Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine is testing the Trump Administration’s strategy of providing defensive support to Ukraine without allowing the country to go on the offense. The approach—porigninated by the Biden Administration—is intended to deter aggression while avoiding escalation. John Lenczowksi of the Institute of World Politics says that while Ukraine is suffering, the conflict will inevitably land in Ukraine’s favor as long as the truth about Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s democratic aspirations come out.
Lenczowksi, who founded and leads the Institute, served in the Reagan administration, including at the State Department before becoming the president’s advisor on Soviet affairs at the National Security Council. His independent graduate school focuses on “the arts of statecraft”—from intelligence and counterintelligence to diplomacy, strategic influence, and economic strategy.
Lenczowksi says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “was no surprise at all.” He cites early post-Soviet doctrine that claims a right to intervene wherever Russian speakers face persecution, as defined by Russia, and cites decades of “active measures” by Russia—disinformation, forgeries, and covert influence—targeted at Ukraine and its neighbors.
Washington should widen the aperture beyond hardware, according to Lenczowksi. “We have a very materialistic foreign policy culture,” he says. “If it isn’t guns and money … it’s just not strategically important.” He presses for full-spectrum political warfare, saying that telling the truth about Russia and its activities is “one of the most powerful things that can be done.”
He argues that “rhetoric and semantics” can build domestic and international consensus for Ukraine over Russia. This approach to information operations can “anathematize the aggressor,” Lenczowksi says, isolating Putin from his population and exacerbating splits among Russian oligarchs.
Recent shifts in U.S. policy strike Lenczowksi as important. He calls consideration by the Trump Administration of more support for Ukraine as “a 180-degree turn” and says the United States should consider longer-range systems and deeper intelligence cooperation. “It is a very significant thing,” he says. Still, he acknowledges the dilemma posed by striking energy infrastructure, for example, when the impact will be to damage civilian lifelines. He makes clear that Putin is conducting “a terrorist war” by “attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure” in Ukraine.
Lenczowksi “feels ambivalent” about sanctions and warns against secondary penalties that harm friendly nations. He prefers “bruising the Russian aggressors with long-range strikes,” as well as “deprivation of their energy supplies” paired with relentless information and psychological operations.
He points to the Cold War model. “The Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty were the most powerful weapons we possessed,” he says. Drawdowns of America’s communications apparatus has left “an open field” for Kremlin brainwashing, in his view.
But, Lenczowksi points to Russian vulnerabilities that Ukraine and the West can exploit. “The number-three army in the world is stuck in a stalemate with the number 23,” he says. He argues that Moscow increasingly relies on convicts and minority communities while avoiding losses among Slavic Russians.
Lenczowksi says Kyiv needs to work on psychological warfare against the aggressor troops, who he says “have no serious motivation to fight.” By comparison, he says, “Ukrainians have motivation.”
He separates tactical communications efforts such as leaflet drops from more strategic operations that “change the psychology of the entire population,” and he recalls how truth and moral witness helped the Solidarity and the Baltic movements erode Soviet control. “The truth is the most powerful weapon,” Lenczowksi says. The current problem in his view is that, “we don’t use it.”
