By Gordon Hahn, reprinted from Russian and Eurasian Politics Blog, 9/19/22

The August sun leads a political analyst’s fancy to projections about the future informed by the past. August, through Barbara Tuchman’s famous The Guns of August, remains a kind of ‘meme’ symbolizing the road to World War I, a war born in circumstances with some commonalities with those we live in today: rising powers, declining powers, ill-advised alliances, contested Slavic territories, and naked human ambitions for expansion and empire. August also has a special meaning for rusologists as a month of momentous political events. For them, August has brought watershed moments like the 1991 August coup, the Kursk submarine sinking, and the 2008 Georgian-Ossetiyan-Russian ‘August War’. Given the slow-escalating global confrontation surrounding the Russo-Ukrainian war or war for NATO expansion, it seems a good time to think about how this multi-layered set of crises might escalate so that we might better understand the need to end the crisis through statesmanship, diplomacy, and compromise rather than by military means (kinetic or otherwise). There are just too many ways for the present war crisis to escalate and for things to ‘go south’ even further.

Russia’s invasion in February almost immediately escalated from a Russo-Ukrainian war sparked by NATO expansion and the Western-backed February 2014 Maidan revolt to the level of a NATO-Russian war. We might date 26 April 2022 the beginning of the end of the first almost entirely Ukrainian phase of Russo-Ukrainian War. Since that date when NATO convened a summit to discuss weapons supplies and other forms of assistance to Ukraine and approximately timed with the West’s urging Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy to reject the Istanbul agreement that both sides had been inclined to accept, the Russ0_Ukrainian War has been transitioning through a proxy war stage to a NATO-Russian War; one largely driven by the question of whether or not NATO can expand and otherwise do what it likes in what Russian sees as its sphere of influence. With the transitional proxy war stage, Ukraine functioned as a de facto NATO member bearing the brunt of the war burden to the detriment of its people and economy and potentially the destruction of its statehood, which serves as a useful buffer between Russia and the West/NATO. This next escalatory stage is not be to a NATO proxy-Russian war but a full-on NATO-Russian war in which Ukrainian forces will play less of a combat role and equipped, guided, and effectively commanded and led by NATO. This larger NATO war effort is intended to roll back Russia’s gains in Ukraine’s east and south and bring the war to Russia perhaps not with ground troops per se, but with aerial attacks and the deployment into Russian of sabotage and terrorist forces, organized by NATO special forces in order to fuel a Russian insurgency against the Putin regime. In the interim, this perhaps will lead to a second Crimean War that will be more global than the first version of 1850-1854.

The recent Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive (and the wise Russian withdrawal to concentrate focus on the east and south as originally intended) was not nearly so much a Ukrainian counteroffensive as it was a NATO counteroffensive. Russia’s withdrawal was a consequence of Russian President Vladimir Putin never having considered occupation as a goal of the ‘special military operation — no less all of Ukraine as Western propagandists and agitated analysts contend. The Kharkiv advance was organized on the basis of: NATO training of tens of thousands of Ukrainian forces; massive Western weapons supplies to Kiev (e.g., see https://www.ustranscom.mil/cmd/usp.cfm); the NATO Central Command’s and Western intelligence’s deep embeddedness into the Ukrainian forces; NATO-designed counteroffensive tactics, strategy, and plan; large numbers of former Western soldiers and officers participating in the operation; possible participation of Polish officers and troops brought in under the new Ukrainian law allowing Polish citizens nearly equal status as that of Ukrainian citizens; and possible participation of Western special forces advisors if not units.

The new character of the war — a Russo-NATO war with only Ukrainian bodies being used to carry out the war — is a major escalation. It is essentially now a stealth world war, with NATO and especially the United States functioning de facto and perhaps even de jure as combatants. This is likely to be met with a series of Russian escalations. There can be a crossing of a threshold between NATO’s stealth combatant role and an official NATO intervention that could be triggered by a NATO member’s unilateral action prompting a Russian attack on that NATO member, a Russian attack or Western- or Ukrainian-claimed Russian attack in response to which NATO can do no other than enter the war officially, or any number of unforeseeable ‘blacks swans.’

Once NATO enters the war officially, supplying troops, there is likely to be a next stage beyond the NATO-Russian war proper. It is likely to involve limited involvement of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), China, and the Sino-Russian-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) even if there is no breakout of war around Taiwan – a de facto World War III. With a war for Taiwan or a NATO invasion of Russian territory, World War III will become full-blown and likely go nuclear.

