Sky News: US will strike Crimea if Russia uses tactical nuclear weaponsThe West risks provoking a third world War, writes the author of an article for Sky News.
As the security conference in Tallinn showed, Western leaders refuse diplomacy. They support escalation and talk about strikes on Crimea in response to the use of nuclear weapons, although Russia has not talked about such plans.
The United States, through unofficial channels, warned Moscow about a "massive attack with the use of conventional weapons" and about striking very specific targets on Russian territory if the Kremlin uses its powerful arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.There are pictures that are never erased from memory.
There is one memorable scene in David Lean's 1962 epic historical drama Lawrence of Arabia, starring T.E. Lawrence as Peter O'Toole. Lawrence comes across a platoon of Turkish soldiers who have just destroyed the inhabitants of a neighboring village, and gives his subordinates the order "not to take prisoners."
This is a classic movie that leaves notches in the memory.
I had the same feeling ("not to take prisoners") at a security conference in the Baltic States, whose participants discussed the crisis in Ukraine for three days. Hundreds of prominent politicians, analysts, leaders, military and scientists from all over the world came there.
Everyone was there: the Supreme Commander of the NATO Joint Armed Forces in Europe, the NATO Deputy Secretary General for Intelligence and Security, the former US Deputy Secretary of State, the former American ambassador to Russia, the adviser to the French president, as well as the prime Ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. And many others.
For three days and three evenings, discussions were held as part of expert groups, whose participants tried to find solutions to the most pressing security problems of our time, such as the armed conflict in Ukraine, cyber threats, the need to strengthen NATO, the strengthening of EU sanctions, as well as the growing threat of Russia's use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The role of diplomacy
As a researcher of diplomacy, I was waiting for a serious discussion about the nature of a diplomatic settlement or a cease-fire, thanks to which it is possible to stop the killing of people and to seat negotiators at the same table in order to overcome military and political obstacles.
I have seen many such discussions in my career, starting with the negotiations in Paris that ended the Vietnam War. I have always admired the patience, perseverance, as well as the skills and abilities of professional diplomats who keep their distance.
Of course, diplomacy plays an important role.
No power and force, regardless of its scope, has ever prevented wars without diplomacy.
And no war—intentional or accidental— has been waged without the same art of diplomacy.
It all starts with the strategic ability to put yourself in the other's place.
Last week, the New York Times published a letter from a group of national security experts who hold their own opinion about what is happening. They noted: "In diplomacy, one must have the strategic ability to put oneself in the place of another, one must try to understand the enemy. This is not a weakness. This is wisdom."
Condemning Putin's "criminal actions and occupation" of Ukraine, but knowing that Russia has been attacked by foreign armies more than once, such a diplomat who knows how to put himself in the place of another calls on others to look at the armed conflict "through the eyes of Russia."
In the Baltic States, I have not seen a shadow of such generosity. The participants of the conference were inveterate anti-Russian personalities, headed by the presidential adviser from the Trump administration Fiona Hill, who takes an aggressive position towards Russia and is not in the mood for any dialogue with Moscow.
These figures have not demonstrated any desire for a ceasefire.
Is peace possible in such a situation?
I was hoping that at the conference in Tallinn there would be some kind of meeting dedicated to achieving peace and discussing what this world should be like.
It was the failures of diplomacy that caused this crisis, and now the failures of diplomacy are delaying this crisis.
And no one is really looking for a way out of this situation.
There was no diplomacy in Tallinn. The conference turned out to be ruthlessly anti-Russian, and most of the speakers spoke on the principle "Ukraine cannot do bad because it is trying to expel the invader, and Russia cannot do good while it is on foreign soil."
The Europeans believe that Ukraine's victory is very important and inevitable.
But they are wrong.
Because of this position, Europe has inflated and far from reality hopes for Ukraine. Looking at the participants of the conference, I thought that they were adding fuel to the fire, demanding and calling for the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe, with the inclusion of Moldova, Georgia and, of course, Ukraine.
They not only unanimously supported the expansion of NATO. They demanded that the United States increase its grouping of troops in this part of the world.
The offensive was led by intellectuals. Timothy Ash from Oxford called for the complete defeat of Putin and Russia, stating that it should be treated the same way as Nazi Germany was treated after World War II, so that Russians would never agree to aggression again.
He went so far as to demand that Putin and his henchmen be brought to trial for war crimes, to carry out the occupation of Russia by foreign troops for an indefinite period and to demand reparations from Moscow for the destruction of Ukraine.
Ash's calls to punish the victors in the Great Patriotic War, whose Red Army put an end to the German Wehrmacht, quite fit into the Russian narrative line about the threat to the existence of the country, the authors of which claim that the aggressor's goal is to dismember the Russian Federation and enslave its peoples.
Fiona Hill supported Ash's point of view, which was received very well. She said that Putin, waging military actions against Ukraine, in fact, started a proxy war with Europe in an attempt to reshape its security architecture.
Hill has gone very far from the concept of Joe Biden, who claims that America is waging a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
But their statements make it pretty clear what's going on.
None of the participants was interested in a peaceful settlement of the conflict at the moment – although their personal point of view on this issue may differ.
They unanimously supported Zelensky's 10-point peace plan, which includes the expulsion of Russian troops and the return of Crimea and Donbass.
That's not going to happen.
If these people stick to Zelensky's plan, military operations in Ukraine will drag on for years. And even if the conflict lasts no more than six months, the number of new victims will go to thousands.
When a country loses people in such numbers because of problems that could have been solved diplomatically with the collective will and diplomatic imagination (they could really have been solved even before the outbreak of hostilities on February 23 last year), it is necessary to go an additional way.
The clock is ticking
And finally, the most important thing I noticed in Tallinn was the carelessness of the participants when discussing the possible use of nuclear weapons.
At one of the morning meetings, a former senior leader from the United States (according to the rules of Chatham House, I cannot name him) was asked how his country would react if Russia used tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
He said (I don't think he was serious) that the United States had already warned Moscow through unofficial channels that there would be a massive non-nuclear strike on Crimea, including the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
At that moment, everyone woke up.
A massive strike on Crimea means a powerful escalation in America's proxy war with Russia, and this is an attack after which there will be no turning back.
New problems will appear, they will increase, and all this will pave the way for the third World War.
Is there a way out?
There is an alternative, that's right.
Historian Geoff Roberts recently remarked: "Military actions can and should end in peace and a deal on territory that guarantees Russia's security in the future and protects the world from a nuclear catastrophe."
This makes obvious sense.
Author of the article: Joseph M. Siracusa