Escalation in the Russia-Ukraine War
More Missiles Are Not the Answer, Unless You Want World War III
It’s Friday the 13th, and though I’m not superstitious about the date, I’m not liking this headline in today’s New York Times:
Top News
Biden Poised to Approve Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Western Weapons in Russia
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That’s a headline that proves once again that America is led by the best and brightest. (Sarcasm alert.)
Vladimir Putin has already said that long-range weapons striking targets in Russia means war between Russia and NATO. I don’t think he’s bluffing. And, lest we forget, Russia has nearly 6000 nuclear warheads in its inventory.
Why is the U.S. and NATO allowing Ukraine to use missiles that can strike targets deep into Russian territory? The short answer is that Ukraine is losing the war. But any escalation by Ukraine can be matched (and over-matched) by Russia. The most likely scenario is an even more devastated Ukraine. The worst-case scenario is World War III.
Wars are made by fools with stars on their shoulders and produce more fools, especially in government circles. Ukraine isn’t going to win the war by launching Storm Shadow missiles 150 miles into Russia. More attacks on Russia are likely to reinforce Putin’s rule than to weaken it.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to lose more territory to Russian forces in the east, as this map (courtesy of the NYT) shows.
In a war that’s now lasted more than two and a half years, we’ve been told repeatedly that new “magical” weapons will make all the difference for Ukraine, whether Leopard and Challenger and Abrams tanks or F-16 fighter jets or ATACMS or what-have-you. Yet the Russia-Ukraine War is largely an old-fashioned infantry and artillery war, a land war, an attritional war, in which Ukraine is slowly being worn down.
Long-range missiles launched into Russia aren’t going to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor. But they may provoke a devastating response from Russia that could provoke a far wider conflict. And for what, exactly?
Readers, I just wanted to note it's becoming increasingly hard to find my site and articles via a Google search. And my site is fairly small (roughly 1300 subscribers).
I imagine Google is making it much more difficult to find "alternative" news on much larger sites. Google is fixing the algorithm to send people to corporate-owned news (the CON). Even I'm seeing the effects at my small site.
Thanks to all of you for coming here and exchanging your views freely here.
In case anyone's interested, on Wednesday I spoke with Burt Cohen on a lot of military matters:
https://keepingdemocracyalive.com/a-military-security-state-and-the-erosion-of-freedom/
The interview is just under an hour.