The Russo-Ukrainian War or the Stealth War for NATO Expansion

Russia’s invasion in February almost immediately escalated from a Russo-Ukrainian war sparked by NATO expansion and the Western-backed February 2014 Maidan revolt to the level of a NATO-Russian war. Since NATO member-states, including the U.S., are already deeply involved in the war, there is little to prevent the war from escalating into a full-fledged NATO-Russian war, with all the grave risks such a development would entail. Ukraine is functioning as a de facto NATO member, as it was becoming before the war, bearing the brunt of the war burden to the detriment of its people and potentially the destruction of its statehood, which serves as a useful buffer between Russia and the West/NATO. NATO weapons are put in the hands of Ukraine’s military and paramilitary neofascist-dominated groups. We also know that NATO leader, the U.S., and NATO are performing key military functions in the war. Intelligence from NATO members satellites and other sources are choosing or at least approving targets for Ukrainian forces to attack, including civilian targets and Russian territory (https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fworld-news%2F2022%2F08%2F01%2Fbritain-helps-ukraine-hunt-russian-spies-eyeing-western-military%2F). Retired former U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor has asserted that NATO officers form a military staff that is directing much of the Ukrainian war strategy and tactics. NATO member-countries’ citizens, usually retired servicemen, and likely active servicemen are fighting alongside the Ukrainians as volunteers as well as training and advising Ukrainian forces. Britain and other NATO members have been training 10,000s of new Ukrainian soldiers per month. The Ukrainian military is now three times the size of Russia’s, whose forces could never have occupied all of Ukraine and were never intended to do so. NATO soldiers are likely to become more prevalent in the war and more Polish.

Poles are even more anxious to see Russia defeated militarily than perhaps even Washington or their Lithuanian coinhabitants of the ancient commonwealth that carried out the first hybrid invasion on Slavic territory four centuries ago. It is important to note that Polish messianism and Russophobia drives its forward stance against Moscow, and Warsaw has growing ambitions to not just lead Eastern Europe but all of Europe. The Ukrainian war next door offers a good opportunity for Poland to seize the leadership from Russia-dependent and Russia-receptive Germany. A Ukrainian law recently signed by Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy gives Polish citizens the rights similar to those of Ukrainian citizens. This could serve as legal cover for thousands of Polish soldiers to enter Ukraine, don Ukrainian uniforms, and using NATO-supplied Western equipment begin fighting against Russia’s forces. When proof of any such gambit emerges – as it inevitably will – Russia could decide to hit Polish targets in response, bringing NATO into the war more directly in one form or another.

There are other places where tensions could lead to a Russian and/or NATO escalation and expansion of the war. For example, perhaps at the request of the West or perhaps without, Azerbaijan could open up a second front for Russia in Armenia. Russia is a guarantor of the shaky ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh War, and it would be forced to intervene to protect Armenia if a major escalation by Azerbaijan appeared on the verge of inflicting a major defeat on Moscow’s historical ally. Similarly, instability in Moldova/Transdniestria or one of the Baltic states prompting an attack on Russian forces in Transdniestr, a renewal of the Kaliningrad blockade, or a Russian incursion in one of the Baltic states. But Crimea is likely to be the fulcrum around which World War III will evolve. The West (e.g., through Turkey) could ‘encourage’ Baku or machinate in Moldova in order to provoke a crisis. One in the former could spark a CSTO response. In both cases, Russia could be faced with a second front, complicating its Ukraine op but further internationalizing the Russo-Western war.

Clandestine NATO functions will become transparent once the NATO-led nature becomes manifest and public. Ukrainian forces gradually will take a back seat and be integrated into a larger NATO forces and war effort, declared under an Article 5-worthy Russian attack, will be designed to roll back Russia’s gains in Ukraine’s east and south. Any success on the mainland will open a path to Crimea backed by naval operations in the Black Sea, leading to a second Crimean war. The first Crimean War in the 1850s was in fact the first world war. The region is the southern cleft in the Black-to-Baltic Sea ‘intermarium’ that forms the divide between the Western and the Russian-Eurasian civilizations.

A Second Crimean War would certainly become more global than the first, which included some Western operations in the Baltic (White) Sea and even in Russia’s Far North and Far East. On the Russian side, Belarus will almost certainly be forced to enter the war willingly or not, and Russia will likely seek and at least partially succeed in bringing some other members of its own military alliance, the CSTO, into the war effort. China may assist in mobilizing at least some token participation of the CSTO’s other members (Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) especially the Central Asian members. China and some other SCO members (India, Pakistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; candidate members – Belarus, Iran, Mongolia, and Afghanistan) will likely assist in providing equipment and perhaps limited numbers of troops, and this will escalate into World War III.

Turkey, as well Hungary and India, could be pivotal swing states, whose alignment with either the rest (‘East’) or the West could tip the balance in the regional wars or overall global conflict. Turkey’s role will be pivotal in this war and may decide whether the nascent global war stops at this phase or escalates to full-scale world war. Turkey could defect from NATO and side with Russia and China in the emerging alternative global system and alliance to those of the West and NATO. Turkey’s control over the Bosporous Straits can help to deny or limit NATO naval forces’ access to the Black Sea, which will be crucial for seizing Crimea away from Russia. Failure to take Crimea and increasing assistance to Russia from ‘the rest’ can help Russia defeat the West in this Crimean War.

