A U.S.-Russia War Over Ukraine?

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

“Could a U.S. response to Russia’s action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?”

This jolting question is raised by Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes in the cover article of The National Interest.

The answer the authors give, in “Countdown to War: The Coming U.S. Russia Conflict,” is that the odds are shortening on a military collision between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

The cockpit of the conflict, should it come, will be Ukraine.

What makes the article timely is the report that Canada will be sending 200 soldiers to western Ukraine to join 800 Americans and 75 Brits on a yearlong assignment to train the Ukrainian army.

And train that army to fight whom? Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine whom Vladimir Putin has said will not be crushed, even if it requires Russian intervention. Says Putin, “We won’t let it happen.”

What are the forces that have us “stumbling to war”?

On our side there is President Obama who “enjoys attempting to humiliate Putin” and “repeatedly includes Russia in his list of current scourges alongside the Islamic State and Ebola.”

Then there is what TNI editor Jacob Heilbrunn calls the “truculent disposition” that has become the “main driver of Republican foreign policy.” A “triumphalist camp,” redolent of the “cakewalk war” crowd of Bush II, is ascendant and pushing us toward confrontation.

This American mindset has its mirror image in Moscow.

“Putin is not the hardest of the hard-liners in Russia,” write the authors. “Russia’s establishment falls into … a pragmatic camp, which is currently dominant thanks principally to Putin’s support, and a hard-line camp” the one Putin adviser calls “the hotheads.”

The hotheads believe the way to respond to U.S. encroachments is to invoke the doctrine of Yuri Andropov, “challenge the main enemy,” and brandish nuclear weapons to terrify Europe and split NATO.

Russian public opinion is said to be moving toward the hotheads.

Russian bombers have been intruding into NATO air space. Putin says he was ready to put nuclear forces on alert in the Crimea. Russia’s ambassador has warned Copenhagen that if its ships join a NATO missile defense force, Denmark could be targeted with nukes.

In coming war games, Russia will move Iskander missiles into the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad on Poland’s northern border.

“Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash,” brays the director of the television network Rossiya Segodnya.

As of now, the “pragmatists” represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov retain the upper hand.

They believe Russia can still do business with the United States and Europe.

“The ‘hotheads’ take the opposite view,” the authors write, “they argue that NATO is determined to overthrow Putin, force Russia to its knees, and perhaps even dismember the country.”

In Ukraine, Putin has drawn two red lines. He will not permit Ukraine to join NATO. He will not allow the rebels to be crushed.

Russia hard-liners are confident that should it come to war in Ukraine, Russia would have what Cold War strategists called “escalation dominance.” This is what JFK had in the Cuban missile crisis — conventional and nuclear superiority on sea and land, and in the air around Cuba.

With Ukraine easily accessible to Russian forces by road and rail, sea and air, and Russia’s military just over the border while U.S. military might is a continent away, the hard-liners believe Russia would prevail in a war and America would face a choice — accept defeat in Ukraine or escalate to tactical atomic weapons.

The Russians are talking of resorting to such weapons first.

The decisive date for Putin to determine which way Russia will go would appear to be this summer. The authors write:

“Putin will attempt to exploit the expiration of EU sanctions, which are scheduled to expire in July. If that fails, however, and the European Union joins the United States in imposing additional economic sanctions such as excluding Moscow from the SWIFT financial clearing system, Putin would be tempted to respond, not by retreating, but by ending all cooperation with the West, and mobilizing his people against a new and ‘apocalyptic’ threat to ‘Mother Russia.’

“As a leading Russian politician told us, ‘We stood all alone against Napoleon and against Hitler.’”

As of now, the Minsk II cease-fire of February seems to be holding. The Ukrainian army and pro-Russian rebels have both moved their heavy weapons back from the truce lines, though there have been clashes and casualties.

But as Ukraine’s crisis is unresolved, these questions remain:

Will the U.S. train the Ukrainian army and then greenlight an offensive to retake the rebel-held provinces? Would Russia intervene and rout that army? Would the Americans sit by if their Ukrainian trainees were defeated and more Ukrainian land was lost?

Or would we start up the escalator to a war with Russia that few Europeans, but some Americans and Russians, might welcome today?

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kokoda
kokoda

How about you phrase the question correctly:
“Could a Russian response to the U.S. action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?”

Anonymous
Anonymous

In the United States there is outrage over a fallen soldier memorial proposed for a city park because it has a rifle stuck in the ground with a helmet on it – the opposition being to the rifle since it represents violence even though it carries on a tradition for honoring fallen soldiers dating back to at least Roman times.

In the United States adults run away in terror if a 6 year old chews a pop tart into an “L” shape. In Russia, children are taught to use an AK-47.

In the United States our president wears mom jeans to work and plays golf, in Russia their president rides a bear to work and wrestles sharks.

Obviously, Russia doesn’t stand a chance if we go to war with them.

Stucky

“As of now, the Minsk II cease-fire of February seems to be holding.” —– article

True, but still misleading. Both sides are rearming. The “truce” will be broken, soon.

