What does the United States have to gain by opposing the invasion of Ukraine with words, when they won't back it up with military actions?

Question

The United States government is giving a great deal of attention to the situation in Ukraine, but it does not seem to be willing to threaten the sort of military action that would make an invasion prohibitively costly for Russian. (This related question ask about one of the U.S. government's main activities: saying what they think is going on in Ukraine.)

I suppose on the one hand talk is cheap, but on the other hand it seems like speaking loudly and carrying a small stick would ultimately make the United States look weak, or at least not fully committed to, e.g., protecting weaker states from stronger states. (I can't work it into a sentence, but the example of the Crimea seems instructive.)

Is the U.S. just trying to deter Russia from invading, or do they expect to have some higher moral standing after an invasion because of the attention they're giving Ukraine now?

Answer 1

The US won't defend Ukraine with combat forces, that could be triggering WWIII. They have promised to retaliate with painful economic sanctions. Those sanctions will also hurt the US and their allies, even if the US assumes that they'll hurt Russia more. So to the goal is to deter Russia from invading.

• CNN
• BBC
• DW

Answer 2

Sanctions are usually considered the most powerful and extreme punitive action available that isn't outright war.

While the US has a prodigious military, it has issues with deploying it on large scales over large distances. Which is mostly just the result of a simple fact: the planet's big. The logistics involved are highly non-trivial, and the military has for the most part had little reason to seriously focus on the issue at least since the end of the Cold War (but even during it NATO was well aware of these logistical issues and tried making various plans that didn't depend upon a full scale US involvement). Any attempt by the US to stage a serious military defense in Ukraine will take probably months at least, and with that much heads up Russia could simply go into a fully offensive invasion into Ukraine long before the cavalry arrives. From what I gather from experts, it's really unlikely Russia could actually win in the span of a few months, short of a dramatic shift in the Ukrainian people's willingness to defend themselves. But the devastation could be significant, and Russian forces could be entrenched and reinforced for a lengthy conflict long before US forces would be strong enough to attempt to expel them or hold them off. And that would amplify the severity of the conflict between them, creating greater risk of a nuclear incident, or full on nuclear war.

A much more likely military defense of Ukraine would originate closer to Ukraine: within Europe. But this, again, heightens the severity of the conflict, making it a World War waiting to bloom, with multiple nuclear powers involved.

With serious domestic issues at home to deal with, some of which this crisis is only going to amplify no matter what, the general willingness of the US population to back an actual military response isn't very strong. Combined with the prospects of a major conflict with an entrenched aggressor thousands of miles away, a military response simply isn't viable.

The hope with sanctions, as the hope always is (though some debate if this is a vain and futile hope), is that the economic pressures on the economic and political elites will undercut the support for Putin's (or more generally the Russian Federation government's) actions enough to encourage a de-escalation and potential return to a pre-invasion state. For all the talk of how the US is basically an oligarchy these days, Russia is very much more one, so attacking the pockets of their elites is the most accessible and glaring pressure point and weak spot available. And the US has immense power in international financial markets and banking to enable such attacks. Whether it will work or not is another matter.

Answer 3

Purely from having sat with this question for a few days, my current suspicion is that the purpose of all of the U.S. press is to put pressure on other Western nations to join the U.S. in imposing sanctions. Looking at trade figures, the Netherlands and Germany are the major trade partners with Russia that the U.S. could expect to influence. Germany especially might have let Nord Stream 2 continue rather than cancelling it, had not the U.S. raised the profile of the situation. (This is speculation informed by facts, but without specific documentation for what I imagine to be the principle motivations behind the actors.)

Answer 4

Is the U.S. just trying to deter Russia from invading, or do they expect to have some higher moral standing after an invasion because of the attention they're giving Ukraine now?

Sanctions against the members of the Russian ruling elite and the Russian population that silently supports the current invasion are meant to deter Russia from executing upon further plans to deal with Ukraine. The Russian plans, as well as the intent of the Western sanctions, are delineated in the analysis of politologists (such as Vitaly Portnikov and Viktor Nebozehnko), politicians (such as Toomas Hendrik Ilves) and diplomats (such as Ambassador Michael McFaul). Note that all of the above analysts are pro-Western, even though they appear to be independent and not associated with each other.

There exists also another point of view, presented mostly by the mainstream media of the Russian Federation (RF) as well as by their friend and colleagues around the world. According to the RF main channel news (note that it is controlled by the government of the Russian Federation), the US is trying to weaken Russia economically using the sanctions without any valid root cause, presumably out of general animosity to Russia and its people.

Which of these opposing viewpoints is correct is left as an exercise to the reader. I personally favor the first explanation, because I find more factual errors per word in the news reporting from the RF in general than in the analysis by the pro-Western analysts above.