Far from achieving the farcical goal of evacuating NATO from Eastern Europe, Russia’s conquest of Ukraine would likely spur renewed defense spending and force deployment in Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and the Baltic states in particular. It could even trigger renewed and more serious discussions about Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Instead of helping break Moscow out of what it perceives as its encirclement by NATO, invasion of Ukraine could instead accelerate it. If Putin maintains that NATO expansion is unnecessary because Russia is not a threat, there’s no action he could possibly take to obliterate that argument than to invade Ukraine.

The Biden administration is also preparing to deploy what Edward Alden at Foreign Policy calls the “sanctions doomsday device,” or what Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) calls “the mother of all sanctions”. These could deny Russia access to U.S. dollars and to markets in critical areas like semiconductors. While Moscow could respond by cutting off supplies of natural gas to Europe, thus triggering economic mayhem, in the long term countries dependent on Russian supplies would invest in technological innovation, seek more sustainable power sources, and make other adjustments as countries in the West did in response to the Arab oil embargoes of the 1970s. Russia is unlikely to come out ahead. Even a limited invasion of Ukraine would likely result in a contest to see who can suffer more economic pain — an outcome, needless to say, that benefits no one.