In connection with or autonomously from events in Ukraine, a larger war could also be sparked by a decision by Moldova to integrate into Romania or put down unrest by Russian, Ukrainian, and or Turkish (Gagauz) minorities. This could be sparked by fears in Tiraspol resulting from a Russian move against Odessa, indicating a drive to Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniestria. Any such Romanian-Moldovan scenario would force the breakaway republic of Transdniestria and the Gagauz Autonomous Republic to assert independence and perhaps integration with Russia, sparking a Russo-Romanian war. Turkey, another important swing state in any res-West WW III, also would likely respond to events in the Black Sea or Moldova, separate from or connected with the second Crimean war or expanding world war.

Another risk is that a coalition of post-Soviet elements will create a de facto or de jure coalition of partisan, volunteer forces and/or states opposed to Russia or, organized by Russia under the CSTO, against Ukraine and other pro-Western former Soviet republics. For example, some Ukrainians are encouraging Georgia to open a ‘second front’ against Russia. This will encourage Georgian volunteers to head to Ukraine or could eventually be taken up by a nationalist Georgian government under certain circumstances.

Becoming wholly manifest over time, World War III would then see Sino-Russian alliance members expand the war to parts of Asia by attempting to settle their own regional scores or achieve their own regional ambitions in ways that counter NATO or NATO members’ moves in Ukraine or elsewhere. For the alliance’s leaders – China and Russia – that means Taiwan and former Soviet republics-become or -would-be NATO members (that is Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Transdniestr, the Baltic states), respectively. Under circumstances — such as a threat to Kaliningrad as developed two months ago when Lithuania attempted to halt Russian transportation to the exclave — Russia could try to move into additional former republics beyond Ukraine once NATO forces entered Ukraine or Russian territory– first of all the Baltic states. China might seek to establish its full sovereignty over Taiwan and perhaps seek territorial gains in contested territories with India, which would likely attempt and could indeed remain neutral.

India is the premier swing state that could sway the outcome of a East-West or rest-West world war. It is a kind of cleft state, with one foot in the republican West as a viable federative republic regime and another foot among the ‘rest’ as a member of SCO, a co-member of BRICS with China and Russia, a historical victim of Western colonialism, and arguably the Eurasian landmass’s second foremost power. However, SCO is still not yet a primarily military bloc. Indian neutrality could serve as a pretext to justify within SCO’s internal politics a Chinese move against SCO-member India’s Ladakh region. Japanese neutrality is unlikely, meaning likely Sino-Japanese conflict.

Russia and the U.S. will still be on opposite sides through proxies in the Syrian civil war, with Moscow’s forces supporting the Assad regime and U.S. forces and supplies backing a broad if weak anti-Assad coalition of mostly Mulsim Brotherhood, Al Qa`ida, and ISIS types. The West is supporting some Kurdish forces against Damascus; Russia is doing the same to a lesser degree against Turkey. If Iran is already a SCO member and perhaps even if it is not, it could invade Iraq and link up with Syria in our world war scenario and perhaps challenge Israel in war. It might also step up actions against the Saudis, for example, in Yemen.

Any Western-backed Azerbaijan move to re-start or continue its war for Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia could play into either Iranian or Turkish hands, with Istanbul and Teheran becoming key protagonists in the war. Should Turkey defect from NATO, Sino-Russian diplomacy could produce a modus vivendi in which Iran and Turkey sign a Mideastern Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, dividing areas in the Levant and South Caucasus for conquest and or de-sovereignization and heightened influence.

In addition to the local political-military tensions and conflicts mentioned above, obviously there is an underlying global economic confrontation between the West and the rest, which is aggravating tensions further.

In sum, there a host of ways in which the current Ukrainian (and Syrian) conflict can ignite or escalate into regional wars or more global by dint of other conflicts, many of them with a Russo-Western subplot. From there escalation might have no limits.

Nuclear War

World War III becomes an existential threat to one or more combatant parties and so goes nuclear.

A decade ago Ukraine was a tinderbox, and it has blown up. Now the region and the world are tinderboxes. How long before they blow up?

Link here.

Interview starts at about 13 and a half minutes in. Ben Abelow is the author of the book How the West Brought War to Ukraine, which I am currently reading and will be posting a review of soon. – Natylie

Link here.

