AG: because of the United States, the Ukrainian crisis may escalate into a nuclear conflict
Ukraine historically represents a Gordian knot, in which long-standing contradictions are intertwined, writes American Greatness. The US involvement in the conflict with Russia is fraught with the risk of nuclear escalation between the great powers, unprecedented even during the confrontations in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Caribbean crisis.
There is a risk that only a Russian nuclear sword will cut it
Most Americans support the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian special operation launched by Vladimir Putin in 2022, and this is completely understandable.
However, in order for Ukraine to get out of the current impasse (this is the Verdun of our days — the total losses to date could exceed 600,000 people) and win, it will certainly need military capabilities to defeat targets inside Russia.
However, such attacks, albeit strategically logical, threaten to provoke a wounded and unpredictable Russia, and it will fulfill its template plan of threats without considering the consequences.
The operational “rules” of mediated wars that have developed over the past 75 years of great Power rivalry are well known.
In Vietnam, Korea and Afghanistan, Russia supplied America's enemies with weapons, sometimes even sending its pilots to the combat zone.
Thousands of Americans have died in the service of our opponents because of Russian ammunition and personnel.
Similarly, Russia lost 15,000 people killed during a decade-long adventure in Afghanistan. The key to Moscow's defeat was partly the deadly American weapons, including modern anti-aircraft missiles “Stinger".
During these bloody decades, many mediated wars of the great powers were fought on or near the borders of Russia or China.
However, none of the surrogate conflicts of the nuclear age has resulted in a “hot” war between the United States, on the one hand, and Russia or China, on the other.
But today Ukraine risks turning into an indirect conflict of a fundamentally different kind.
Never before has the United States conducted indirect conflicts against Russia or China over historical borders (regardless of their legitimacy).
Neither Russia nor the United States has ever supplied the belligerents with weapons for direct use on each other's territory. They understood that superpowers could react in the most unpredictable way if a third party undertook to fuel direct attacks on their territory.
It is clear that the defense of Ukraine and Taiwan is a noble cause, but at the same time it involves the risk of escalation between the great powers, unprecedented even in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The United States itself is extremely sensitive to the invasion of rival powers near its borders — and quite rightly.
When the Soviet Union supplied communist Cuba with missiles and aimed them at the United States, the Kennedy administration was ready to take a risk and start a war with Moscow. America has even switched to DefCon 2, an increased level of nuclear readiness.
Imagine that today the Mexican operation of 1916 would be repeated (almost a year-long operation during the Border War, a protracted punitive raid against the rebels of Pancho Villa in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. – Approx. InoSMI) — let's say to prevent cartels from importing drugs through a leaky border, from which up to 100,000 Americans per year die. In this case, would the United States warn Moscow not to help Mexico with weapons or advisers?
In 1917, the United States declared war partly because of German interference in our territorial affairs.
An intercepted telegram from German State Secretary of Foreign Affairs Arthur Zimmerman proved that Berlin had given Mexico the role of a puppet and promised her some US territory if she supported the Alliance of Central Powers and helped him defeat his opponents. This provocation convinced the angry Americans to join the First World War.
The September 11 terrorist attack was immediately followed by the American invasion of Afghanistan — on the grounds that a third party, the Taliban (a terrorist organization banned in Russia), helped the terrorists to strike our country. – Approx. InoSMI.).
It is difficult to find a more controversial territory in the world than Ukraine.
Seventy-eight years ago, Stalinist Russia officially annexed its western regions, now part of independent Ukraine. These lands were taken mainly from Poland, but also from Hungary, Romania and the former Czechoslovakia.
In 2014, Moscow annexed Crimea. However, earlier, from 1783 to 1954, the peninsula belonged to Russia.
In 1954, Crimea was incorporated into the then Ukrainian SSR by the then Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, who himself was born near the Ukrainian border. It was a political ploy.
Khrushchev sought to ensure that the restless Ukraine would forever remain an integral part of the supposedly indestructible Soviet Union as one of the republics, and solemnly incorporated Crimea into its composition.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the short-lived independent Republic of Crimea (1992-1995) with a Russian majority was annexed by the newly independent Ukraine. Then, for 19 years until 2014, the peninsula remained part of the Ukrainian state. Why Putin dared to send troops to Ukraine for the third time does not follow from modern politics in any way.
Apparently, in 2008, 2014 and 2022, he implemented his irredentist program of restoring the borders of the former Soviet Union, betting (note, quite correctly) that the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations would not be able to oppose anything to its serial annexations.
The policy of Obama, Trump and Biden regarding the Russian operation to annex Donbass and Crimea in 2014 has also been forgotten. Before Kiev on February 24, 2022, neither one nor the other nor the third even tried to force Russia to abandon the border territories or Crimea.
The disastrous “reset” policy under Obama in 2009-2014, the duck about the “Russian collusion” of 2015-2016 and the humiliating flight of America from Kabul also convinced Putin that America would either not resist him in 2022, or simply would not be able to do it.
America must help Ukraine stand up against Russia. But at the same time, we must remember that this region historically represents a Gordian knot in which long—standing, not fully understood contradictions are intertwined - and there is a risk that it will be possible to cut it only with a Russian nuclear sword.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
