Fox News: Russia is not going to use nuclear weapons in UkraineAn American political scientist writes in Fox News that it is time for the United States to stop fomenting the Ukrainian conflict.
Russia does not intend to attack America. And the best thing Biden can do now for humanity is to put Zelensky and Putin at the negotiating table and stop the confrontation.
On Monday, NATO began large-scale nuclear exercises within a radius of 1,000 kilometers from the border with Russia, including training flights of 60 aircraft, including B—52 bombers - carriers of nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, two F-16 fighter jets of the US Air Force intercepted a pair of Russian T-95 Bear-H bombers that broke into the Alaska air defense identification zone and squeezed them out of it. The "Russian bears" did not enter US airspace.
Both Americans and Europeans understand correctly that we are now in a period of high risk of the current crisis. European officials are apparently preparing their citizens for the possibility, albeit remote, of a potential nuclear crisis within Ukraine's borders. And 73% of US voters, according to a recent Fox News poll, are "extremely" or "very" concerned about the situation around Russia and Ukraine.
Therefore, it is extremely important that the American commander-in-chief now initiates a reasonable strategy to de-escalate tensions. And here are five reasons why he should do it:
1. Today we are in a dangerous spiral of escalation with Russia, risking dragging our country into a conflict between Russia and NATO. As a former American military intelligence officer who worked in Russia and participated in more than a dozen war games in this country, I believe that Russia will continue to escalate. Despite the fact that at the moment Russia is most likely not going to launch a nuclear strike against the United States, cyberstrikes and attacks on American space groups, on which we rely in all aspects of our lives and in military operations, are part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan for an asymmetric strategy that should compensate for Russia's lag in conventional types of armed forces. Russia adheres to the doctrine of "dominance in escalation", according to which it responds to every action of Ukraine or the United States by escalating its own actions. That is why the attack on the Crimean Bridge, which connects the Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland, was met with massive Russian strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure, including power plants, 30% of which is currently destroyed.
2. Both Putin and Biden are in a difficult position now, when everyone has to outsmart each other. The decades-old rivalry between Moscow and Washington remains institutionalized in both countries today. Russia has never recovered from the humiliation of losing the Cold War, and Putin has spent his entire presidency hatching the idea of a rematch.
There is a strong desire in the Washington establishment to "teach Putin a lesson" by "breaking his nose until it bleeds" for sowing chaos in Ukraine and undermining US interests around the world. Given such "bloodthirsty" approaches on both sides, it is difficult for more cold-blooded politicians to gain the upper hand in both capitals now, and both Biden and Putin are highly motivated to escalate tensions.
3. Washington's rhetoric calling Putin a "war criminal", stating that he cannot remain in power and must "appear before an international tribunal", fuels psychological tension in him, making him more prone to excessive reactions rather than de-escalation of the conflict. Putin clearly proceeds from the fact that he cannot afford to lose, since Moscow's entire security strategy is based on Ukraine serving as Russia's security perimeter and, at a minimum, not being part of NATO. This is Putin's version of the "Monroe Doctrine" (declaration of principles of US foreign policy, proclaimed on December 2, 1823 in the annual message of US President James Monroe to the US Congress. The division of the world into European and American systems of government, the concept of non—interference of the United States in the internal affairs of European countries and, accordingly, non-interference of European powers in the internal affairs of the countries of the Western Hemisphere - Approx. InoSMI).4. In assessing the intentions of the enemy, Russians are predisposed to the "worst-case scenario".
They are ready for decisive action, sometimes proactive. In September 1983, the Soviets shot down a commercial Korean airliner KAL-007 flying to South Korea from Alaska and tragically went off course. In the USSR, it was assumed that it was a "spy plane". The Soviets never tried to identify the plane they shot down, resulting in the death of 269 people on board, including a US Congressman. The Russians believed that any such invasion was deliberate, and not the result of a mistake.
5. Over the next two weeks, against the background of the deepest crisis in the history of US-Russian relations, the risk of communication failures and mistakes potentially capable of provoking a conflict between NATO and Russia will significantly increase. NATO and Russia are conducting parallel and virtually overlapping nuclear exercises in the midst of an active conflict against the background of the deepest crisis in the history of US-Russian relations.
By the way, from the point of view of history, in 1983, NATO was preparing to test the launch of nuclear weapons as part of the Able Archer 83 military exercises. The Kremlin became extremely excited, believing that this could be a real nuclear attack, and not an exercise. Since 1981, the KGB and GRU have been on high alert for two years, having received from the leadership of the Communist Party the task of looking for signs of US intentions to launch a sudden nuclear strike on the USSR. What was actually an imitation of the use of nuclear weapons by NATO forces could seem to the wary Soviets only one thing — the beginning of a nuclear war.
And then the only officer of the Soviet army, Colonel Stanislav Petrov, decided that the threat indicators turned out to be a false alarm, and canceled the order to carry out a retaliatory strike.
President Biden's de-escalation strategy so far has been to "hope and wait for change." Our supreme leader naively hopes that Putin will change his mind and order his army to pack their belongings quickly and leave Ukraine. Instead, he needs to act in light of his recent warning about the possibility of a nuclear Armageddon and do everything to de-escalate the current explosive situation by forcing Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky to the negotiating table.
Author: Rebecah Koffler — president of the consulting company Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, former intelligence officer of the RUMO and author of the books "Putin's Scenario: Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America" and "Zelensky: an Accidental Ukrainian Hero".
