All these national security ‘experts’ saying that we need to provide “strategic ambiguity“ at a time like this, cannot be trusted with the safety of the American people. This is a time for clarity and transparency to prevent World War III. Period.
Biden gets it.
This is not a game.
If you hear an expert saying that Joe Biden should stop saying what he will not do, run in the other direction. Biden is doing exactly what he should be doing by saying what he will not do.
The analog is not World War II. The analog is World War I. The world stumbled into war by being nearsighted and failing to see the dangers. Biden understands that we must not do that.
This is a time for wisdom, not brinkmanship.
Please share widely!
When your enemy is hanging himself, get out of the way:
I’m increasingly supportive of a no-fly zone. Yes, I know what enforcement means, but Russian planes are the ones flying where they are not welcome to begin with. Saying the enforcers of the no-fly are the ones committing the act of war is about as ridiculous as blaming the North for starting the Civil War when all they were doing was resupplying Ft. Sumter which location notwithstanding still rightly belonged to the Feds.
WHAT? You have said elsewhere that you don’t want WWWIII.
Your comment is terrifying. Neither the north nor the south had nuclear weapons in 1861.
The word “no-fly zone” is itself a lie. The correct word is “air combat zone”.
Either you do not actually “know what enforcement means” or you know and are suicidal.
Any attack on Russian military forces by US and NATO forces escalates Ukraine from a terrible regional war into World War III. For all his criminal terrorism, even Vladimir Putin has not fired on US or NATO forces.
This comment is positively suicidal.
What would WWII look like? I’m not trying to be a wise guy but so far, it looks like Russia versus the rest of the world, and the Russian military is looking pretty sad. Yes, there is the danger of Putin and nukes and that is no small concern, eh?
I’m reading that 7,000 Russian troops have been killed with three times that much injured. How long before the caskets and wounded come home do the Russian people begin to question this war?
I assume you meant to ask about WWIII.
A piece in today’s NYTimes (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/world/europe/ukraine-russia-nuclear-war.html) addresses this question:
The scenario, as I understand it, is:
A “strategic” response in the above means hundreds or thousands of nuclear missiles. Both the US and Russia have more than 5,000 nuclear missiles, many with multiple nuclear warheads.
The last three steps happen very quickly — minutes at the most.
The “34 million people” death toll is very conservative by most of the resources I read. The actual death toll is more likely to be 2-3 orders of magnitude higher – hundreds of millions, even billions of people killed.
The much-vaunted and exorbitantly expensive “missile shield” that the GOP squandered so much money on is not designed to stop a strategic threat (it can handle at most a few incoming missiles) and will have no effect on a strategic attack.
A strategic attack by Russia will mean the immediate destruction of at least several hundred and more likely several thousand US cities. A list of the top 1,000 US cities and towns, ordered by population, is at https://gist.github.com/Miserlou/11500b2345d3fe850c92. If the top 500 cities and towns on that list are hit, we’re talking about nuclear strikes on Lawrence, Lowell, Worcester, Fall River, etc.
Most Massachusetts residents will be dead within a few minutes. Many more will die from radiation poisoning (not to mention starvation and thirst) within a few weeks.
It is not clear that anybody would want to live in the wasteland that follows such an event.
The several Russia scholars that I read suggest that the removal of Vladimir Putin will not come from a public uprising, because the government control of Russian media will prevent it.
According to those scholars, Vladimir Putin will fall as the result of a military coup, organized opposition from Russian oligarchs, or both.
Thank you for posting this. It is very informative. I hope it is seen! How about placing it as a post? So remarkably chilling.
Your number 1 above to me is illogical. This war is about Ukraine. However, the possibility of it happening is exactly why we don’t wait for it to come to that. Bring all force to bear to kick Russia out now before it goes hunting for other nations. As GHWB said as soon as Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, “This cannot stand!”.
And here I was thinking you were paranoid about the state of our democracy! Are you seriously concerned that Russia will launch that kind of all out assault on US soil? If it really came to that don’t you think we would respond in kind, which we are more than capable of. What checks to this which existed during the Cold War, even during the “hot” proxy conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, don’t still exist today?
Are you seriously NOT concerned about this? Your denial about the very real and immediate risk of this makes your belligerent posturing towards Russia even more dangerously suicidal.
