The Morality of Ukraine’s War Is Very Murky

What is the morally preferable course of action in Ukraine? At first glance, it seems obvious. Ukraine is the victim of an illegal war, its territory is occupied, its citizens have suffered mightily at the hands of the invader, and its adversary is an autocratic regime with any number of unsavory qualities. Strategic calculations aside, surely the proper moral course is to back Ukraine to the hilt. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a gathering at the Yalta European Strategy meeting in Kyiv this month: “When we are talking about this war, we are always talking about morality.” Not surprisingly, he conveyed the same message when he visited Washington this week.

If only the moral calculus were that simple.

Ever since the war began, those who favor giving Ukraine “whatever it takes” for as long as it takes have sought to portray the war in the usual U.S. fashion: as a straightforward contest between good and evil. In their telling, Russia is solely to blame for the war, and Western policy had absolutely nothing to do with the resulting tragedy. They portray Ukraine as a struggling but plucky democracy that has been brutally attacked by a corrupt, imperialist dictatorship. They see the moral stakes as nearly infinite, because the outcome of the war will supposedly have a far-reaching impact on the future of democracy, the fate of Taiwan, the preservation of a rules-based order, etc. Not surprisingly, they are quick to condemn anyone who challenges this view as a naïve appeaser, a Russian lackey, or someone lacking any sense of moral judgment.

None of these claims should be accepted without qualification. There’s no question Russia started the war and deserves to be condemned for it, but the claim that Western policy had nothing to do with it is risible, as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently acknowledged. Yes, Ukraine is a democracy, but also one that still contains some unsavory elements, even if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s depiction of it as a “Nazi regime” is grossly exaggerated. The suggestion that the outcome of this conflict will have a profound impact around the world is even less convincing: The Korean War ended in a stalemate and negotiated armistice and the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were clear U.S. defeats, but the geopolitical consequences of these failures were mostly local; this is likely to be true in Ukraine, whatever the ultimate outcome. The same is true in reverse, by the way: The West’s overwhelming victory in the first Gulf War and Serbia’s defeat in the Kosovo War didn’t spark an enduring democratic renaissance. Democracy is in trouble in many places—including the United States—but military setbacks abroad are not the main reason, and a decisive Ukrainian victory wouldn’t restore the U.S. Republican Party to sanity or make France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orban abandon their illiberal political programs.

Even so, it’s understandable why almost everyone in the West—including me—thinks the moral case favors Ukraine. Whatever Moscow’s prewar fears or grievances may have been, Russia did start an illegal preventive war. This fact doesn’t make Russia uniquely evil (Operation Iraqi Freedom, anyone?), but Ukraine is still the victim here. Russia has deliberately attacked civilian targets and committed other war crimes on a scale that greatly exceeds Ukraine’s own violations of the laws of war (although the U.S. decision to give Kyiv cluster munitions muddies this picture somewhat). It is hard to see a lot of moral virtue in a Russian regime that poisons exiles and rejects key human rights principles, and in which opposition figures fall from high windows or suffer other fatal “accidents” with statistically improbable frequency. These and other features go a long way to explaining why most of us feel genuine sympathy for Ukraine and would like Kyiv to win.

What’s missing in this view, however, is an acknowledgement that the morality of a given policy also depends on the potential costs of different courses of action and the likelihoods of success of each one. If we are talking about human lives, we must look beyond abstract principles and consider the real-world consequences of different choices. It’s not enough to proclaim that the good guys must win; one must also think seriously about what it will cost to produce that outcome and whether it can in fact be achieved. Although there is no way to be 100-percent certain about either the likely costs or the probability of success, refusing even to consider these features is an abdication of moral responsibility. (For a rare attempt to perform the kind of analysis I’m advocating, see a RAND Corporation report here.)

