NATO, Imperial Logic, or a Failure of Deterrence: American Expert Assesses Why Russia Attacked Ukraine

American security expert Jennifer Kavanagh stated that the United States and Europe did not make significant efforts to deter Russia from invading Ukraine because they were not prepared to fight for it, Politeka reports.

She spoke about this on the program “Dialogues” with Ruslan Bortnyk.

“Of course, there is an imperial logic here: Putin saw Ukraine as part of Russia; he wants to recreate the Soviet Union. So I do not dismiss that. However, I strongly disagree that this was a failure of deterrence, because I’m not sure that Europe and the United States actually tried to deter Russia from invading Ukraine,” Jennifer Kavanagh argues.

In the guest’s view, such a position was not established, and there was no such intention in part because the United States and Europe were not ready to fight for Ukraine. Therefore, she concludes, the Russian-Ukrainian war was not the result of a failure to deter Russia, because if the United States and Europe had truly wanted to deter the aggressor from invading, they would have acted very differently.

The expert also recalls 2021, when Putin put forward a number of unfounded demands regarding NATO, and the Biden administration immediately rejected them and said it would not even discuss them. According to her, it is difficult to say what might have happened if the Biden administration had chosen a different approach at the time—if it had explained that it disagreed with all of this and would not make concessions on all the demands, but was ready to talk and prepared to make serious efforts toward de-escalation.

“I think that by slamming the door in Russia’s face, they worsened the situation. And I’m not saying that only one side is to blame—that the West is guilty and Russia is not. But I believe there were opportunities for diplomacy that were lost right on the eve of the war,” Jennifer Kavanagh emphasized.

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