Supporting Ukraine against Russia is not a distraction from China

An idea has taken root, especially among Republicans, that since China is now the main security challenge America faces, America’s costly support for Ukraine against Russia is a distraction from dealing effectively with the challenge posed by Beijing.

However, since China and Russia are so closely aligned, thwarting Russian ambitions in Ukraine and elsewhere is a crucial element of the U.S. effort to contain China.

President-elect Trump’s designated national security adviser, Michael Waltz, co-authored an essay in The Economist published just before the November 5 election stating that “American munitions and defense production are aiding Ukraine instead of deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.”

But if China is considered a greater threat than Russia, then it must be recognized that China is not just a threat in the Indo-Pacific, but worldwide. Part and parcel of that overall threat is the threat posed by any state closely aligned with Beijing, especially since Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping describe their relationship as a “no limits partnership." We should take them at their word that they consider themselves to be closely aligned.

Although Chinese troops are not fighting in Ukraine and Beijing has not been overtly sending arms to Russia, China has provided crucial support for Putin’s war effort. This includes buying massive quantities of Western-sanctioned Russian petroleum (albeit at a discount), exporting not just “dual-use” but specifically military technologies to Russia and supporting Russia diplomatically.

If all this Chinese support were to end, and Beijing to insist that Putin end his war against Kyiv, the Russian military effort against Ukraine would become far more difficult for Putin to sustain than it now is.

China, however, is not going to do this. Beijing, it is true, benefits from the U.S. and other Western states on the one hand and Russia on the other hand focusing on each other and not on China.

Yet if the incoming Trump administration is willing to end the war on terms that are grossly unfavorable to Ukraine, Putin is not likely to suddenly join with Trump in containing Beijing. Instead, Russia, China, North Korea and others might conclude that if Trump is no longer willing to arm Ukraine, then he will not be willing to arm other states under attack — much less send American troops to defend them.

Weitz and his co-author Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council laid out the logic of why this axis might think this way in their Economist essay where they wrote, “American generals testify that the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan contributed to Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.” Why wouldn’t a Trump administration decision to reduce or end American support for Ukraine not have a similar impact on not just Russia, but China, North Korea, and Iran as well?

The desire to focus more on China by reducing Washington’s focus on Russia and other adversaries is understandable but unrealistic. Focusing less on Russia and others is only going to encourage them in their aggression — as well as provide China with a powerful incentive to support them in it.

U.S. willingness to end the Russia-Ukraine war on terms unfavorable to Ukraine, then, will not allow the U.S. to focus more on China. Instead, the U.S. may end up in the far more difficult situation of having to respond to simultaneous aggression on the part of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

Putin in particular might calculate that if the U.S. was not willing to continue supporting a large country like Ukraine that has been willing to defend itself, maybe it won’t do much to defend a smaller European country that is less able to do so — even if it is a NATO member. Indeed, Putin might decide that the best way to break up NATO is to attack a member that America and others are simply not prepared to undertake losses themselves for.

Just as discouraging, some of America’s authoritarian as well as illiberal democratic allies may decide that they would be better off siding with one of these adversaries against America and its other allies, or simply taking advantage of increased conflict elsewhere to pursue their own aggressive aims.

While the incoming administration might want to focus on the threat from China, the fact that the U.S. faces several threats means that it cannot ignore any of them — or the prospect that doing so will only encourage others, including China.

Mark N. Katz is a professor emeritus at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government, a global fellow at the Wilson Center and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.