EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — Today, as Western pundits and military experts monitor progress of the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia’s occupation forces in Southern Ukraine, many correctly suggest that the U.S. and Ukraine’s other NATO allies need to provide the Ukrainians more weapons systems, and faster, to enable their efforts against the Russians.
There are also debates over the way the Ukrainian Armed Forces are conducting their counteroffensive, with some arguing that the Ukrainians should focus all of their forces against a single objective along the Russian lines, while others say Kyiv should be pressing the Russians along the entire front, forcing them to shift forces to respond to Ukrainian attacks.
Instead of debating how the Ukrainians should pursue their counteroffensive, we should start to pursue a strategy that helps Kyiv extend its front against the Russians beyond the approximately 300 miles of front lines where the Ukrainian Armed Forces are fighting. There are plenty of opportunities to put pressure on the Russians on fronts that are outside of Ukraine, which would force Moscow to spread its limited resources and help Ukrainians succeed in liberating their territory. An approach like this would also allow Ukraine to protect its own direct interests from further threats from the aggressive regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It's time for the U.S. to re-adopt the Reagan strategy toward the USSR.
In his article Political-Ideological Warfare in Integrated Strategy, Dr. John Lenczowski describes the policy that Reagan used to confront and topple the Soviet Union. This policy was based on the Reagan Administration’s understanding that a key element of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy in the early 1980’s, was Moscow’s “ability to use nuclear blackmail, intimidation, and manipulation of atmospherics of tension in East-West relations to demoralize its subject peoples.”
In his essay, Dr. Lenczowski, who played a part in developing the Reagan strategy, argues that “Soviet Foreign Policy was achieved by intimidating the West into silence, thus precluding the possibility of external moral-political resistance to communism.” Lenczowski then asks a key question that Reagan asked when formulating his policy towards the Soviet Union: “if external resistance was impossible, then how could internal resistance proceed?”
In today’s terms, if the West hopes to see the Russian people stand up to Putin and demand an end to his aggressive behavior toward Ukraine, then the West needs to stand up decisively to Putin.
While leaders in Washington and Brussels have recognized that Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine is a clear indicator that the U.S. and Russia have entered into a new “Cold War”, few appear to be paying attention to the lessons learned from Reagan’s successful policies towards Moscow. They are policies that not only helped roll back the Soviet threat to U.S. national security interests worldwide, but they also played a role in the collapse of a system that, prior to Reagan’s election in 1980, many scholars and ‘experts’ assumed could never be defeated. It was thanks to Reagan and his strategy that the people of Ukraine, the Baltic States, Central Asia and the Caucasus earned their independence from Moscow in 1991. This is why Reagan is often seen as a “hero” in these countries.
Ironically, this policy also helped the Russians themselves obtain their own independence, making Reagan a popular figure to this day with many Russian citizens. Leaders in the West need to recognize that a continued failure to understand and apply the lessons gained from the 1980’s, will likely lead to the continued threat posed by the Kremlin to its neighbors and to the inability of the Russian people to muster the courage needed to stand up to an abusive regime.
Cipher Brief Subscriber+Members enjoy unlimited access to Cipher Brief content, including analysis with experts, private virtual briefings with experts, the M-F Open Source Report and the weekly Dead Drop - an insider look at the latest gossip in the national security space. It pays to be a Subscriber+Member.
A key principle of Reagan’s policy was Washington’s willingness to actively counter Moscow’s aggressive behavior around the world, not just in words, but in action.
If the Soviets were fomenting revolution in one country or region, Reagan was willing to provide critical support to resistance movements who were interested in countering the Soviets and their proxies. By doing this, the former president forced the Kremlin to choose between spending more of its limited resources to fund socialist revolutions or to invest those limited resources in other areas of the Soviet economy.
Today, the U.S. and its allies need to press Moscow in the same way.
