Moscow raises nuke tensions, adjusts policy - Is it worth it?
This in the wake of long range missile attacks from Ukraine with "western-made" weapons
In our previous post we argued that the Biden administration’s authorization of long range strikes from the Ukraine into Russia, with “western-made” missiles was not only a mistake, but an act of shortsighted ego driven policy. (At least that’s what it looks like to us.) In the wake of Trump’s win, and with it the assumption that Ukraine and Russia would soon be forced to the negotiation table to settle things, the Biden administration purposely upped the heat in Ukraine, causing as much chaos as possible before power is handed over in Washington. There are many people in the American foreign policy community who are all-in on Ukraine. That Putin would emerge from the conflict intact is just too much for them.
The argument we often hear (and from people for whom we have great respect) is that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine using our money but Ukraine’s blood it will soon be NATO’s (and American) blood on the line as Putin rolls his way through The Continent. These people argue that total European dominance is Putin’s master plan.
We have little doubt that if it was possible Putin might just fancy such an idea. But at this point, barring some monumental development not yet on the geopolitical horizon, it’s not possible. Putin can’t at this point project power beyond the small slice of Ukraine that is the Donbas. The idea that the Russian army is going to roll into Warsaw, never mind Berlin or Paris appears to us to be ludicrous. Logistically it would be pretty much guaranteed suicide for Moscow. This, before even considering NATO’s wrath.
What can happen however is that things get so hot in Ukraine that Putin and the Russian state feel they have little option but to resort to drastic measures. What can happen is that China may feel forced to officially align with Russia in a war with the West. What can happen is this alliance in turn means a new front emerges in the South China Sea. What can happen is someone makes a rash move and nukes a city, or many cities. And after that, who knows?
We believe that Putin felt that he could go into Ukraine because he saw the calamity that was the American Afghanistan pullout. (We think this was a very important factor anyway.) We for the record had long been for a pullout of Afghanistan. But the way Biden did it was chaotic and the US looked like it was being run by the third string team. Putin, the crafty despot that he is recognized a window of opportunity. He probably also had intel on Biden and his mental state. So Putin moved.
We should note that we have a great affinity for the Ukrainian people. We have written multiple times on the Holodomor, which was the annihilation of millions of Ukrainian people (perhaps as many as in The Holocaust ten years later) at the hand of Stalin’s communist government in the 1930s. (The New York Times refused to report on the extermination by the way, because it liked Stalin and the communists at the time.) When we criticize the war in Ukraine we do it because we despise war first off, feel that many people are getting rich on the backs of the American taxpayer because of the war, and because what amounts to a geopolitical pissing match might get the rest of the world killed. (Or at least a significant part of it.)
These are (some of) the reasons we call for peace. These are the reasons we say restraint, not renewed fervor in the Ukraine is the best path forward. Yes Putin was wrong for invading Ukraine. Yes he’s a dictator. Yes he would probably have taken Kiev if he had had the chance. But given current conditions it is wisest in our estimation, at this turning point in history, to come to a settlement.
We’d argue that a deal where Ukraine is fully autonomous, but acts as a buffer state between Russia and NATO is the best course. The details will be many and difficult, but better to work this out than global war.
“The fact that ATACMS were used repeatedly tonight in the Bryansk region is, of course, a signal that they [in the West] want escalation. And without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles,” Lavrov said at a press conference at the G20 summit, according to comments reported by TASS and translated by Google.
The Kremlin has repeatedly warned the West against allowing Ukraine to use its long-range weapons to attack Russia directly. Moscow upped the ante Tuesday as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving its updated nuclear doctrine, shifting the parameters on when Russia can use nuclear weapons.
The updated document, outlining the conditions in which Russia can use nuclear weapons, now states that any aggression against Russia by a non-nuclear state, if it’s supported by a nuclear power, will be considered as a joint attack.
The doctrine also stated that Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a critical threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity (and that of its ally, Belarus) and that the launch of ballistic missiles against Russia would be seen among the conditions that could warrant a response using nuclear weapons.
Also if one wants to REALLY know what the Ukraine war is all about we highly suggest that one read NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA'S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES, a confidential cable (now public and widely cited) written by CIA Director William J. Burns in 2008. In it it is pretty clear why Ukraine (and to a lesser extent Georgia) is the issue it is for Russia. We knew.
Another important piece for anyone who wants to get to the heart of the Ukraine matter is this piece published in The Hill this past June entitled “Save Ukraine from American meddling” by Jeffrey Sachs who is a (very “progressive”) “University Professor at Columbia University who has advised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma*”.
Sach’s writes;
…Thirty years ago, Ukraine was embraced by America’s neoconservatives, who believed that it was the perfect instrument for weakening Russia. The neocons are the ideological believers in American hegemony, that is, the right and responsibility of the U.S. to be the world’s sole superpower and global policeman (as described, for example, in the Project for a New American Century’s 2000 report, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”).
The neocons chose three methods to push U.S. power and influence into Ukraine: first, meddle in Ukraine’s internal politics; second, expand NATO to Ukraine, despite Russia’s red line; and third, arm Ukraine and apply economic sanctions to defeat Russia…
…The idea of expanding NATO to Ukraine was fatuous and dangerous. From Russia’s perspective, the NATO expansion into Central Europe in 1999 was deeply objectionable and a stark violation of the solemn U.S. promise that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward,” but it was not deadly to Russia’s interests. Those countries do not border the Russian mainland. NATO enlargement to Ukraine, however, would mean the loss of Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet at Sevastopol and the prospect of U.S. missiles minutes from the Russian mainland.
There was, in fact, no prospect that Russia would ever accept NATO enlargement to Ukraine. The current CIA Director, William Burns, said as much in a memo to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when he was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 2008. The memo was famously entitled “Nyet means Nyet.”
*We must note that Kuchma was a key architect of the extensive Ukrainian crony capitalist state, so keep this in mind. On the other hand he did also ghost-write a book entitled Ukraine is Not Russia so he isn’t some ally of Putin or anything either.