Of COURSE I think we would respond in kind. That is the entire point. We will respond to a strategic nuclear attack on our homeland. Russia will respond to a strategic nuclear attack on their homeland.
THAT is how WWIII starts. Where on earth have you been for the past fifty years?
Again, much of the past 50+ years has been the Cold War, which we got through without a nuclear confrontation, and I see no reason for that not to continue. I have absolutely no expectation of such an attack. THAT is what would be suicidal and I’m sure Russia knows that.
An important reason why we have avoided a nuclear confrontation in the past has been that each side took the other’s threats and insecurity VERY seriously.
As a result, there has never been direct armed conflict between NATO and Soviet/Russian forces.
So why is that not keeping Russia from a nuclear strike now?
Saddam did not have nuclear weapons in 1991, or ever it turns out, while the Russians have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the United States.
As they have for 75 years, as have we. If we don’t engage because we’re scared of nukes then we basically concede that might makes right.
Anyone who isn’t “scared of nukes” is insane.
It is not a matter of not engaging because we’re “scared of nukes”.
It is instead a matter of strategic patience. Vladimir Putin is running out of steam. As his military forces dwindle, he is likely to become more and more desperate.
As any number of experienced senior military personnel have been saying countless times in the last two weeks, the reason that NATO should do nothing to stop the human tragedy is that anything NATO might do only expands that human tragedy.
You are advocating a risky, foolhardy, and suicidal approach which offers NO benefit that can’t be achieved by waiting.
Yeah, I guess I’m pretty impatient when it comes to blatant invasion and conquest in the 21st century. I’m very scared of the impact nukes could have once deployed, but hardly at all that they actually will be.
That is simply denial.
Virtually EVERY government and military leader is VERY scared that Russia will use its nukes. That’s why NATO and the US is reacting as we are.
It’s called “realism” and “rationality”.
I have yet to see a good explanation for that beyond because Putin has saber-rattled. The deterrents against the USSR using them in the Cold War still exist as far as I can tell.
We have engaged with the biggest transfer of American and allied equipment to a front line ally since Lend-Lease. Ukrainians are now going on the counter offensive and are retaking cities and killing Russian generals and naval commanders left and right. Staying the course just makes so much more strategic sense when our allies have the advantage.
Turning this into an offensive NATO war against Russia plays right into Putin’s hands and his anti-NATO narrative. It also confirms a western policy of regime change and he will use WMDs to protect his regime, including nuclear weapons.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putin-war-nato-intervention/627092/
I’m not calling for anything offensive against Russia. The most I am calling for is shooting down their planes that fly over Ukraine, which is very much in defensive territory.
There you go again.
You are calling for US forces to shoot at Russian forces.
That IS an offensive against Russia — no matter how much rhetorical hand-waving either side performs.
NO! Russia invaded – THAT is offensive. Anything that pushes back against that (especially if remaining within Ukrainian territory or airspace) is DEFENSIVE! How is this distinction not obvious?
It isn’t that the distinction isn’t obvious. It is instead that the distinction is irrelevant when discussing triggers for WWIII.
In my junior high school and high school, if a faculty member or administrator saw one student hit another, the student who threw the punch was suspended for three days. Automatic. The claim that “he hit me first” was explicitly ignored.
The need to NOT trigger WWIII is more important than any discussion of offense or defense.
I do not accept the WWIII premise. A no-fly zone is defensive. I am certainly not advocating an attack on Russia. If Russia does not want its planes fired on in a no-fly zone they simply don’t enter the no-fly zone. If they do enter any escalation is on them. Besides, Ukraine, on whose behalf we are doing any of this, has specifically and strongly asked for one, which ought to count for something. Nothing about this requires or presumes the use of nuclear weapons from either side.
I’m REALLY glad that you have no role in actually setting policy.
Like it or not, when a Russian aircraft is in the air and a US aircraft or ground-to-air missile attacks it, that IS an attack by the US military on the Russian military. Period, end of story.
Your quaint language about whether an escalation is “on them” is precisely the kind of dangerous thinking that leads to a nuclear exchange.
To the contrary, your argument is based on your own denial of the clearly spoken position of Vladimir Putin.
A US attack on a Russian aircraft violating what the Russians view as an arbitrary “no-fly zone” will almost certainly be viewed by them as an attack. They are VERY likely to respond with a full conventional response, taking us to step 1 of the above scenario.