Forcing Putin to decide where to commit his increasingly limited resources will reduce his ability to pour resources into Ukraine and will limit the ability he has had since coming to power in 2000, to undermine the West. As an example, as of early September, Moscow was considering the need to move S-300 Air Defense systems from the disputed Kuril Islands to Ukraine, a move that would make Russian forces in the Far East vulnerable at a time when tensions in the Pacific region are on the rise.
Another key element of Reagan’s approach was calling Moscow’s bluff on the threatened use of nuclear weapons.
Like Russian President Vladimir Putin today, previous leaders of the Soviet Union liked to intimidate the world with the threat of nuclear war. But Reagan demonstrated a willingness to call the Soviets’ bluff and made it clear that the U.S. was pursuing programs designed to protect Washington and its allies from the Soviet military threat, challenging the Soviets to attempt to keep up with U.S. defense spending and turning U.S. technological and economic advantages into the leverage needed by Washington to force the Soviets to accept arms negotiations.
One of the most important aspects of the Reagan strategy was the President’s very effective public diplomacy campaign aimed directly at the citizens of the Soviet Union. Reagan and his team used all possible mechanisms to message the population that the U.S. was not interested in war, was not the aggressor, wanted to have peaceful and productive relations with each country, and was ready to negotiate peaceful agreements. It was a message that people understood and wanted to hear, because they themselves viewed their leaders as corrupt. Reagan understood that the citizens of the East Bloc and Soviet Union needed to see someone stand up to the repressive and corrupt regimes that ruled their countries.
It's not just for the President anymore. Are you getting your daily national security briefing? Subscriber+Members have exclusive access to the Open Source Collection Daily Brief, keeping you up to date on global events impacting national security. It pays to be a Subscriber+Member.
So, what can the U.S. do now to change its current policy toward Russia?
First, while U.S. military assistance to Ukraine has been important, the realities on the battlefield have demonstrated that U.S. and Western assistance to Kyiv has been “too little, too late”. The Russians have learned a great deal from their mistakes and are demonstrating that Western sanctions and diplomatic isolation of the Kremlin have not been enough to stop the Russian war machine.
The U.S. needs to speed up the delivery of weapons systems already promised and stop allowing Moscow to intimidate the West into limiting the types of weapons systems we will provide.
The U.S. can also start directly challenging the Russians anywhere in the world where they are attempting to undermine Western values. If Putin deploys forces to points in Africa, the U.S. needs to provide its regional allies with the training, equipment and cover needed to counter the Russians and their regional proxies.
If the Russians continue to prop up the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the U.S. needs to recognize that while the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is important, it is no longer as important as the strategic struggle we are now facing with Moscow. We need a policy aimed at destabilizing Assad and forcing the Russians to decide between continued support for the Syrian regime or support for its forces in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
If the Russians want to prop-up dictatorial regimes in Central America, the U.S. must be willing to once again train, equipment and fund those groups that are willing to fight against Moscow’s proxies.
In taking these actions, the U.S. needs to remember that every time we force the Kremlin to try to counter us, Putin will have to decide how to allocate his limited resources.
The U.S. also needs to step up its public diplomacy vis a vis the Russian people.
Like in Soviet times, the Russians have attempted to lock down the information space inside of Russia, with the Kremlin controlling the narrative. In Soviet times, the U.S. was successful in penetrating the Soviet information space. The U.S. needs to start communicating more robustly and directly to the Russian people.
Washington should also look to communicate more effectively to the large numbers of Russian citizens now living in exile.
We need to do a better job of highlighting all we have done for Russia in the past, and how we tried to help the Russian people when they faced famines and threats from invading powers. We should identify the benefits and incentives that will come to the Russians when they force their leaders to abandon the Kremlin’s hostile behavior towards the U.S. and its allies stop playing defense in our struggle with Russian propaganda and go on the information offensive.
During his Presidency, Ronald Reagan said “Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and retreat to become American policies.” Americans today need to remember how Reagan’s policy made such a positive difference in the lives of millions of people and ask our elected leaders to adopt Reagan’s approach to Vladimir Putin and his regime.
The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.
Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.
Have a perspective to share based on your experience in the national security field? Send it to Editor@thecipherbrief.com for publication consideration.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
