As I said in my last blog post, action by NATO to become directly involved with notions such as 'no fly zones' to oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is madness. I stand by that argument in full. However, the pressure on Western Leaders to become directly involved is increasing and likely to greatly increase. Western publics are becoming more and more outraged by the pictures and news coming from inside Ukraine.
On the other hand, it seems like while the Ukrainian armed services may not be able to halt the advance of the Russian army, the war may now turn into a series of dreadful sieges of Ukrainian cities. Evidence from the examples of the Russian led destruction of Grozny and Aleppo suggests that this process could, even in the case of single cities, take months, perhaps several months, for each city. The grisly razing of Ukrainian cities, one by one, with attendant seemingly never ending horrific media coverage will increase now strong currents of public opinion demanding that the west enters the war in defence of Ukraine. And as the sieges occur one after the other, for months and months, this pressure will grow ever stronger and stronger.
So far there have been sanctions applied and arms supplies given to the Ukrainians. Sanctions and sending in arms supplies, of course, do not constitute direct military engagement, and indeed there are clear instances of wars since WW2 when such actions have been taken without leading to WW3. The Russians and Chinese supplied North Vietnam in their war with the USA. The USA supplied the mujahideen in Afghanistan in their war against the Russians. The West has practically no alternative but to engage in such action in this case. Hopefully Russia feels that it has an alternative to that of responding with a military attack on the West.
Up until now, barring one or two instances that both NATO and Russia agreed were tangential mistakes, no situations since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 have looked as likely to tip us over the edge into a wider war compared to the present situation. The danger now is not so much a mistake of a stray plane being shot down, or an artillery shell landing in the wrong place, but the result of an intentional strategy that one side or other (the West or Russia) to attack the other.
But direct NATO engagement in the war in Ukraine does not even have to start with a collective decision by NATO. It can come from a member of NATO, or a NATO member interpreting NATO policy in a particular way. Once the action starts, however, even if constructed as a limited act, retaliation and counter-retaliation is likely to lead to a general war.
It does now look like the war in Ukraine will last for months. Rational arguments from NATO leaders are likely to be overwhelmed by the reactive feelings of the public to the sheer horror being explained on the news bulletins. The seductive but toxic charm of 'something must be done' is likely to eventually triumph. Then the progress towards the apocalypse of a new world world war will achieve an irresistible, and dangerously unpredictable, dynamic. The outcome of this process of escalation leading to general war will means that millions rather than (as seems almost 'priced in' at the moment) tens of thousands will die. Potentially, of course this could be tens of millions, or.........
Action to avoid this outcome rests not only in Western Leaders acting with caution, but also, and indeed primarily, on the Russian Leadership bringing this atrocious bombardment and siege of Ukrainian cities as quickly as possible to an end. The only way they can achieve this is by now not bombarding and besieging the cities in the first place, or at least stopping it as soon as possible.
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