Consider what the US would say if the roles were reversed. Suppose the Russians (or China) declared Venezuela a “no-fly zone” and used that as a pretext to fire on a US over-flight. Would accept their claim that it was the fault of the US for violating their claimed restrictions?
Let me just be sure I am clear about something. The proposed no-fly is over Ukrainian airspace, right? Therefore, if Russia flies over Ukrainian territory that is a manifestation of invasion and all force should be brought to bear to repel it. It is not arbitrary to tell other countries to stay out of their airspace. Likewise, yes, if Venezuela closed its airspace to the US and asked the Chinese or Russians to enforce same, then the US should absolutely stay the heck out of Venezuelan airspace unless we were the ones looking for a war. I remain unpersuaded that Putin would back up his saber-rattling with action on the nuclear front. Why is Putin less restrained than the circumstances that prevented Soviet leaders from doing likewise?
The reason I alluded to Ft. Sumter earlier is that to this day some Southerners insist on calling the Civil War “The War of Northern Aggression”, never mind that all the North did was resupply its own fort and the South fired first. Likewise we are not the aggressors if we are simply firing back at a military which first invaded a sovereign nation. I assume you know that I know that nukes were not part of the calculus in 1861, but should Lincoln have backed down if they were? Despite the absence of nukes, the Civil War DID inflict just about the greatest amount of destruction humanity was capable of instigating at the time. Russia can’t be allowed to hold Ukraine or its allies hostage like that.
Yes.
Yes you know, or yes Lincoln should have backed down?
I believe that if the two sides had been nuclear powers in 1861, Lincoln should have backed down.
I will have to think hard about that one. As it is Lincoln risked (and got) the most destructive war possible at the time.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s arbitrary or not.
Once the strategic nuclear exchange starts, it’s over for all of us.
NO territorial claim, no matter how valid, is worth destroying humanity for.
My position ever since my days as an ardent nuclear freeze advocate before the Soviet Union collapsed has been that if the choice is between:
A: Generations of biologically normal and healthy Americans — to the tune of several hundred million — fighting to overthrow a Soviet/Russian/Chinese oppressor and
B: A nuclear holocaust that essentially wipes out all of humanity in minutes
I’ll take option A every time.
There is NO defensible and sane argument for taking any action that has a reasonable likelihood of resulting in a nuclear exchange.
And I’ll take A that doesn’t lead to B (and I still think you are presenting a false choice). History has shown that conquest has addictive qualities for the country doing the conquering. Time and again once it starts the conquering country moves on to the next target if not stopped. So unless you would like Kyiv to be Munich 2.0…
This is the discredited “Domino Theory” again. It sucked us into an unwinnable quagmire in Viet Nam. It is likely to lead to nuclear Armageddon in Europe.
As the thread-starter so importantly notes, Europe just prior to WWI is a better analog than Munich.
WWI happened because all the powers were sitting on a powder keg triggered ultimately by a single assassination. Nobody had to choose up sides over that. There are so many examples of what I mentioned. Conquerors are either stopped or eventually over-extended, but they keep going until that happens. My understanding of the Domino Theory is that neighbors will be cumulatively influenced by ideology, and I for one think it was reasonable to help South Vietnam resist capture by the North. It was fought for valid reasons, just not particularly well.
That is as incorrect and pernicious as the infamous “Lost Cause” narrative about the Civil War.
It doesn’t sound as though you understand the history and facts of the Vietnam conflict very well.
Ho Chi Minh was not a foreign invader. He was, instead, a Vietnamese nationalist. The US trained and supported Ho Chi Minh early in his life. The Viet Cong was not a conquering army. The US had been propping up the thoroughly corrupt and incompetent Diem government, and that government was removed by a coup in 1963.
The situation in South Vietnam worsened, and led to the infamous dishonest 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The “ARVN” (“Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) was, by 1964, a tool of corrupt US policy in the region. If there was a foreign army in Vietnam, it was the ARVN — not the Viet Cong.
After years of war, bombing, and war crimes, the US ultimately withdrew its last military forces in March of 1973.
Neither Russia nor China “conquered” South Vietnam after the US withdrawal.
The US established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995.
The war in Vietnam was most certainly NOT fought for “valid reasons”. Vietnam today is a success story.
