I was published by the good folks at Real Clear Defense the other day outlining the different Courses of Action (COA’s) that U.S. commentators and policy makers have started organizing around. You can find my article here: Addressing the Big Questions on Ukraine

I didn’t have the space to fully elaborate on the framework against which I evaluated each COA. If you’re interested in those details, check out my piece below (and definitely catch the important part in the article above).

The facets of a good scenario

Each scenario must address a subset of critical questions to address relevant and decisive criticisms. These questions fall into 4 categories:

• What is the Proof of Benefits, including grounding any intangible benefit in real terms?
• How much are the Direct Costs, and when will the costs be incurred?
• What are the Second Order Effects, including effects on encouraging or deterring other actors from imposing costs?
• Is there / can there be created a Willingness and Ability to expend the costs, especially on the part of public opinion and government resources?

Below, I briefly elaborate on each major question category:

Proof of Benefits

The benefits accrued is the first element that must be addressed in any given scenario. This category can be further broken down into three basic questions:

• What are the benefits?
• What is their expected value?
• How certain are they to materialize?

In assessing the benefits of any given scenario of United States support for Ukraine, they must be tangible in their value and usage. For example, support for fulfilling long-term commitments to Ukraine cannot be supported by ambiguous claims for maintaining the United States’ international “credibility.” Instead, assessments must determine financial, security, or otherwise tangible benefits that will likely accrue due to specific actions other nations will or won’t likely take as a result of the credibility.

Rigorous adherence to assessing tangible benefits also facilitates their measurement. Measuring “credibility” makes little conceptual – much less practical – sense  and lets analysts get away with putting a high price on items of little value. Proponents must do more to quantify (even categorically) the benefits expected. The most straightforward benefits measure dollars saved, material functioning, territory secured, and lives preserved. Without grounding expected benefits in tangible terms, they cannot provide convincing evidence for its scenario.

Perhaps especially in this conflict, proponents of any support scenario cannot ignore an assessment of the likelihood of realizing the expected benefits. A negotiated settlement is only as good as the parties keep it, and Russia in-particular has a long history of ignoring commitments made in war when peace arrives.

Direct Costs

Each scenarios represents a significant tradeoff against their proposed benefits. Like the questions of benefits, questions of direct costs can similarly be broken into three categories:

• What are the incremental support costs (for conflict or development)?
• What are the likely economic losses?
• What are the human losses?

Supporting Ukraine through a long war requires billions of dollars. Seeking a near-term win requires spending more billions sooner. Each scenario commits different amounts of funding to the conflict, but efforts to quantify their differences are becoming critical.

Walking away from or reducing Ukrainian support may stop the outflow of government appropriated dollars to Ukraine, but U.S. citizens may feel a drag on the economy if it results in reduced trade or increased security costs to keep trade open in the region.

While few if any U.S. service members are in harms way, it’s morally acceptable to consider and weigh the loss of life likely to result from any given scenario. However, while this measure will likely look favorable in situations that lead to fast capitulation, the second-order effects of increasing chances of other death or larger renewed hostilities later may balance or overwhelm the nearer-term, direct losses.

Having entered the second year of the war, calculations on the cost or material needed to either sustain or leave the war effort can and must be estimated. Further, these costs must compare favorably with realistically viable funding available at the times they’ll be needed.

Second Order Effects

Second Order Effects are most easily thought of across four stakeholders and an assessment of claim credibility:

• How will Russia likely act in the future?
• What effect will the scenario have on other U.S. adversaries?
• What effect will the scenario have on U.S. allies?
• How will United States relative or absolute power be affected?
• How credible is the theory of causality for the predicted effects?

Advocates of continuing the fight will claim that backing down will encourage Russia to take more territory, and other adversarial nations to make similar moves. Allies also keep a close eye on whether they believe they can rely on the United States should U.S. power be needed to protect their interests. U.S. actions may also have lingering effects beyond initial spend on weapon systems, especially if funding goes toward capacity building or simply results in lower munitions stocks.

While second order effects are popular “boogeymen” among pundits when criticizing a course of action, claims need clear theories of causality. For example, walking away from Ukraine may embolden China to strike at Taiwan. Or – especially if the United States uses the saved funds to strengthen its Pacific deterrent – it may instead deter Chinese aggression. Knock-on effects must receive more than reference; they must be explained.

Willingness and Ability

Willingness and ability go hand-in-hand for most of what different advocates want to do with Ukraine. In most situations, where the U.S. public has a will, they also have a way. Fundamentally, promoters of a course of action in Ukraine must address four sub-categories of questions:

• How will the American public be convinced to support the scenario and its implications?
• How will this support be sustained for sufficient time to carry out the scenario?
• Does or can the material necessary for the scenario physically exist within the relevant time frame?
• Will Russia and/or Ukraine be willing to take the actions necessary for the scenario to work?

The U.S. government’s ability to sustain its support for Ukraine is necessarily a function of its popular support. For congressional leaders to continue to appropriate funds, their constituents will need to find costs sufficiently palatable to not vote their representatives out. Conversely, any action that may diminish the United States’ prestige on the world stage requires a different kind of public advocacy. Most Americans will be reticent to appear to abandon allies or lose control over its normal spheres of influence. Experts will often inflate either the challenge of either the maintaining public interest or the international shame of stepping back based on what boosts their argument without addressing how to manage the other side of that coin.

For scenarios that require significant amounts of time to come to fruition, a credible plan to maintain that interest becomes necessary. A strategy to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” can quickly become for “as long as we can” without a way to maintain public interest.

While Americans have grown accustomed to very little space between what they want to do and what they can actually accomplish, years of underinvestment in defense readiness, experience in the “wrong” kinds of conflict, and enormous deficit spending may constrain the United States’ ability to act. Even if the U.S. populace wanted to flood Ukraine with the money and weapons necessary for Ukraine to win within a year, the weapons may not exist in-time, and the creation of the funds may cut too deeply from other commitments.

Finally, analysts also need to take note of Russia and Ukraine’s will for a given path. The United States may want to seek a negotiated settlement quickly, but if neither party wants to settle, the United States may not have the power to force an agreement.

The Scenarios

For an analysis of each scenario and the questions that the talking heads avoid, check out my article here.

Keep seeking truth.