========================================

Minsk Agreement II – Rest in Peace

It is pretty clear that the chances of peace, which were always tiny, are getting worse and worse by the day. I personally never believed that the Minsk-2 Agreement (M2A) would be implemented by the Kiev junta and I am not in the least surprised. The most what the junta could do was to withdraw some (not even most!) of its heavy weapons and then bring news ones in. As for the political steps foreseen by M2A they are simply unthinkable for the junta. In fact, even if Poroshenko decided to comply with M2A and, say, negotiate a future Ukrainian constitution with the representatives of Novorussia, he would probably be overthrown within 24 hours, not only because the Nazis like Yarosh would never accept that but because, more importantly, Uncle Sam would never accept that either.

The key actor: the USA

The single most important actor in the Ukrainian crisis are the USA which has far more influence than the EU or any local political force. And the fact is that the USA have everything to lose from a peaceful outcome of the Ukrainian civil war. Why? Simple!

The US powerbase in the Ukraine is composed of two very different groups: first, the Nazi ultra-nationalists with very strong ties to Ukraine emigrants in Canada and the USA and, second, the corrupt oligarchs. Now here is the key factor here: neither of these two groups are a majority of the Ukrainian people, even if we exclude the Donbass. In fact, even when put together into one “pro-US 5th column” the Nazis and the oligarchs are still not a majority. This crucial fact translates into a very simple but crucial policy imperative: the USA cannot allow anything remotely “democratic” in the Ukraine: it is either “people power” or “US power”, but it will never be both. From that flows a 2nd very simple policy imperative: the US needs to maintain a state of crisis at all costs: war, civil war, industrial or ecological disaster, MH-17, unknown snipers, etc. Peace will sooner or later bring some form of people power which, in turn, will mean that the USA would lose control of the situation.

This is why whether the next crisis results from yet another military defeat or from food shortages and riots, the junta’s “solution” will be the same one: martial law. The Rada, in fact, just passed such a law allowing easy imposition of martial law.

Martial law as a way to save the current regime

The big advantage (for the USA) of the introduction of martial law in the Ukraine is that the two “pillars” of US power in the Ukraine (Nazis and oligarchs) will most obviously the ones to declare and implement martial law, thus their power over the country will remain safely in their hands. Furthermore, martial law will allow the regime to viciously crack down and crush any opposition under minimal or even no legal constraints of any kind. Any person or group protesting or otherwise disagreeing with anything the junta does will be declared “agent of Putin” and dealt with by either imprisonment or simply executed.

The imposition of martial law will also be a financial bonanza for the oligarch which will use it to ruthlessly eliminate any opponents or anybody questioning their practices. But there is more to a martial law option than just short term benefits:

Longer term benefits of martial law: the preparation of a “Croatian” scenario

More and more people are coming to the conclusion that the junta in Kiev is preparing for what is often called a “Croatian” scenario.

rest of article here —> http://russia-insider.com/en/russia-wont-allow-croatian-scenario-east-ukraine/5742

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

The Budapest Convention is not a treaty. We have no treaty obligation to Ukraine. It’s also immoral to offer a false sense of protection to the Baltic States that we will protect them against Russia. It’s like holding out a safety net to someone to jump into while knowing that the net is made out of issue paper. NATO is a joke.

yahsure
yahsure

Putin draws a line in the sand. Obama draws a line in the sand. Who are you going to believe?

Overthecliff
Overthecliff

Admin, the Russian education system is clearly superior. Thanks for your information on the subject.

Muscovite
Muscovite

What if the Western objective is mutual obliteration? A very convenient way to remove all those “unfunded obligations”, and have “The Russians” carry the blame for such actions.

As for the fate of those who the likes of Kissinger do NOT regard as “Useless Eaters” (i.e. those with the superior connections) – the World’s taxpayers will have ensured their very safe, very comfortable survival come what may.

IraK, positing the advantages of nuclear war,
IraK, positing the advantages of nuclear war,

All I ever read about on the blogger internet and from tremblechin columnists, is that nuclear war will be a disaster for the world.

Don’t believe everything you read.
Consider the alternative.

For those of you and us who can greatly protect ourselves, a nuclear war might be a cleansing blessing.
First, the US will certainly prevail while Russia and China will be destroyed.
Second, essential Americans like our military leaders, august advisers like Dick Cheney, creative folks like Woody Allen, most of God’s Chosen People, and others essential to the propagation of our species will have warning of a nuclear war, just as they had warning of 911, and will survive. More importantly, after a nuclear war, the 21st century will truly become the new American Century as the end-of-history NeoCons have prophesied.
Consider nuclear war from another viewpoint. Trash, unable to protect themselves, will be destroyed. Big city workers and rabble, all of whom are mostly resource consumers, commuters, and file churners, will vanish. Only the best and the brightest, like you TBP readers, will survive.

All I know, who are worth saving, have survival plans that will protect them for decades. As for the rest… well, a little blood spilled, a few lives lost, and millions of nobodys sacrificed won’t hurt America’s prospects for the future. That’s the way I see it.

So ratchet up the pressure on the Russians, confront the Chinese, and, for God’s sake America, take the first strike and make it a killer.

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