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Let me just express my concern about the war in Ukraine by wondering what "victory" might actually mean for the Ukrainians. Let's assume for a moment that the coming, much-publicized Ukrainian counteroffensive will indeed punch serious holes in the lines of a battered and demoralized Russian military and that Ukrainian forces won't just bloodily win back significant parts of their territory (even, say, endangering the Russian position in Crimea), but cause that country's military to begin to collapse. Think of such developments as something like the ultimate victory scenario (or perhaps dream) of both Kyiv and Washington.
My own worry is that, should such a thing happen -- and I'm not faintly predicting it -- how might Russian President Vladimir Putin respond? We're talking about the leader of one of the two most over-armed nuclear powers on the planet who has, in these months, implicitly threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, even if a Ukrainian nuclear plant doesn't go up in smoke in the fighting to come.
It's been more than three-quarters of a century since such weaponry was used twice to utterly devastating effect to end a war, a period in which the great powers have nuclearized on an almost unimaginable scale. Worse yet, in recent years, all the nuclear agreements between the U.S. and Russia, the two countries with 90% of the planet's nuclear weapons, have essentially been canceled, even as both of those powers continue to "modernize" their arsenals to the tune of trillions of dollars. Now, we find ourselves at a moment when a future "victory" for Kyiv could, depending on how Putin responds, be a historic catastrophe for Ukrainians, Russians, and the rest of the world with the possible introduction of such weaponry on a European battlefield. It's both hard to imagine and all too conceivable.
But as TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich, author most recently of On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century, points out today, Joe Biden's Washington is all too ready to take a chance on just such a future, rather than focusing on how to bring peace to a Europe in ever greater chaos. Tom
The Compulsion to Intervene
Why Washington Underwrites Violence in Ukraine
Allow me to come clean: I worry every time Max Boot vents enthusiastically about a prospective military action. Whenever that Washington Post columnist professes optimism about some upcoming bloodletting, misfortune tends to follow. And as it happens, he's positively bullish about the prospect of Ukraine handing Russia a decisive defeat in its upcoming, widely anticipated, sure-to-happen-any-day-now spring counteroffensive.
In a recent column reported from the Ukrainian capital -- headline: "I was just in Kyiv under fire" -- Boot writes that actual signs of war there are few. Something akin to normalcy prevails and the mood is remarkably upbeat. With the front "only [his word!] about 360 miles away," Kyiv is a "bustling, vibrant metropolis with traffic jams and crowded bars and restaurants." Better yet, most of the residents who fled that city when the Russians invaded in February 2022 have since returned home.
And despite what you might read elsewhere, incoming Russian missiles are little more than annoyances, as Boot testifies from personal experience. "From my vantage point in a hotel room in the center of Kyiv," he writes, "the whole attack was no big deal -- just a matter of losing a little sleep and hearing some loud thumps," as air defenses provided by Washington did their work.
While Boot was there, Ukrainians repeatedly assured him that they would cruise to ultimate victory. "That's how confident they are." He shares their confidence. "In the past, such talk may have contained a large element of bravado and wishful thinking, but now it is a product of hard-won experience." From his vantage point in a downtown hotel, Boot reports that "continued Russian attacks on urban areas are only making Ukrainians angrier at the invaders and more determined to resist their onslaught." Meanwhile, "the Kremlin appears to be in disarray and mired in the blame game."
Well, all I can say is: from Boot's prayerful lips to God's ear.
Courageous Ukrainians certainly deserve to have their stalwart defense of their country rewarded with success. Yet the long history of warfare sounds a distinctly cautionary note. The fact is that the good guys don't necessarily win. Stuff happens. Chance intervenes. As Winston Churchill put it in one of his less well-remembered "always remember" axioms: "The Statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
President George W. Bush for one can certainly testify to the truth of that dictum. So too, assuming he's still sentient, can Vladimir Putin. For either Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Joe Biden to suppose that they're exempt from its provisions would be daring indeed.
Boot is hardly alone in expecting the much-hyped Ukrainian operation -- with June upon us, will it become a summer counteroffensive? -- to break the months-long stalemate. The optimism voiced throughout Western quarters stems in significant part from a belief that new weapons systems promised to but not yet actually fielded by Ukraine -- Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets, for example -- will have a decisive impact on the battlefield.
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