There were those during the height of the Vietnam conflict who argued that the US should use nuclear weapons in Vietnam, such as GOP nominee Barry Goldwater (https://www.rallypoint.com/shared-links/goldwater-suggests-using-atomic-weapons-may-24-1964-history-com) and General Curtis LeMay (https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/curtis-lemay), the running mate of George Wallace. All during the war, the rabid-right relentlessly repeated the utter false claim that the US wasn’t trying to win the war.
Vietnam is, in fact, a case study in why the US should NOT have any direct role in the Ukranian war.
Is it not the case that South Vietnam was an independent nation before the war and would have preferred to stay that way? That certainly is true of Ukraine and it is my view that we should make the world safe for democracy when called upon to do so. I certainly do not agree with those you cite who suggested using nukes in that conflict, but still cite the lack of use as reason to be confident they won’t be now either.
No, it is not the case. South Vietnam was a US puppet after WWII until it reunified with North Vietnam in 1973.
Vietnam was colonized by France in 1877 — where “colonized” is a euphemism for “invaded”. During WWII, Japan occupied Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese nationalist who spent his entire life fighting for a unified and independent Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from France in 1945, and began a guerilla war to fight for independence.
The revolution against the French was successful enough that Vietnam was split at the 17th parallel by the 1954 Geneva accord, with the North ceded to Ho Chi Minh and his independence movement and the South under the rule of Emperor Bao Dai. Although elections were supposed to be held in the South, the US government ensured that they never took place because it had good reason to believe that the result would be for South Vietnam to join North Vietnam.
South Vietnam was never a democracy, and was never an independent nation like Ukraine.
One of the more immediate learnings from Vietnam is that the “domino theory” was nothing more than failed cold war US imperialism and propaganda dressed up in patriotic clothing.
A good synopsis of that period of our recent history. If only we had people currently teaching in our schools who put in the effort to learn the basics.
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.” Karl Marx
That’s mostly a timing issue. You’re lucky if even advanced classes cover that recent.
I wrote my first Letter to the Editor of my hometown newspaper in 1967 against the war in Vietnam essentially making the same argument Somerville Tom just made here. I was 17 at the time and still carry with me the loss of my brother and best friend, Peter, who was KIA in that immoral war on 9/15/68 at the age of 23.
I am horrified that America still proudly flies the black Vietnam Veterans flag while so many of us so brazenly ignore the most important lesson of that dark time for America.
The “domino theory” was and is failed, false, and immoral cold-war propaganda with no basis in fact or history.
It was used at the time to lie about what the US was actually doing in the region. The notion that “South Vietnam” was ever an independent sovereign nation was an outright lie as egregious as any that are being told by Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump.
So did the South Vietnamese favor unification? Also, should we not continue to honor and remember our POWs/MIAs (which I assume is the flag to which you refer)?
Yes. I already mentioned that above. That is why the US could never allow fair and free elections — the US knew that the result would be that South Vietnam would reunify under — gasp — communism.
I think that fifty years is long enough — especially when we have apparently learned none of the actual lessons of the conflict.
I do not think Vietnam or Civil War analogies are relevant to this discussion. We are talking about a major authoritarian power invading a developed nation with a functional democracy, it’s pretty hard to think of similar examples other than Poland in 1939. The difference here is the invading powers have nuclear weapons.
Politics is all about the art of the possible. If Russia had zero nuclear weapons and Ukraine was at risk of falling, I might be more tempted to risk a conventional war by intervening. Yet reality based commentary should recognize that Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at NATO military and civilian targets all across the Globe. That simulation shows how even a small escalation like a Russian tactical attack on a Polish arms depot would draw in a proportional response from NATO that could quickly escalate into a nuclear exchange. That simulation only posits each side initially using a tenth of its arsenal, but the result would still be catastrophic.
It should also recognize that Ukraine is actually doing quite well in this war compared to initial predictions and there are really no risks to staying the course. It’s worked so far and the Russians show no signs of taking any Ukranian cities.
While I disagree with Couves and my former professor John Mearsheimer on how we got here, NATO expansion was never offensive and the Russians turned down multiple opportunities to join it or stall it and refused. Their invasion of Georgia only increased anti-Russian sentiment among the Baltics, Ukrainians, and Poles.
