Posted on 04/17/2015 3:40:50 PM PDT by Kaslin
"Could a U.S. response to Russia's action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?"
This jolting question is raised by Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes in the cover article of The National Interest.
The answer the authors give, in "Countdown to War: The Coming U.S. Russia Conflict," is that the odds are shortening on a military collision between the world's largest nuclear powers.
The cockpit of the conflict, should it come, will be Ukraine.
What makes the article timely is the report that Canada will be sending 200 soldiers to western Ukraine to join 800 Americans and 75 Brits on a yearlong assignment to train the Ukrainian army.
And train that army to fight whom? Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine whom Vladimir Putin has said will not be crushed, even if it requires Russian intervention. Says Putin, "We won't let it happen."
What are the forces that have us "stumbling to war"?
On our side there is President Obama who "enjoys attempting to humiliate Putin" and "repeatedly includes Russia in his list of current scourges alongside the Islamic State and Ebola."
Then there is what TNI editor Jacob Heilbrunn calls the "truculent disposition" that has become the "main driver of Republican foreign policy." A "triumphalist camp," redolent of the "cakewalk war" crowd of Bush II, is ascendant and pushing us toward confrontation.
This American mindset has its mirror image in Moscow.
"Putin is not the hardest of the hard-liners in Russia," write the authors. "Russia's establishment falls into ... a pragmatic camp, which is currently dominant thanks principally to Putin's support, and a hard-line camp" the one Putin adviser calls "the hotheads."
The hotheads believe the way to respond to U.S. encroachments is to invoke the doctrine of Yuri Andropov, "challenge the main enemy," and brandish nuclear weapons to terrify Europe and split NATO.
Russian public opinion is said to be moving toward the hotheads.
Russian bombers have been intruding into NATO air space. Putin says he was ready to put nuclear forces on alert in the Crimea. Russia's ambassador has warned Copenhagen that if its ships join a NATO missile defense force, Denmark could be targeted with nukes.
In coming war games, Russia will move Iskander missiles into the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad on Poland's northern border.
"Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," brays the director of the television network Rossiya Segodnya.
As of now, the "pragmatists" represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov retain the upper hand. They believe Russia can still do business with the United States and Europe.
"The 'hotheads' take the opposite view," the authors write, "they argue that NATO is determined to overthrow Putin, force Russia to its knees, and perhaps even dismember the country."
In Ukraine, Putin has drawn two red lines. He will not permit Ukraine to join NATO. He will not allow the rebels to be crushed.
Russia hard-liners are confident that should it come to war in Ukraine, Russia would have what Cold War strategists called "escalation dominance." This is what JFK had in the Cuban missile crisis -- conventional and nuclear superiority on sea and land, and in the air around Cuba.
With Ukraine easily accessible to Russian forces by road and rail, sea and air, and Russia's military just over the border while U.S. military might is a continent away, the hard-liners believe Russia would prevail in a war and America would face a choice -- accept defeat in Ukraine or escalate to tactical atomic weapons.
The Russians are talking of resorting to such weapons first.
The decisive date for Putin to determine which way Russia will go would appear to be this summer. The authors write:
"Putin will attempt to exploit the expiration of EU sanctions, which are scheduled to expire in July. If that fails, however, and the European Union joins the United States in imposing additional economic sanctions such as excluding Moscow from the SWIFT financial clearing system, Putin would be tempted to respond, not by retreating, but by ending all cooperation with the West, and mobilizing his people against a new and 'apocalyptic' threat to 'Mother Russia.'
"As a leading Russian politician told us, 'We stood all alone against Napoleon and against Hitler.'"
As of now, the Minsk II cease-fire of February seems to be holding. The Ukrainian army and pro-Russian rebels have both moved their heavy weapons back from the truce lines, though there have been clashes and casualties.
But as Ukraine's crisis is unresolved, these questions remain:
Will the U.S. train the Ukrainian army and then greenlight an offensive to retake the rebel-held provinces? Would Russia intervene and rout that army? Would the Americans sit by if their Ukrainian trainees were defeated and more Ukrainian land was lost?
Or would we start up the escalator to a war with Russia that few Europeans, but some Americans and Russians, might welcome today?
Interestingly, FR has a good half dozen or so anti-Americans that support the Russians.
If Russia actually attacked NATO forces and our soldiers were engaged in combat with Russian invaders, then I think they would not find favor here.
“Wars and rumors of wars” ... that’s what the Bible calls it!
Was it “anti-American” in 1939 to suggest not going to war with Nazi Germany when they invaded Poland? Yes, in hindsight, we should have tried to stop Hitler as soon as possible, but we don’t have that luxury.
We can debate whether or not to aid Ukraine without suggesting those who disagree are “Anti-American.”
Canada, the US, and Europe are just defending Ukraine,a sovereign and independent country.
If there is war, it will be Russia that starts it.
I just remember that bread basket thing in history class.
Even with all the downgrades and emasculation of our military Obama has wrought, Russia is still no match for our troops. Their political leadership and its willingness to engage, however...
If the discussions here become about our military attacking the Russian Army in Ukraine, then you can bring that up, in the meanwhile, try not to use that tactic of changing the facts.
Our concern is Russia and their current war as they conquer right up to NATO borders and Putin threatens all of the west and America with war and nuclear annihilation.
Right now you need to back off your support of Putin a little.
Right, Ukraine is a friend and we conduct military exercises there and we have every right to conduct training with them.
It is a little early for America to surrender to Russia.
This is about Russia and the other BRICS nations breaking out of the Wall-St/London/Rothschild banking and money system. It amounts to the US military being used by George Soros and the Rothschilds for dark purposes.
I don’t support Putin. I actually do support aiding Ukraine, but I also understand the reasoning behind those who do think we shouldn’t be involved there, it’s not out of love for Putin.
Most people who believed we should have stayed out of Europe in ‘39 didn’t think that way because they supported Hitler. It’s a question of is it worth it to us, and should this be handled by Europe first because we get involved. Yes, I know they are bordering NATO and all that, but it seems we are the ones doing all of the heavy lifting here.
When are you going to drop all the 1939, us going to war nonsense?
Why don’t you stay with the actual conversation?
Why should we and other nations cease our normal relationship with Ukraine, are you wanting us to surrender to someone already?
Yeah, well, they stood WITH Hitler in 1939.
With the cowardly Gen. Martin Dempsey as the head of JCS, we would surrender within an hour.
The world wouldn’t be discussing this if Clintoon hadn’t suckered them into getting rid of the nukes they had...
Putin knows that he would lose his military quickly if he engaged NATO, and he also knows that he can’t afford to be left defenseless with his East exposed and his internal problems, and a 15% Muslim population, and no economy to rebuild his Air Force and his military equipment, and to pay his draftee military.
All the Russian fellows I ever met were either hotheads or at the best semi-pissed off. The Russian women are pretty nice however.
“Interestingly, FR has a good half dozen or so anti-Americans that support the Russians.”
Stop it. Those half dozen or so are saying that Putin is more of a man than our boy King. Admiration for Putin came about because he smacked Obama over the nose with a newspaper aft Syria and Obama went whining back under the porch.
I disagree with everything he stands for, but at least he stands for something.
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