/ world today news/ Interview of the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army, General Mark Milley, for Foreign Affairs magazine: “How to avoid a great power war”.
DAN KURZ-FELAN
Let’s jump straight to the topic that has no doubt dominated most of your senior year and will dominate the next five months. What do you expect from the likely Ukrainian offensive in the coming weeks and what will be the path from a successful offensive to a negotiated outcome of this war?
GENERAL MARK MEELEY
I don’t want to speculate on the subject of a specific offensive whether it will happen or not. What I will say is that in the last few months Ukrainians have been asking us for help, military help, help us, train us, give equipment and equipment to our armed forces. In particular, about nine brigades, all-army and mechanized. There are also a few light infantry units, sort of like rangers, that we’ve also helped train. And I say that we – I mean NATO, all the European partners, we did it.
So, I would tell you that the Ukrainians currently have the ability to attack, they can conduct offensive operations and they also have the ability to defend themselves, they have a vastly improved military strength compared to what they had just a year ago. So I think their capabilities have increased significantly. Now they can either attack or defend. So I don’t want to speculate whether or not they may or may not launch an offensive operation in the coming weeks. It will depend on them. They have a significant amount of planning and coordination that needs to be done if they are going to launch an offensive operation. But, I repeat, they are ready to attack or defend.
DAN KURZ-FELAN
And the path from there to the agreed result? You have emphasized again and again the need to end this war through negotiations, as have President Biden, President Zelensky, and many others. How can we achieve this, given assessments by senior US government officials that Putin is not exactly in the mood for negotiations right now?
GENERAL MARK MEELEY
I would say a few things. First, all wars end sooner or later, and the question is how they actually end. And in that case do you know how the war can start? War is the imposition of your political will on the enemy through organized violence. And wars happen when diplomacy fails.
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On the Ukrainian side, the Ukrainians launched two consecutive offensives around August. One counteroffensive was in the Kharkov region, after which they crossed the river. They then launched a counter-offensive in the Kherson region and were very successful in this. So they launched two very successful counter-offensives in which they forced the Russians to retreat, closed their positions and rebuilt their defenses. And then winter came. And in the winter, despite the fact that there was a lot of fighting, almost in the style of the First World War, very few significant areas of the territory passed from one hand to another, with the exception, perhaps, of Bakhmut.
So you actually have a front line situation that stretches from, I don’t know if it was here, probably from Washington to Atlanta, something like that. This is quite complicated. And this front line does not change hands. In fact, the situation is at an impasse.
And then the Ukrainians asked us for help in building up their armed forces, so that in any case they could conduct offensive actions with a combined maneuver with heavy forces and mechanized infantry. We have done it, but we have yet to see where it will lead. But I won’t discuss it in this form, so we’ll see.
The question then becomes how will it end? Let’s just say for the sake of argument that an offensive is coming. And now we are dealing with probabilities and speculation, which is always dangerous. But I think it’s fair to say that if there had been an offensive, there might have been different results.
It is obvious that one of these results could lead to significant successes and the destruction of the Russian front line in all directions. And this has happened before in previous wars – for example in the First World War. So there is such a possibility. There is still a chance for partial success. But there’s also a chance it won’t succeed.
So these are all ranges of the result if there was an offensive operation. Then the opposite is also true – maybe the Ukrainians will conduct a defensive operation, and the Russians will have a big problem with organizing an offensive operation.
But I think the likelihood that either side will achieve their political goals, and the war is about politics only through the use of military means – I think it will be very difficult, very challenging. And frankly, I don’t think it’s possible to end this year. But I think the Russians suffered a lot. They suffered many losses. Their economy has suffered significant damage. At least their ground forces were seriously damaged.
And I think rational people, as part of the decision-making process in Russia, will come to the conclusion, I think in a month, a year or two, they’ll come to the conclusion that the cost outweighs the benefit, and that’s going to be the time to do something at least in terms of negotiations. Maybe now is not the time – I can’t read minds.
I don’t know when Putin will be ready to do it, but at some point, if he is rational, he should. He could do it tonight, he could end the war tonight. Of course, there are political constraints inherent in Russian politics.