I also agree with them both on how we can get out of this though, and a Ukraine that recognizes it cannot govern Crimea, the separatist republics, or join NATO is probably a Ukraine Putin can live with. We should tie lifting sanctions to Putin coming in good faith to the negotiating table to see a dignified way for him out of this. We should stop with the war criminal language and regime change language since it only serves his narrative and limits his choices to doubling down on fighting harder to win.
Giving both sides something they can walk away from claiming victory is key, and I hope the Israelis and Turks can play a constructive role in creating those conditions. We also need to pick our battles. Containing China and Russia from aggression against their neighbors should be key foreign policy objective of this administration. That means we cut a deal with Iran and Venezuela to get their oil, we cut a deal with Erdogan to keep him happy in NATO, we cut a deal with the Gukf States and Saudis to get their oil, and we cut a deal with Modi and Myanmar to help us contain China.
Russia is an aggressor – period. I’m not interested in saving their face. Plus I’m confused about how you can say we should contain Russia, but not favor pushing it back into their own country, which to me is what containment is.
This is dangerous and hot-headed Clint Eastwood talk. What you are or are not interested in is irrelevant.
Nobody disputes that Russia is an aggressor. Brute-force military confrontation with Russia is far more likely to provoke a nuclear holocaust than to contain them.
The most effective way to contain Russia and Russian influence is to isolate them from the global financial community, deprive them of wealth, and replace them as supplier for their current trading partners.
Economic, social, and cultural containment is far more effective than brute military force.
No more hot headed than your own constant fearmongering about nuclear possibilities. When one party initiates the use of force as Russia has, that says to me that force is the only thing they understand and will respond to.
I also do not see how providing Ukraine with weapons, destroying Russians economy, or isolating them diplomatically is not using force. We have stopped the enabling appeasement of the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. The only thing Biden can do that he has not done is start WW3, and while you and Lindsey Graham may think he is weak for not sending Americans directly into the conflict, I appreciate his president coalition building which has so far kept Europe united, inverted German geopolitics, and worked wonders in Ukraine.
I didn’t call Biden weak (or for that matter for Putin’s assassination like Graham has). I just think that we should be a bit more willing to consider the specific assistance Zelensky has asked for.
You are calling for a shooting confrontation between US and Russian forces.
It doesn’t matter who is asking for it, it is universally viewed as increasing the risk of expanding this regional conflict into WWIII.
The question is not whether or not such armed conflict increases the risk of WWIII.
The question is instead whether or not that risk is justified.
I see NO scenario that justifies the increased risk associated with Mr. Zelensky’s request.
It’s pretty much always justified to assist a sovereign state in maintaining their sovereignty if they ask for such (and the requestee is capable, which we certainly are). That is just such a hard and fast principle for me that I’m really not sure I have any more to say beyond, “I refer my honourable friend to comments I have made previously on this subject.” It’s so obvious to me that I’m struggling to find words to further articulate my position.
Repetition does not increase credibility.
We KNOW that any direct efforts by NATO and the US to assist are very likely to cause the tragedy in Ukraine to spread throughout the Europe and then the world.
That knowledge makes those efforts unjustified no matter what any of us has said in the past.
You are calling for armed military conflict with Russia. I am calling for calm and patience.
I stand by my characterization of your commentary here as “hot-headed”.
You are confusing containment with rollback.
https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/containment-vs-rollback-foreign-policy-early-1950s/
America is pursuing containment. It is making it crystal clear by positioning American troops on the border of Belarus and Ukraine that any attempt to expand the war to a NATO power will be met with a NATO military response. It has economically and militarily isolated Russia.
Unlike in the 50’s when we allowed the Soviets to retake Hungary or the 60’s when we allowed them to retake Czechoslovakia, we are actively arming the anti-Russian forces within Ukraine to roll them back. So in some ways, we are engaging in a hybrid strategy already.
So it is really unclear to me what more you would have us do. Declaring a no fly zone means enforcing it and that means shooting down Russian planes and Americans killing Russians which means WW3.
Having American trained Ukrainians using equipment supplied by America and her NATO allies is already killing Russians on the battlefield without involving U.S. troops more directly in the battle. A similar strategy worked wonders in Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded that country, and it is working wonders in Ukraine, both without precipitating Russian retaliation. Let him continue to make the strategic mistakes, there is no need to for us to bail him out with a wider war he can use to rally his people to his side.
