Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is scaring a lot of people in the United States and NATO. That’s precisely what Putin has been trying to do, of course. Conducting nuclear drills, warning the West not to supply Ukraine with sophisticated weapons, and stating that the sanctions amounted to a “declaration of war,” have demonstrated a shift in Putin’s attitude that could lead to a confrontation with NATO.
Or is it all an illusion, and Putin would never risk nuclear war with the U.S.?
In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised the specter of Armageddon as Ukraine battles for its existence as an independent state.
The outcome of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has yet to be decided, but it’s possible the decision has set off a path to a full-scale global war, Zelenskyy told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt when asked whether he understood concerns from President Joe Biden about not escalating tensions with or provoking Moscow.
“Nobody knows whether it may have already started. And what is the possibility of this war if Ukraine will fall, in case Ukraine will? It’s very hard to say,” Zelenskyy said. “And we’ve seen this 80 years ago, when the Second World War had started … nobody would be able to predict when the full-scale war would start.”
Zelenskyy could use a history lesson. In fact, everyone knew — except Hitler himself — that if Hitler invaded Poland, England and France would come to Warsaw’s defense. Reluctantly, to be sure. But a certainty, nevertheless. The governments of Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier would not have survived another 48 hours without a war declaration once Poland was attacked.
Related: Ukraine’s Embattled President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Addresses Congress
But the real danger is not from anything Vladimir Putin will do to subjugate Ukraine. The danger comes from an American president in desperate political trouble who may press Putin against the wall on sanctions, threatening his hold on power. Or if, in Biden’s eagerness to come off as a “strong leader,” he yields to pressure from the war hawks in Congress and sends sophisticated weaponry to Zelenskyy that Putin believes could turn the tide of the war against Russia.
Giving Putin a black eye in Ukraine is desirable. But a humiliation for Russia in Ukraine could have vast unforeseen consequences.
NATO forces, intended as defensive, are massing near Russian borders that, with much of Russia’s military bogged down in Ukraine, are unusually vulnerable. Increasingly paranoid Kremlin leaders, faced with economic devastation and domestic unrest, may believe that a Western plot to remove them is already underway.
Russia has said that it considers the weapons and other increased military aid that Western governments are sending to Ukraine tantamount to war, and has implied that it might strike NATO convoys. Over the weekend, Russian missiles struck a Ukrainian base mere miles from Polish territory.
“Those are the things that make me really concerned about escalation here,” said Ulrich Kühn, a nuclear strategist at the University of Hamburg in Germany.
Joe Biden has, so far, not made any major blunders in his response to the Russian invasion. In fact, he has in some respects performed admirably. He has been able to drag the Europeans into a devastating sanctions regime against Putin and his cronies — perhaps the most severe in history. And after a few missteps, he has now fully embraced the cause of Ukrainian independence.
But the chances of a misstep leading to a catastrophic war are still great.
Alexander Vershbow, NATO’s deputy secretary general from 2012 to 2016, said that Western leaders had concluded that Russian plans to use nuclear weapons in a major crisis were sincere, raising the risk from any accident or misstep that the Kremlin mistook for war.
With Russian forces struggling in a Ukraine conflict that Moscow’s leaders have portrayed as existential, Mr. Vershbow added, “That risk has definitely grown in the last two and a half weeks.”
This is only the beginning of the crisis. What happens after the guns fall silent will be critical to the future of Europe and, hence, the United States. Navigating a future that requires Vladimir Putin to be neutralized and NATO re-energized demands leadership of a special kind.
Is Joe Biden up to the challenge?