The long war in Afghanistan offers a telling illustration of this problem. Although a few observers hoped the Taliban might have moderated its views over time, nearly everyone understood that a Taliban victory would be a moral calamity for most Afghans, and especially for Afghan women. Those of us who favored a U.S. withdrawal did so not because we were indifferent to Afghan suffering, but because we believed that staying longer would not alter the eventual outcome in any significant way. Those who wanted to stay the course kept insisting that NATO and its Afghan government partners were “turning the corner” and that another year or two or three would eventually yield a victory; but they never identified a plausible strategy for achieving that aim (and internal assessments were much more pessimistic). Whatever the United States’ original intentions may have been, the lives of Afghans who died while Washington was busily kicking the can down the road were lost to no good purpose.

I fear something similar is now occurring in Ukraine. The moral case for pursuing peace—even if the prospects are unlikely and the results are not what we’d prefer—lies in recognizing that the war is destroying the country and that the longer it lasts the more extensive and enduring the damage will be. Unfortunately for Ukraine, anyone who points this out and offers a serious alternative is likely to be loudly and harshly condemned and almost certain to be ignored by the relevant political leaders.

Those who believe the long-term answer is to send Ukraine more advanced weapons and get it into NATO and the European Union as quickly as possible—as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman opined last weekend—have it exactly backwards. Putin went to war primarily to foreclose this possibility, and he’ll continue the war either to prevent it from happening or to ensure that whatever remains of Ukraine is of little value. It makes sense to give Ukraine enough support that Russia cannot dictate a peace, but that support should be tied to a serious effort to bring the war to a close.

Hardliners have an obvious reply to these arguments, of course. “Ukraine wants to keep fighting,” they insist—correctly, “and we should therefore give them whatever they need.” Ukraine’s resolve has been extraordinary, and its desires should not be dismissed lightly, but this argument is not decisive. If a friend wants to do something you think is ill-advised or dangerous, you are under no moral obligation to aid their efforts no matter how strongly committed they may be. On the contrary, you’d be morally culpable if you helped them act as they wished and the result was disastrous.

Of course, these moral tradeoffs diminish if you believe Ukraine can win at an acceptable cost and that this outcome will have a profound positive impact around the world. As noted above, this is the war party’s central argument. Given the disappointing (if not disastrous) results of Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive, however, that position is getting harder to defend. Hardliners now hope that more advanced weaponry (Army Tactical Missile Systems [ATACMS], F-16 aircraft, M-1 rifles, hordes of drones, etc.) will tip the balance in Ukraine’s favor. Or they speculate that Russia is running out of reserves and will soon be on the ropes. I hope they are right, but it is telling that these hawks are mostly silent on the issue of Ukraine’s own losses. To be specific: How many Ukrainians have been killed or wounded, and how long can Kyiv continue to replace them? This issue is vital to any attempt to assess Ukraine’s prospects, but reliable information on it is almost impossible to obtain.

Even today, none of us knows for certain how the rest of the war will unfold. Our collective ignorance suggests that all participants in these debates should show a bit more humility. It’s possible I’m underestimating Kyiv’s chances and the negative consequences of a negotiated deal. If I turn out to be wrong, I’ll be happy to admit it and will take considerable solace from Ukraine’s success. But I wish hardliners would acknowledge that their uncompromising approach to the war could do more harm to Ukraine in the long run. Not because that is what hardliners want, but because that is what their policy recommendations may produce.

One last point to bear in mind. If you’re still eager to assign moral responsibility for the war, it doesn’t lie with those of us who warned about the dangers of open-ended NATO expansion, cautioned about the risks of interfering too openly in Ukraine’s internal politics, and argued that ill-considered efforts to arm Ukraine might backfire. Putin is responsible for starting the war and for how Russia has waged it, but some of the blame for this tragedy lies with those in the West who rejected all those earlier warnings about where their policies might lead. Given that many of these same people are among the loudest voices calling to continue the war, raise the stakes, and increase Western support, one is entitled to wonder whether their advice will do as much harm to Ukraine today as it did in the past.

Correction, Sept. 22, 2023: A previous version of this article misidentified the location of Zelensky’s speech at the Yalta European Strategy meeting.