I know they weren’t a democracy. Neither was Kuwait when we came to their defense against Iraqi invasion. Let’s put aside the Vietnam rabbit hole. I don’t claim to be an expert on that, but I absolutely stand by my comments regarding the current war.
Calling for WWIII may be crazy, but it’s not entirely inconsistent with US policy. Russia has long made it clear that Ukrainian membership in NATO was a red line for them. Considering the above, our policy of eventually inviting Ukraine to join NATO assumes that we would eventually be fighting WWIII on their behalf. If we are not willing to do this (which I hope is the majority opinion), then we should make it clear that NATO membership is off the table.
I’m sure Biden thought that Putin would back down… Now that we know Putin wasn’t bluffing, we should be clear about US policy. Lack of clarity on this point makes it seem like the US could potentially be convinced to enter the war (which is why Zelensky and others continue to make the case for actions such as a no-fly zone). Ukraine is literally fighting for the right to join NATO… it’s hardly crazy to expect that the US would join them in their fight.
When a superpower makes promises without any intention of following through, it encourages weaker nations to act without fully understanding just how weak their position is. For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, John Mearsheimer’s 2015 lecture on Ukraine spelled-out the precarious position we put the country in. The solution he suggests in 2015 is the same solution we should seek today — disavow NATO membership for Ukraine, make the country neutral (like Sweden or Austria) and share economic influence between the EU and Russia (which would be to Ukraine’s benefit, more than anything). Down the road, European stability would also benefit from a new INF treaty.
I’m pretty sure the Ukrainian President has said joining NATO is not what he’s looking for, but no outside country has the right to say they can’t join. NATO is a defensive alliance. It poses absolutely no threat to Russia.
That is irrelevant.
Russia — specifically the Russian military establishment — believes that NATO is a threat.
Our actions must be predicated on our understanding of their beliefs and on how they might act on those beliefs.
I absolutely do not want to coddle falsehoods.
“Republican politicians clamoring to be the most pro-Ukraine do know that their hypocrisy and previous votes and statements are searchable on this newfangled Internet thing, right? We aren’t still in the age of microfiche (look it up), although some of them still are.” Dan Rather
There is a difference between “coddl[ing] falsehoods and risking WWIII.
A significant portion of the world’s population passionately believes and asserts at least two absolutely verifiable falsehoods:
It seems to me that there at least some falsehoods that billions of people either tolerate, coddle or outright assert.
The particular paranoia that NATO will invade and occupy Russia is a delusion that can certainly be loudly and vigorously refuted.
It becomes a self-fulfilling suicidal fantasy if American or NATO policy makers act on your proposal.
Your two numbered points are just part of the mythology of a worldwide faith, one I happen to identify with. While I know this has happened historically they are not grounds for war.
It’s more than historical.
Many have argued persuasively that the passionate belief in articles of Christian faith — including the above — were a direct and significant cause of the Holocaust.
I note that Pope Francis notably avoided mentioning Vladimir Putin by name in his recent criticisms of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Pope Francis is walking the trail blazed by Pius XII.
Beliefs that directly contradict known facts have been starting wars for at least as long as “conquerors are either stopped or eventually over-extended“. The desire for conquest is often accompanied by the passionate belief that the conqueror is “doing the work of God”.
My point remains that it is circular and suicidal to rule out contemplation of what the leader of any nuclear power believes because of a desire to avoid “coddling falsehoods”.
Sane people who seek to avoid the end of humanity deal with facts as they are — not how they want them to be.
The Holocaust was evil – doesn’t really matter why it was committed ultimately (though as a Christian myself I’m tempted to passionately argue that there’s no way that can be considered a valid reason or instigator – then again, Hitler considered becoming a priest, which I’ve never figured out whether is chilling, or could have prevented the Holocaust had he pursued that.)
As a lifelong humanist who was raised in the Catholic faith, I am reminded of something the atheist, Christopher Hitchens, said: “What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without proof.”
Zelenskyy was seeking NATO membership until Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border. (The abrupt change was noted at the time.) His prior inflexibility on that point was a significant reason why negotiations failed. Now he’s all over the place… one day offers complete neutrality, the next day requests a NATO air assault. On paper it looks like a peace agreement should be possible, but Zelenskyy needs US guidance.
