Many experts in the West believe that regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will still be a real threat to Ukraine, which will need help recovering militarily after the war to prevent or prepare for another attack .
According to Duke University’s Political Science Professor and Director of the American High Strategy Program, Peter D. Feaver, although there are many alternative formulas to deter Russian aggression, two options are particularly evident. The first and the most discussed is Ukraine’s official accession to NATO and the second, according to the academic, for Ukraine to become… Israel.
“The latter would involve building up Ukrainian military power with continued Western military assistance, so that Kiev’s might and strong arsenal alone could deter Russian aggression,” Feaver writes in Foreign Policy. The innumerable disadvantages of joining NATO have led some analysts to suggest an alternative, dubbed Israel’s option, if it turns into a “hedgehog” state: build up such armed forces as to make any future Russian invasion extremely dangerous to unprofitable.
The good side of this choice
There are some undeniably attractive aspects to Israel’s choice, Feaver says, at least from the perspective of Washington and its NATO allies. Choosing Israel maximizes the role the West has enthusiastically embraced: arming, training and diplomatically supporting a Ukraine that will fight for itself, while minimizing the chances of NATO troops fighting and dying in Ukraine.
Israel enjoys air superiority over its regional adversaries and has a deep strike capability that covers the entire territory of any adversary – a capability Israel has exercised repeatedly over the decades.
If Ukraine succeeded in this, it could penetrate deep into Russian territory with sustained air and missile strikes, a much more powerful capability than token drone strikes or occasional sabotage. Such a Ukraine, says the Duke academic, could bring retaliation on Russian soil in retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities.
If Russia fears NATO troops on its borders, it has much more reason to fear an unrestrained Ukraine capable of acting like Israel. Paradoxically, Ukraine’s NATO membership, which Putin supposedly fears, would go a long way in curbing Ukrainian actions.
In practice, however, things are different
However, there are downsides to this bold – if not unrealistic – solution. According to Peter Feaver, turning Ukraine into Israel is easy to say, as the precedents of Iraq and Afghanistan, for years, show that such an endeavor has failed.
Furthermore, for Israel itself to feel secure, the US had to provide a qualitative military advantage that enabled Israel to dominate air, sea and land.
Ukraine is nowhere close to enjoying such an advantage today, and it would require a huge investment in advanced equipment to get there. This is extremely expensive, and probably requires even more money than joining NATO.
Even if Western leaders can convince their citizens to meet the costs, they will likely remain reluctant to provide Ukraine with a true Israel-style option, because it would require equipping Ukraine with weapons that NATO has so far refused to provide.
It’s a long-term commitment
Moreover, choosing Israel requires a long-term commitment, and this, in turn, depends on who is in power in Washington and Kiev. Israel has depended on decades of extraordinary support from the US, support that remained strong regardless of which party controlled the White House and which party ruled Israel.
The political base for US support for Ukraine is currently high, but even at its best it has not reached the levels of support for Israel in decades.
Thus the academic raises a series of concerns. “How sustainable is Israel’s option for Ukraine if former US President Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election? Or if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is replaced by another leader? Or if Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts falter?’
More ominously, if the conventional wisdom about an Israeli nuclear arsenal is correct, Israel itself believes that a credible Israeli option requires more than conventional weapons. Will Ukraine believe that deterrence is sufficient without a NATO guarantee and without its own nuclear arsenal to provide the ultimate deterrent?, Feaver wonders.
A hybrid solution
The above difficulties, Feaver says, have led some to propose a hybrid solution: continued Western support bolstered by security assurances from the US and major European powers, without formal NATO membership.
This has the undoubted advantage of being easier to achieve than accession and than turning Ukraine into a new Israel. However, here again the hybrid formula has all the disadvantages of the two alternatives without any of the corresponding advantages. It is unlikely to stabilize in the long term.
In short, even after the shooting stops, Ukraine will need security assistance to restore the military capability lost in the war. This aid must make Ukraine strong enough to deter the Russians, but not so strong as to be completely unbearable for them.
Moderate reinforcement, no excesses
Getting that kind of balance right was a central priority for NATO when it rearmed Germany in the 1950s, the Duke political scientist points out. NATO leaders made efforts to mitigate the security dilemma posed by German rearmament, aiming for a Germany strong enough to help deter the Soviets but not so strong as to trigger a Soviet pre-emptive invasion.
At the same time, German rearmament was locked into a larger security arrangement designed to keep ambitions in check. “Getting the balance right is extremely difficult, as the series of crises in the 20 years since World War II has made clear. Getting it wrong can cause an even greater disaster, as happened with the failed peace that followed World War I,” the Duke professor points out.
According to him, of the options on offer, joining NATO with an Article 5 guarantee of de facto borders represented by the Lines of Control may be the most difficult to negotiate but the most stabilizing in the long run.
The Kremlin will not like any of the above options, but, as Feaver concludes, each option has its drawbacks, ultimately favoring accession, which “despite its problems, may end up being the least bad option, worth the hard diplomatic work it will take to achieve this.”
Developments and reality, however, do not seem to confirm any of the options mentioned by Peter D. Feaver.