DAN KURZ-FELAN
If we look back a year, it would seem that we were all thinking a lot about the risks of escalation, including the risks of nuclear escalation. But it doesn’t occur to most of us now – maybe we’re lying to ourselves, but what do you think about managing the risk of escalation in this context and how does that affect our aid, our advice to the Ukrainians or our overall approach to the conflict?
GENERAL MARK MEELEY
Well, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest not to escalate the situation. Russia does not want war with NATO or the United States, and NATO and the United States do not want war with Russia. So, in this respect, it is in everyone’s interest, and Ukraine, of course, does not want a war of such a scale on its territory. So it is in everyone’s interest not to escalate the situation. But in saying that, I want to emphasize that the possibility of escalation is very real. Wars are very emotional; they carry a tremendous amount of fear, there is pride, there is interest, as Thucydides would tell us. And all this happens at the same time, with varying degrees of participation. Therefore, the possibility of escalation is always there.
Every day we always — whatever actions we take or whatever actions we see the Russians take, we always calculate the possibility of escalation. Why? Because the consequences of escalation are so severe, and the consequences of an armed conflict between the United States and Russia, or any NATO country and Russia, would be extremely devastating for both sides. So it is in everyone’s interest that this not happen. We always calculate it and we are always aware of each step and the possibility of escalation and we manage it as carefully as possible.
DAN KURZ-FELAN
If it was a great power war 18 months ago, we would have focused on China. One thing that has stood out over the past year or so is the growing closeness between Russia and China. I’m curious how you see that relationship, what’s your assessment of that relationship, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine, looking at what Xi Jinping wants to achieve in terms of the war. And then, is there anything you think the US can do to prevent this from becoming a permanent feature of the international security landscape?
GENERAL MARK MEELEY
Unlike the Cold War, there are now three major powers in the world: the US, China and Russia. They all have significant primary power potential in their populations, their economies and of course their military forces. All three have significant nuclear arsenals. So, the United States is the most powerful by all criteria. But having said that, Russia and China are also quite powerful. Therefore, it is not in the interest of the US, Russia and China to form a strategic military alliance, and we must do everything possible to prevent this from happening.
But three is going to be harder than two, when the Cold War relationship was between the Soviet Union and the United States, you know, and there were other forces revolving around each of those two countries. But it was still a bipolar world, although I admit there were other forces at play. Today we live in a tripolar world, so three is harder than two and these relationships are very difficult to manage.
So what we have to be aware of and be careful about is not bringing China and Russia together in a military sense. There will be relations between countries, so competition is not an issue here. The problem is with conflict and war. So we want to make sure that Russia and China don’t form some kind of geostrategic, political, military alliance against the United States. There are signs that China and Russia are getting closer to each other. I would say they should be watched very, very carefully…
DAN KURZ-FELAN
But this is not yet the geostrategic military alliance we should feel.
GENERAL MARK MEELEY
I wouldn’t say that’s it for now. He can still develop into it. But we have seen some economic assistance, but not strong in terms of the military component of it. Whatever joint exercises they do, they are small, relatively unimportant. I mean, they’re not entirely without consequences, but they’re not large-scale joint military exercises.
In terms of military support and especially lethal support for Russia, there has been nothing really significant so far. The Russians, of course, asked and continue to ask many countries for ammunition, etc. But there is an example of relations – the military relations, for example, of Iran and Russia – this is not good for us at all.
But with China, everything was very, very modest. As for President Xi, I would say that he is a very tough person, a tough, perfect realist. The Chinese Communist Party is very ruthless, very ruthless; but they are very realistic in the sense that they are fully aware of the costs, benefits and risks and also do not want direct armed conflict with the United States.
They recognize, the Chinese recognize how powerful the United States is. Despite the fact that different people may speak there, the Chinese are fully aware of how powerful the United States is. And therefore they also do not seek this kind of armed conflict. They want to achieve their national goals, but they actually want to do it without armed conflict.
So we’ll see where that goes, but we don’t yet see a full-fledged, really cemented, long-term, sustainable geopolitical alliance between China and Russia. Could this happen in the future? It is possible and we should be careful about it and we should do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Translation: EU
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