Well OK, I guess I can understand his taking NATO membership off the table as a negotiation, but I still say if that’s ultimately what he wants then that is between him and the current members. One country can’t invade another then demand concessions. The only negotiation point in these cases should be GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!
Zelenskyy clearly isn’t in a position to make such a demand, which is why he continues to hope for NATO relief.. even going so far as to invoke “World War Three.” We need to be clear that we are not going to bail him out of this. If the Ukrainians still want to fight to the bitter end, it should be based on full knowledge and not wishful thinking.
That is unacceptable to me as long as it is unacceptable to Ukraine. If your neighbor stages a home invasion and takes some of your stuff, and refuses to leave, even if it’s on the flimsy excuse that he doesn’t like the people on the other side of town you’re friends with, we don’t expect you to fend for yourself. (OK, maybe the NRA fantasizes along those lines.) You would be within your rights to call law enforcement and have them drag the culprit forcefully out of your house.
The fact remains that starting WWIII MUST be off the table in any of your should or should-not formulations.
It absolutely must be and will remain off the table. I don’t see anyone, with the possible exception of Putin, calling for it. I still strongly reject any suggestion that what I advocate inevitably leads to it.
I recommend you watch this four minute simulation from the Princeton team on nuclear deterrence. I am going to show it to my students when we get to the Cold War next quarter (or sooner since it’s increasingly relevant).
A no fly zone will pit NATO aircraft against Russian aircraft. We will need to shoot down their planes with our planes and they will target our planes with their ground based defenses. It is the air equivalent of sending Americans directly into the conflict.
As it is, with few off ramps left for Putin, we are likely to see him escalate. There is talk in the Times of Belarus and Russia already deploying new generation tactical nuclear weapons within under the radar striking distance of 300 NATO targets. This means only their detonation would alert our forces to their use . If Biden determines a new red line at the NATO summit and Putin chooses to cross it-whether it be with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons-all bets are off.
I’ll also add it is not only strategically unwise, but also tactically unnecessary for the time being. Ukraines air defenses and Air Force are still intact, the stingers we provided are taking out low flying Russian aircraft like helicopters and the Slovakian Patriot/S300 swap will shore up Ukraine and NATO alike. This will largely remain a war of attrition fought almost entirely on the ground. Which should continue to give Ukraine a tactical advantage.
Ukraine is winning. Perhaps a Pyrrhic victory as we consider the long term costs of reconstruction and repatriation, but a victory most observers would never have predicted. If you had told me on February 24th that Zelensky would still be alive let alone in power nearly a month later, Kyiv and most other major cities remained unoccupied, the Germans canceled Nord Stream and agreed to send arms, and we finally had sanctions that worked I’d be jumping for joy in disbelief. The Russians did so much worse (conservatively they lost as many men 24 days into the War on Ukraine as we lost 22 years into the War on Terror) than expected.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/ukraine-is-winning-war-russia/627121/
I am saying if we game out the no fly zone option, which Biden’s Tiger Team has done, then it will lead restively quickly to Americans killing Russians. That in turn will lead to greater and greater escalation and retaliation until we reach the nuclear threshold. Putin has a lot more to lose (his regime, possibly his life) and if he is put into a defensive position against a bigger foe like NATO, he can rally the non aligned powers of the world to his side. There is a risk China gets directly involved. There is a risk India sides with him. It’s a lot more chaotic and unpredictable than the status quo.
Under the status quo he is isolated and without any real allies even China is staying neutral for the most part. They obviously are rooting against NATO, but they still have a lucrative trading relationship with Ukraine to protect. They also do not want to be cut off from the global marketplace and have made no real overtures to bail out the Russians politically, economically, or militarily.
Under the status quo he is losing the war and his people are losing the will to prosecute it. Under the status quo he is the bigger aggressor and the underdog is Zelensky and Ukraine. We risk all of that if we establish a big fly zone without a reasonable chance of enforcing it or using it to effect a conclusion. It may sound tougher than the status quo, but it is only dumber.
I agree on the dangers of escalation, but I’m less optimistic overall. Russia is surrounding Ukranian cities and preparing to bombard them (as it did in Syria). It looks like they’re taking Mariupol, which had some of Ukraine’s toughest fighters.
