Proxy war or not, US and NATO allies get creative in aid for Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly accused the United States of waging a proxy war in Ukraine – most recently on July 7 – and he’s not entirely wrong, U.S. military analysts say.

But proxy war is a very loose thing in international law, and whether the U.S. is in one with Russia, many add, matters less than whether the U.S. and its NATO allies can continue to push red lines without prompting a Russian reprisal that officially draws the alliance into war.

“If you ask lawyers, or a military general, they all have a different answer on whether or not this is a proxy war. It’s very relative,” says Sean McFate, a professor at National Defense University who served in the U.S. Army. “The answer is that it’s where Putin’s ego ends and Russian foreign policy begins. It’s a moving line that depends very much on perception.”

True, if Russia was giving aid to Al Qaeda in Iraq, “we’d view this as going over some line perhaps,” Dr. McFate notes. That said, while the U.S. was attacked by Al Qaeda, Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation and against international warning – and NATO is not arming proxies to stir up wars they wouldn’t otherwise be engaged in. 

And while the U.S. and NATO are “obviously pushing some red lines,” he adds, “we ought to do that.” To date, this has involved tapping into a deep well of ingenuity to do everything from getting weapons into the hands of fighters to training them off the battlefield. 

As fighting in Ukraine stalemates, “covert” resourcefulness should increasingly come into play as well, many military analysts say. “We will need to fight a sneaky war, with maximum plausible deniability,” says Dr. McFate. “We layer the fog of war and move through it for our red-line pushing.” 

At the same time, this will necessarily involve asking some tough questions about how far NATO is willing to go to help Kyiv win. “It’s one thing to say that the U.S. and Ukraine share an interest in ensuring that Russia isn’t able to wage future aggression,” says Anthony Pfaff, the research professor for strategy, the military profession, and ethics at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. 

“But the kinds of costs we may be willing to pay for those things is very different.”

A Twitter-based handbook

When war broke out in Ukraine, retired Maj. John Spencer started tweeting advice for civilians who wanted to “go out and resist” the Russian invasion in any way they could. 

Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, Mr. Spencer, who had served two combat tours in Iraq, sought to encourage would-be fighters by noting that in 2016, it took more than 100,000 U.S. and coalition troops nine months to recapture Mosul from an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Islamic State fighters, many of whom were wearing flip-flops.

The tweets were collected into a “manual for the urban defender,” which was posted online by the Ukrainian government. (Mr. Spencer signed over the copyrights for free.)

The handbook urges Ukrainians to block roads with anything available, from dump trucks to trash, and never to sit around. “You’d be surprised at the depth and length of a tunnel a team of civilians can dig in just a few days,” he writes.

To address dire defensive circumstances, the manual offered tips for booby-trapping homes, including knocking out floorboards beneath easy-to-access windows, cutting electricity at night (since dark offers an advantage to homeowners), and running razor wire at neck level across doorways to slow down intruders and provide a brief window for escape from Russian soldiers.

With weapons and advice flowing into Ukraine, Mr. Spencer is philosophical about whether it qualifies as a proxy war. “The definition of ‘proxy’ is very loose. Clearly Ukraine is fighting Russia for us, for Europe, for democracy,” he says. “When we supply them with weapons, how is that different to supplying the mujahideen?” 

That said, it’s “not like they’re asking anyone to fight for them,” he notes. “And it’s not like we’re arming proxies to start and fight wars that they wouldn’t otherwise be engaged in.” 

Past lessons on insurgency

In the months to come, Mr. Spencer imagines that Ukrainian fighters will draw upon “years of Special Forces and paramilitary lessons going back to World War II about how to create resistance in occupied areas.” 

The U.S. practiced counterinsurgency warfare for nearly two decades in its most recent wars. Now NATO needs to turn those lessons around fighting as insurgents, says Dr. McFate of National Defense University.

There was an old adage in Kabul, for example, that while the Americans had the watches, the Afghan insurgents had the time.

“If you’re David and the enemy is Goliath, you can weaponize time, and win by not losing,” he says. “As long as there’s a resistance movement – even if Russia does take Kyiv – Russia can never claim victory. And we can easily maintain that.” 

Poland and Romania could also host NATO bases where Ukrainian “guerrillas can cross the border covertly. We arm, equip them, give them rest. We keep them alive,” Dr. McFate adds. “And as long as they’re alive, Putin isn’t winning.” 

At the same time, “we shouldn’t be stupid,” he warns.

Reckless measures, in his estimate, include NATO “overtly placing soldiers in Ukraine, or boots in the air, or boots at sea.” If NATO vehicles or vessels were fired upon, it could launch “a tripwire that sucks NATO officially into that war – and that is really bad news, especially if Putin thinks he can get away with a limited nuclear war in the name of defense.” 

What role for a rocket system?

In an existential war, Ukraine is going to be willing to pay a far higher price for its freedom than NATO. And so, given the support they’re providing Kyiv, the U.S. and its NATO allies must be clear with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about what the alliance is willing – and not willing – to do, says Dr. Pfaff of the U.S. Army War College.

Ukrainian forces, for example, have been supplied with their most advanced weapons system to date, courtesy of the U.S. government.

The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, developed for the U.S. Army, is now the longest range of Ukraine’s ground weapons, at nearly 50 miles. The U.S. has supplied it with the understanding that it be used to strike Russian targets within Ukraine – but not within Russia.

“Giving them HIMARS is a fine thing to do if you just have dead Russian soldiers, but not if you have dead Russian civilians” as a result of artillery barrages into Russian territory, says Dr. Pfaff.

Yet Kyiv could easily argue that using HIMARS against Russians outside Ukraine is the only way to win, he adds. 

“They haven’t made that argument yet, but I can see them turning around and looking at us and saying, ‘We need to do this.’”

The U.S. and NATO must plan for these scenarios in advance – and make clear their own red lines with Kyiv – particularly since the West’s military intervention allows Ukraine “to do things it might not otherwise do,” Dr. Pfaff notes.

These are key considerations as Mr. Putin promised recently that his war has just begun. “Everybody should know that largely speaking, we haven’t even yet started anything in earnest,” he told Russian parliamentary leaders. 

“Basically, it’s kind of a simple formula,” Dr. Pfaff says. “The more support we give Ukraine – and the more effective that is – the more the Russians are going to want to escalate.”

Editor’s note: A sentence in this article has been updated to correct John Spencer's rank; he is a retired major.