RAND Corporation Report, 2019, "Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground"
--This report examines a range of possible means to extend Russia. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia's economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them — ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain options).
...Geopolitical Measures
Measure 1: Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine...
Benefits
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Rus- sian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.----
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html
RAND Corporation Report, 2019, "Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground"
--This report examines a range of possible means to extend Russia. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia's economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them — ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain options).
...Geopolitical Measures
Measure 1: Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine...
Benefits
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Rus- sian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.----