Moreover the conflict is moving-up preparations for a looming cold war between the US and China. China clearly interprets our “pivot” to Asia as our attempt to stop their rise. If that’s not the case, then we need to make that clear and start rebuilding our relationship with China. If China is our great geopolitical rival, then present events are benefiting them more than not. We seem to be stumbling towards a conflict with an adversary that’s carefully planning.
Putin needs to be the one to start WWIII and we need to reduce not increase his permission architecture to use nuclear weapons in the field.
It is easy to dismiss Christopher’s call for no fly zones today as strategically stupid in light of the gains Ukraine has made and the losses Russia has incurred without them, I do worry there could be a red line Putin crossed when cornered it will be difficult for all sides to pull back from.
If he attacks a NATO ally that deserves a NATO response and I would shift from advocating restraint to advocating a proportional response. Perhaps we can telegraph that ahead of time which did serve to cool off Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis, but the US also was prepared to invade an island it had no idea was armed to the teeth with tactical nuclear weapons. Had Khrushchev called Kennedy’s bluff, it is likely our marines and most of the eastern seaboard would have been annihilated.
I think we would all do well to recognize that Biden has responded with the maximum force he can muster short of direct military involvement. We have to hold this line and force Putin to the negotiating table. Both sides will then have to be willing to make concessions.
The West will have to swallow No Ukraine in NATO, the Russians will swallow no regime change in Kyiv. Russia will likely formally cede the separatist oblasts and Crimea and in exchange they need to withdraw their troops and pay reparations to Ukraine to reaches global markets. Putin will be chastised but still in power. This is likely the best deal all parties can hope for, and it’s essentially a return to antebellum conditions which would be a strategic loss for Putin but perhaps wrapped in some face saving ribbons.
It’s unrealistic Crimea or the separatist oblasts will ever become part of Ukraine again, so we might as well acknowledge that reality in exchange for him acknowledging the reality that the rest of Ukraine can never be his, they will be a part of the EU, and our side acknowledging they won’t be part of NATO. That seems like the best we can hope for for all sides.
I agree with all this, with the possible exception that am a pacifist about the US use of nuclear weapons.
I see no scenario, including direct attacks on NATO nations, where the US should use nuclear weapons.
I and we cannot stop the Russians (or any other foreign power) from using nuclear weapons against us. We have much more ability to influence whether or not we use nuclear weapons against them.
I think that humanity is better served by the world reverting to the partitioning of Europe as it was during the cold war than by any nuclear exchange. I know of NO competent analysts who believe that the concept of “limited” nuclear war even exists.
I think humanity is better off if generations of biologically normal men, women and children have to fight to regain human rights and freedoms than if billions of people are killed in a nuclear exchange that leaves a handful of survivors with barely-survivable radiation damage in a world without food, medicine, heat, water, shelter or any other vestige of civilization.
Any nuclear exchange will almost certainly bring about the extinction of the human race within a decade or two.
NO to nuclear engagement!
NO to European partition!
I agree that we shouldn’t use nukes ourselves, though we are the only ones who ever have and it did not completely end the world the way you describe.
To me, for any European nation to be anything less than free in both senses of the word (independent and democratic) is completely unacceptable in the 21st century. I’m still rooting for an EU which evolves into a United States of Europe.
An attack by Russia on NATO is likely to force the choice between those.
I understand that MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) demands that our nuclear adversaries know that a nuclear attack on our homeland means that their nation will be destroyed. We are therefore forced to maintain enough strategic nuclear weapons to force our adversaries to assume that we will use them.
A conventional attack by Russia on NATO will cause a proportionate conventional attack by NATO on Russia. The abysmal performance of the Russian military in Ukraine shows that they will lose a conventional exchange like this.
The dilemma is that an option for Russia that they have repeatedly threatened is to respond to a defeat by a conventional force with a “tactical” nuclear response.
As jconway has pointed, that has been gamed out over and over countless times in the fifty years I’ve been paying attention to it and ALWAYS with the same result: escalation to nuclear catastrophe.
There IS NO such thing as “limited nuclear war”. It is a dangerous fiction.
That means that we MUST consider the possibility that Russia will use a tactical nuclear weapon in response to any conventional NATO attack for any reason (offensive or defensive).
If the US/NATO retaliate with our own “tactical” nuclear weapons, then humanity is finished.
I don’t think nuclear war is likely to stay limited either, but I do think that any war will remain conventional.