgent separatist or terrorist forces in Russian Republics such as Chechnya and Dagestan by cutting their supply lines “south of the Greater Caucasus ridge.”
The US cornered Russia in the Baltic region, where NATO and the EU’s post-Cold War expansion had already marginalized the Kaliningrad exclave and stopped only 100 miles away from Saint Petersburg, exposing Russia’s industrial core and its defense stronghold in the Kola peninsula. Besides their artillery, aircraft, and technological contributions, not to mention submarines designed for local shallow waters, Finland and Sweden’s NATO entry may overstretch Moscow and help protect Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from future Russian attempts to close the Suwalki Gap, which separates those countries from the rest of NATO. Sweden’s Gotland Island, located in the heart of the Baltic Sea, could help isolate Kaliningrad, control regional air space, and disrupt Russian naval maneuvers and oil shipments.
Moscow is also on the defensive in the Western Arctic. Recent deals could allow US troops to deploy in 15 Norwegian military bases. Finland will host F-35 squadrons in its northernmost region and boost NATO’s deficient icebreaker shipbuilding capabilities. More broadly, the alliance’s revival may exert pressure on the Kola peninsula, home of Russia’s northern fleet and which oversees its Northern Sea Route to Asia. NATO may bolster its defenses along the GIUK gap (Greenland-Iceland-UK), hampering Moscow’s ability to deploy across the Atlantic, reach Western Europe from the sea, block American reinforcements, and threaten the US East Coast.
Altogether, those geostrategic gains should invite Washington to see Ukraine’s current difficulties and the West’s internal divisions not as reasons to double down endlessly but to recognize the war’s diminishing returns.
Since Moscow’s resiliency has shattered Kyiv’s goal of reconquering the territories lost since 2014, Western aid could become a bottomless pit. Admittedly, Russia retains significant military and gray-zone capabilities. It maintains political connections and intelligence networks in the EU and neighborhood states such as Belarus, Serbia, Georgia, Moldova, and Bosnia. Yet, even assuming the worst about Putin’s alleged imperial ambitions, the Kremlin is unlikely to seek a confrontation with NATO. That said, given how tightly the alliance has squeezed Moscow since 2022, applying more pressure in the absence of a negotiation path could augment the risk of war and inadvertent nuclear escalation. Likewise, given how heavily Washington punished Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, conflict perpetuation will not enhance America’s credibility in Europe or Asia much further. However, it may stimulate Sino-Russian cooperation beyond return, overstretch the US in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, and unduly strengthen domestic industrial-military interests.
Finally, moral arguments for escalation disregard how the West is using the Ukrainians as cannon fodder in a proxy war that has cost them half a trillion dollars, not to mention the concomitant neglect of equally scathing situations in other regions, which discredits Washington in the Global South.
The Biden administration must show it can play the long game in Ukraine. Yet, given the costs, risks, and questionable feasibility of this course of action, it should leverage its recent display of staying power to convince Kyiv, Moscow, and Washington’s European allies to initiate ceasefire and peace negotiations (whose prospects are more attainable than commonly assumed). Those talks should seek Ukrainian neutrality guaranteed by third parties – as Kyiv and Moscow envisioned two years ago. Meanwhile, Washington should support the gradual development of a more autonomous EU. Diplomacy may imply difficult trade-offs. But ultimately, it is more likely to preserve Ukraine, stabilize Europe, and optimize America’s grand strategy.
Thomas P. Cavanna is a Visiting Researcher at Lehigh University. He is writing a book on US grand strategy, China’s rise, and the geopolitics of Europe.
