Nuclear War Just Got Closer

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For over two years, I’ve been warning about the dangers of escalation between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine.

Well, the U.S. and Russia have now climbed another rung on the escalation ladder that could possibly lead to nuclear war.

You probably know by now that Ukraine has invaded Russia in force. Up to six Ukrainian brigades totaling between 10,000-15,000 troops with armored personnel carriers and tanks invaded a lightly defended part of the Russian border.

They began to move toward a Russian nuclear power plant near the city of Kursk. The object was to capture the nuclear power plant and hold it hostage. The Russians would not attack to regain the plant because it’s too dangerous to stage a battle in proximity to a nuclear reactor.

A repetition of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster when a nuclear reactor in Ukraine near the Belarus border exploded in the worst nuclear accident in history could not be ruled out.

Control of a Russian reactor by Ukraine would give Ukraine leverage in forcing peace negotiations with Russia or even destabilizing the Putin regime.

This Was a Big Operation

The first point to make about this incursion is that it wasn’t simply a cross-border raid by a small unit. 10,000-15,000 men is a significant force.

Many believe the attack took Russia by surprise. But the best available information is that Russia knew it was coming and allowed it to happen, laying a trap for Ukraine to fall into.

That wouldn’t be a surprise since Russia likely has many moles within the Armed Forces of Ukraine and extensive reconnaissance assets to detect troop movements.

Now Ukraine has fallen into the trap.

Of course, the world press including the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Economist and the Washington Post called this a “turning point” in the war and a demonstration that the Ukrainian military was capable of surprise attack and could even win the war.

It can’t, but the attack did provide a temporary morale boost.

‘We Had no Idea!’

The U.S. denies having any advanced knowledge of the attack, but that’s difficult to believe. The U.S. (and NATO overall) is so deeply integrated into Ukraine’s operational planning, it strains credulity to argue that they didn’t know.

Ukraine also relies heavily on U.S. reconnaissance imagery and signals intelligence. They likely used U.S.-supplied intelligence to detect weak spots in Russian defenses and which fortifications to bypass.

Russia knows that. That means Russia believes the U.S. and its NATO partners helped facilitate a direct attack on Russia, which hasn’t happened since World War II. That’s enormously significant to the Russians.

You might say, hey, Russia invaded Ukraine first, so turnabout is fair play. Why shouldn’t Ukraine invade Russia? You might have a point, but it’s not one that Vladimir Putin will appreciate very much.

Putin has been careful since day one to call the Ukraine war a “special military operation.” He specifically does not call it a war.

You might say, what’s the difference? Well, it’s a lot more than semantics. In Russia, a formal declaration of war represents an important legal threshold.

‘We’re Not Kidding Anymore’

A formal declaration of war means mass conscription and the full mobilization of the Russian economy to support the war effort.

It’s certainly true that Russian war production has increased dramatically since the war began, but Putin has avoided a truly wartime economy because he wants to maintain a strong private economy.

During World War II, U.S. wartime spending accounted for about half of GDP. In contrast, Russian military spending last year only accounted for about 6% of its GDP.

In some ways, Russia is fighting this war with one hand tied behind its back. In fact, many Russians’ main criticism of Putin is that he isn’t doing enough to defeat Ukraine. Will Ukraine’s NATO-sponsored attack on Russia compel Putin to take an even harder line?

I hear that Russian leadership, not just Putin, is furious about Ukraine’s attack on Russia. They want to take off the gloves and crush Ukraine once and for all.

We’ll have to see what happens. If Russia does take the gloves off, would the U.S. double down on its efforts to keep Ukraine fighting? If so, the logic of escalation points to direct war with Russia ultimately. And we know where that ends.

A Strategic Blunder

From a strategic viewpoint, Ukraine’s attack on Russia will prove to be a disaster.

Ukraine failed in its objective to capture the Kursk power plant. If they didn’t take it in the first couple of days, they’re not going to take it now. Russia’s surged too many troops into the area.

Russia also encircled the Ukrainians and cut off their ability to retreat back to Ukraine. Ukraine has suffered enormous casualties and has lost much of the armor used in the attack. Neither of these losses can be easily replaced. Russia will now systematically destroy the Ukrainian forces offering them a choice between surrender or death.

This is the Russian way of war. Ukraine fell into the Russian trap.

The attacking forces were Ukraine’s only remaining reserves and some of the best troops that Ukraine had left. Once this battle is done, there will be little standing in the way of Russian troops completing their victories on the battlefront and moving to take what remains of the eastern half of Ukraine.

This attack reminds me of the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, when the Germans were well on their way to losing the war, but could still muster enough forces to launch a last desperate attack on U.S. forces in Belgium.

All it ended up doing was wasting German troops and equipment, hastening Germany’s demise. I think this attack will have a similar outcome, which is part of the Russian plan.

The Russians will win the war. The only question is, can the U.S. and Russia somehow get off the escalation ladder that’s leading us to nuclear war.

Someone’s going to have to blink first, and I doubt that’ll be Putin.

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