Focus Area
Ukraine and Restoring American Deterrence
Why Ukraine is the priority
Russia's invasion was not just a violation of law. It was a direct test of Western credibility and American deterrence. Years into the war, Russia has learned that incremental conquest can be attempted at tolerable cost. That lesson invites more aggression elsewhere. Ukraine has shown exceptional resolve, innovation, and capability under pressure. The U.S. should treat Ukraine as a serious partner in modern warfare and in restoring deterrence.
What winning means
Ukraine wins when Russia can no longer gain meaningful territory or coerce Ukraine through air and missile terror. Winning means a stable, defensible front, protected airspace, and a battlefield reality where additional aggression becomes prohibitively expensive and strategically pointless. Only then does Russia settle and is discouraged from starting new wars.
What U.S. policy must change
The U.S. should close the material gap that keeps the war in a grinding equilibrium. That means moving capable inventory faster, delivering what is already funded, scaling co-production where appropriate, and enforcing economic pressure that reduces Russia's ability to sustain war. This is not charity and not open-ended. It is a defined effort to restore deterrence at the lowest long-term cost.
The battlefield reality
The battlefield is in a hard balance. Russia advances only in small increments and at steep cost, while Ukraine holds a long front through courage, skill, and rapid adaptation. But the balance is not stable by default. Russia's advantage is resources. Ukraine's advantage is performance. The objective is to shift the balance by increasing Ukraine's sustained combat power and replenishment tempo.
- This is an endurance and replenishment war. The decisive factor is who can replace drones, munitions, and damaged systems faster and keep units supplied
- Russia's approach is attrition. It trades high losses for marginal gains, betting its reserves can outlast Ukraine and Western resolve
- Ukraine's edge is adaptation speed. Rapid iteration, training, and battlefield-driven upgrades blunt larger assaults until supply runs thin
- Drones set the daily tempo. Recon, targeting, and strike at scale shape movement and force dispersion
- Electronic warfare is constant. Jamming and spoofing decide what connects, navigates, and survives
- Air defense is the backbone of endurance. It protects people, logistics, and infrastructure and preserves operational freedom
- Fires and counter-fires drive outcomes. Speed from detection to strike and the ability to relocate matter more than any single system
- ISR-to-strike integration wins minutes that save lives. Shortening the sensor-to-shooter loop is decisive in an EW-saturated fight
- Maintenance, spares, and repair are frontline capabilities. Without them, deliveries become short-lived headlines instead of sustained combat power
What Ukraine needs now
Ukraine does not need a wonder weapon. It needs a sustained package that raises survivability, strike capacity, and replenishment speed under constant electronic warfare pressure. These are category-level needs, safe to share, focused on what shifts the balance in an endurance war.
Integrated air and missile defense
- Area defense and point defense for cities, logistics hubs, and frontline nodes
- Counter-drone coverage and intercept capacity
- Interceptor stocks, spares, and maintenance throughput
Drones at scale
- Recon and spotting drones that are durable and high-volume
- Strike systems including loitering munitions and one-way drones
- Longer endurance ISR where appropriate
- Counter-drone stack including detection and defeat
EW resilience and spectrum advantage
- Hardened communications with redundancy and frequency agility
- Anti-jam and anti-spoof navigation options and procedures
- Rapid reconfiguration and field diagnostics
Precision fires and scalable munitions
- Reliable supply of precision munitions and launch capacity
- Range diversity for near, medium, and deeper effects
- Sustainment for launchers, tubes, and fire control systems
ISR-to-strike pipeline
- Sensors that perform through EW and poor weather
- Fast processing and dissemination to shorten kill chains
- Integration across units and domains
Counter-battery and force protection
- Rapid detection of enemy fires and rapid response
- Mobility, decoys, and dispersion support
- Camouflage and signature reduction
Sustainment, repair, and logistics survivability
- Spares, batteries, engines, and replacement components
- Field repair capacity and technician training
- Protected logistics, redundancy, and rapid turnaround
Training and force regeneration
- Operator pipelines for drones, EW, air defense, and targeting
- Leader and NCO development for adaptation-speed warfare
- Standardization that shortens time to field for new capability
U.S. policy levers
Treat Ukraine as a partner and close the material gap fast. Support should be reciprocal. Ukraine contributes real-world learning and innovation. The U.S. contributes the scale and tempo that turn battlefield effectiveness into decisive advantage.
Partner posture
- Build structured channels to pull battlefield lessons back into U.S. force design, training, and procurement
- Expand co-production and sustainment tied to proven Ukrainian units and manufacturers
- Bridge the gap without creating permanent dependency
Deliver what is already authorized
- Use existing authorities to move capability at operational speed
- Accelerate delivery of already-funded procurement from prior USAI contracting
- Prioritize what matters now, especially air defense sustainment, drones, munitions, EW resilience, and repair
Move usable U.S. inventory faster
- Shift older, releasable equipment the U.S. can replace while strengthening Ukraine
- Pair transfers with sustainment so deliveries become lasting combat power
- Focus on items Ukraine can field quickly and sustain under EW and attrition
Scale industrial mobilization and co-production
- Scale proven systems at volume
- Build surge capacity for munitions, drones, repair, and spares
- Use non-sensitive pathways where lawful and protect truly sensitive technology
Economic pressure that bites
- Enforcement is the main event. Disrupt evasion and penalize intermediaries
- Target revenue and resupply networks that keep Russia's war economy running
- Make Russia pay where possible by pursuing lawful mechanisms to direct immobilized Russian assets toward Ukraine
Risk and escalation
The biggest escalation risk is letting aggression succeed. When Russia can gain territory at acceptable cost, it learns that force works and comes back for more. De-escalation comes from strength and credible resistance, not slogans. If we repeat the mistake of under-resistance while withholding capabilities that change battlefield outcomes, we do not get stability. We get a longer war now and higher-risk conflict later.
Key points
- Measured strength reduces risk because it makes Russia's attrition strategy fail faster
- Ambiguity invites escalation because it signals that time is on the aggressor's side
- Peace through strength works when costs reliably outweigh gains
How this prevents a wider war
This is America First deterrence in practice. A world where authoritarian conquest succeeds is more dangerous and more expensive for the United States. Ukraine is the live test case for selective, interest-driven engagement. The U.S. does not need to police the world. It does need to stop precedents that make major wars more likely.
Why this matters to U.S. national interests
- It raises the cost of aggression globally by proving wars of conquest do not pay
- It reduces the odds of a larger, costlier conflict later
- It strengthens U.S. industrial and military advantage through production, learning, and co-development
Doctrine tie-back
- Selective engagement where deterrence is at stake
- Partnerships that build durable capacity, not dependency
- Capability over rhetoric
What PTSI is doing on Ukraine
- Publishing decision-grade briefs for policymakers and media
- Briefing stakeholders on battlefield dynamics, capability priorities, and execution bottlenecks at a public-safe level
- Convening practitioners to capture ground truth lessons and translate them into actionable policy
- Advocating specific, affordable actions that increase Ukraine's sustained combat power and reduce long-term U.S. risk
- Building a coalition focused on measurable outcomes, speed, scale, and deterrence impact
We focus on practical steps that change outcomes without publishing sensitive details or operational playbooks.