Allies arm Ukraine to defend their own democracies

A seismic shift is underway in the U.S.-led coalition’s Ukraine strategy. The goal is no longer just to help the Ukrainians hold off Vladimir Putin’s invasion. It is to help them win the war outright.

The allies recognize that such a victory is far from assured, and would come neither easily nor quickly.

They also know the policy shift leaves key questions unanswered, not least exactly what a Ukrainian victory would look like. And it carries potential risks. Mr. Putin could resort to chemical or even tactical nuclear weapons, or respond to increased Western support for Ukraine by launching strikes against neighboring NATO states.

But the allies’ new resolve rests on twin pillars: the growing sense in recent weeks that Ukraine can win, and a fundamental political judgment that it is imperative for the future of Ukraine, Europe, and the wider world that it does win.

And wins in a way that Mr. Putin is seen to have lost badly enough that he will never threaten European security again.

The allies have come to view the invasion as a gut-check moment in what U.S. President Joe Biden has described as the 21^st -century contest between democracy and autocracy.

The Kremlin’s aim, to erase Ukraine as an independent state, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s response, to frame the war as a wider battle for democracy, have been clear since the outset.

But the scorched-earth bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities, and alleged Russian war crimes, have hardened the allies’ consensus that they need to do everything they can to ensure Mr. Putin’s aggression ends in definitive failure.

The aim is to send an unmistakable message. It is intended, first and foremost, for Mr. Putin, but also for his key autocratic ally, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and the dozens of leaders worldwide who have so far hesitated to denounce the invasion.

This new determination to help the Ukrainians win the war is intended as a frontal rebuff to the shared Russian-Chinese assumption that Western liberal democracy is in terminal decline.

It is meant to drive home a diametrically different message: that Ukraine’s allies are ready, willing, united, and effective enough to inflict a heavy cost on Mr. Putin for his attempt to terrorize and subdue a European democracy.

Still, converting that resolve into a clear-cut Russian defeat remains a complex and possibly perilous challenge.

The first stage is now in full flow.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted representatives of more than 40 allies in the first of monthly meetings to boost delivery of a wider array of weaponry, ammunition, vehicles, and other military equipment.

The guest list included not just NATO partners and other key allies like Australia, South Korea, and Japan. Also represented were several Mideast countries that had so far tried to avoid taking sides: Israel and Jordan, Qatar and Tunisia.

“Ukraine clearly believes that it can win,” Mr. Austin told the conference, held at a U.S. air base in Germany. “And so does everyone here.”

The allies are already delivering new supplies of artillery, armored vehicles, and drones. Britain this week announced additional aid, reportedly including jamming devices, radar and night-vision equipment, anti-ship missiles, and mobile anti-aircraft systems.

They have also promised Ukraine advanced anti-artillery weapons, and there appears a chance they might provide aircraft as well, as Mr. Zelenskyy has been urging.

But even if all that allows the Ukrainians to turn the battlefield tide, there’s not yet a clear idea of what would constitute the kind of victory – and Russian defeat – the allies are hoping for.

At a bare minimum that would seem to mean pushing the Russians back to the areas of Ukraine they controlled when the invasion began, in Crimea and the eastern Donbas. Many Ukrainians would want to go further, and recapture those regions too.

Yet the largest, and most delicate, imponderable is how Mr. Putin will respond to the allies’ determination to help the Ukrainians prevail.

Russia’s state media have already begun arguing that the conflict is now between NATO and Moscow, with the risk of going nuclear.

Allied leaders still see that as saber-rattling, a reflection not of strength but of weakness.

But they know that Mr. Putin would not easily accept defeat and that, short of turning to a nuclear weapon, he could try to bait NATO troops into direct involvement in the war.

That may represent the most worrisome concern for the allies.

One reason they have felt able to step up their support for Kyiv is the widespread grassroots outrage in Europe and the United States at Mr. Putin’s invasion, along with sympathy for the Ukrainians.

But a U.S. poll found last weekend that while a wide majority of Americans favored backing Ukraine, there was a major caveat – colored, no doubt, by the memory of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An overwhelming majority – more than 7 in 10 – opposed sending any American soldiers into Ukraine.