If I have learned anything from the war in Ukraine, it is that national security professionals love the word “risk.” They talk about managing risk, escalation risk, and the risk of miscalculation. But if you poll them, you might hear dozens of different definitions of what “risk” means. Given the crucial role that risk perception played in shaping policies when it comes to the war in Ukraine, it merits some consideration.
This essay will argue that conflicting understandings of risk led to sub-optimal outcomes in Ukraine, and to achieve better outcomes, allies and partners must establish a common understanding of risk perceptions and conduct deliberate risk management.
What is Risk?
Definitions of risk vary according to what dictionary you reference or what industry you are in, but all definitions centre around the probability of impact on a thing that is valued. Bear with me for one paragraph, because I am going to use a hockey metaphor to help explain how key actors got risk so wrong when it came to Ukraine. Three aspects of risk must be considered: probability, impact, and value.
Probability underlies the concept of risk. Probability must look at both, “if A, then how likely is B?” and “If not A, then how likely is C?” For example, Wayne Gretzky might think, “If I pass the puck (A), there’s a 50% chance it will be stolen (B).” Conversely, “If I don’t pass (not A), there is a 30% chance someone will check me (C).” Probability only becomes risk when joined with impact on a thing that is valued. If we look at probability alone, Gretzky should not pass because there is a high likelihood of the puck being stolen and a low likelihood that he will be checked. But what if his team is up 5-0, they have made the playoffs, and there are 30 seconds left in the game? This is where impact and value come in. Gretzky’s team needs him in the playoffs, but if he gets hurt, he might not be able to play. In this case, even though the probability of a negative outcome of passing is high, its impact on a thing that is valued is low. When you put probability, impact, and value together, you determine that he should pass the puck.
Fundamental Misreadings
Unlike in hockey, foreign policy does not have proscribed rules that determine who wins. A country’s objectives will be derived from its values. Thus, how a country values a thing is central to how it perceives risk. Throughout this conflict, actors fundamentally misread each other’s values, leading to conflicting assumptions about probability and risk. The United States misread others’ risk tolerances as a result of US national security professionals’ tendency to project American values onto others. As Roberta Wohlstetter noted in her seminal work, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision:
“What we miscalculated was the ability and willingness of the Japanese to accept such risks […] American decisionmakers, it has been noted, were rather poor at imagining Japanese intentions and Japanese values.”[1]
This American shortcoming when imagining others’ intentions and values persists today. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to use military force.[2] Despite this pattern of risk acceptance, the US foreign policy establishment did not seriously prepare for the possibility that Russia would conduct a full-scale invasion of Ukraine because doing so seemed too risky when judged by US standards. Since World War II, the United States has demonstrated a repeated willingness to use military force. However, it has done so from a position of overwhelming military advantage, and at no point since World Waw II has the continued survival of the United States been at threat from conventional military attack. Thus, while US willingness to use force is high, its risk tolerance in military actions remains low.
Misjudging Russia, Ukraine, and NATO
Even after Russia accepted the high risk of invading, the United States continued to under-estimate Russian pain tolerance while over-estimating its willingness to use nuclear weapons. Because U.S. foreign policy practitioners historically value international opinion and US voters react negatively to economic stress or military casualties, US policy makers falsely and repeatedly assumed that putting diplomatic pressure on Russia or causing them economic or military pain would force them to capitulate.
This approach failed to appreciate the value Russians place on their own willingness to tolerate hardship. Conversely, Russian leadership values its own survival, and it relies heavily on nuclear weapons as a last resort to ensure survival. US failure to understand these two Russian values of tolerating hardship and preserving the regime led US policy makers to falsely believe that merely causing pain could lead Russia to capitulate in Ukraine, while simultaneously assuming that Russia would be willing to use its nuclear trump card for battlefield purposes (as opposed to saving these weapons to ensure regime survival).
Just as the United States misjudged Russia’s willingness to invade, it also misjudged Ukraine’s will to fight. This was due in part to a comparison of Russian and Ukrainian military capabilities, but it was also due to a failure to understand Ukrainian values. Following the Cold War, the small cohort of experts in the United States focusing on the former Soviet space viewed Russia as the inheritor of the Soviet legacy. As a result, US foreign policy viewed nations in Russia’s periphery primarily through the lens of how they related to Russia. This oversimplification fed faulty narratives that Ukrainians who spoke Russian would be unlikely to fight for Ukraine.
Finally, the war in Ukraine laid bare the differing values of NATO nations. While degrees vary, there are two camps: one camp primarily values NATO as a provider of peace via the US nuclear umbrella, and the second sees NATO membership as a guarantor of democratic freedom. This variance was exacerbated in the post-Soviet era. To gain support in its fight against terrorism after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the United States pushed the NATO door open wider. Even as nations joined NATO due to a deep distrust of Moscow, for most of the post-Cold War era, western European nations and the United States dismissed these fears and instead sought improved ties with Russia. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the brazenness of Russia’s attack led the peace and freedom camps within NATO to unite. However, as the war continued, cracks in this unity began to appear as the ‘freedom’ camp demonstrated a high willingness to accept risk in order to help Ukraine fight Russia, while the ‘peace’ camp was more cautious.
Which brings us to today. US projection of its own values on others led it to underestimate Russian willingness to invade Ukraine, Ukrainian willingness to resist, and Russian willingness to tolerate casualties and economic suffering, while simultaneously overestimating Russian willingness to escalate to nuclear use. NATO’s failure to address the disparate values of its members—peace vs freedom—leaves the alliance in a position where it may struggle to preserve either.
What Shall We Do?
As negotiations continue in fits and starts and the frontline remains hot, what are national security professionals to do?
First, to truly understand the risks, one must return to initial assumptions and see whether they remain valid. Be honest about what values are at stake and establish a set of objectives that will protect those values. Through that lens, nations should assess the probability of impacts on those objectives as a result of both action and inaction. Second, once the probability of impact on values (i.e., the risk) of action and inaction are understood, national security professionals should develop strategies to mitigate as much risk as possible.
Finally, and perhaps most forgotten or avoided, they must make a choice to accept whatever risk remains, for there is risk both in taking action and in doing nothing. You pass the puck and risk getting it stolen, or you keep the puck and risk getting hit. The risk you choose to accept in the end comes back to the probability of impact on a thing that is valued. If it comes down to the peace or freedom camps, national security professionals might recall Benjamin Franklin’s observation in 1755 that, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
[1] Wohlstetter, Roberta. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision. P. 354. Emphasis mine.
[2] It prosecuted two wars against Chechnya in the 1990s-2000s and deployed soldiers to the Pristina airport in Kosovo in 1999 to confront an approaching NATO-led peacekeeping force. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, sent troops to Syria in 2015, and conducted its initial quasi-covert invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
This article was written for the Lennart Meri Conference special issue of ICDS Diplomaatia magazine. Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).