“We are on the ground in Kherson to show you what is really happening and we will be going to all 4 referendums making the most in-depth coverage available.” – Patrick Lancaster

By Gerard Toal and Karina Korostelina, The Conversation, 9/15/22

Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive success against Russian troops in the Kharkiv region has raised hopes that a larger rollback of occupying troops is at hand. But this remains a daunting task: Russia continues to occupy roughly one-fifth of the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it unilaterally incorporated into the Russian Federation in 2014.

Victory, not peace, is the priority for Ukraine’s leadership, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declaring Ukraine will not give up any of its territories to end the war. But a time will come when peace will have to be made. And any agreement will need to be accepted not only by the leaders but by the Ukrainian people if it is to hold. As such, it is important to know what terms of settlement are acceptable – and perhaps more importantly, unacceptable – to ordinary Ukrainians, especially those living in front-line areas or displaced by Russia’s invasion.

To understand what an acceptable peace looks like to significantly war-affected Ukrainians, we organized a face-to-face survey of over 1,800 Ukrainians. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology administered the survey for us in July 2022. Around half of respondents were local residents in three Ukrainian-controlled towns close to active front-line fighting: Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Poltava. The other half comprised people internally displaced by the war who were sheltering in these towns.

Here are three key takeaways from the survey:

1. Having a strong state that can defend territory is a top priority

Our survey asked respondents an open question about what their goals were for Ukraine after the war, with the responses organized by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology into categories unseen by respondents.

More than half indicated that creating a peaceful and prosperous state was a top priority. Many saw the means to achieve this through military strength, with a third stating that having Ukraine emerge as a strong state with a large military that could defend its territory was their postwar aspiration for their country.

Slightly fewer mentioned Ukraine being a sovereign state able to make its own independent decisions as important, while 28.3% included Ukraine having full control over all its territories among their responses. More than a quarter mentioned having a state free of corruption as an important goal.

Existing government policy aspirations attracted some support. Around 1 in 5 mentioned Ukraine becoming a member of the European Union, though only 13.1% mentioned NATO membership.

Even Ukraine being a democratic state fell lower down as a priority, with just 14.1% mentioning it as a top goal.

Our survey suggests that peace, state strength and territorial integrity rather than geopolitical status or democracy are on the minds of front-line Ukrainians today.

2. Ukrainians reject concessions on self-determination, territory

We also presented a series of potential war outcomes to respondents and asked them whether they found these acceptable if it meant peace. Most of these scenarios generated strong feelings, with the category “absolutely not acceptable” the most frequently used.

The scenario most vehemently rejected by respondents is one in which Ukraine loses its right to determine its future in return for an end of hostilities. Yet opinion is less emphatic when it comes to the hypothetical ending of Ukraine’s aspirations of joining Western organizations. An outcome where Ukraine ends its quest for NATO membership in return for peace is absolutely unacceptable to 46% of respondents. The figure for giving up on European Union membership is 55.9%. These figures are still high, of course.

And while we found solid majorities rejecting territorial concessions in return for peace, the front-line Ukrainians we surveyed were less vehement when it came to concessions over Crimea than the Donbas, with 58.4% and 67% of respondents finding it “absolutely unacceptable” to concede the regions, respectively.

When presented with hypothetical deals in which Russia offers financial compensation or a formal apology but keeps seized Ukrainian lands, more than 80% of respondents said that such an outcome was “absolutely unacceptable.”

In a different question, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that most Ukrainians see their national territory as sacred.

3. When it comes to negotiations, the messenger matters

As well as asking front-line Ukrainians what is acceptable or not acceptable in any peace settlement, we also wanted to see if their support for negotiations would be affected by who was advocating it.

So we ran an experiment to test the power of different potential endorsers of negotiations toward a complete ceasefire in the war.

The survey participants were randomly assigned to three groups. The first group was simply asked, “How much do you support negotiations with Russia on a complete ceasefire in this war?”

The second group was asked the same, but also exposed to a made-up statement in which Zelenskyy stressed the importance of negotiations to prevent further soldier and civilian deaths. A third group was shown a similar endorsement, but this time it came from the leaders of the EU and the U.S.

The group not shown any endorsement backed negotiations by 46%. This jumped to 54% support among respondents who were shown the fictional endorsement by Zelenskyy. Interestingly, there was a small decrease in the support of ceasefire negotiations – down to 42% – when the messengers were leaders of the EU and the U.S.

The results suggest that the support of the Ukrainian leadership for a ceasefire negotiation is much more important than international pressure. Indeed, our survey indicates that Western leaders publicly pushing negotiations might induce a backfire effect.

Taking on the voice of front-line Ukrainians

Although not nationally representative – our survey focused on those displaced by war and close to active front lines – the views presented by respondents provide insight into what is important and currently unacceptable to war-afflicted Ukrainians. Those more distant from the front lines and without direct experience of displacement may have even more emphatic views.

Ukraine’s leadership is in no mood to talk peace with Russia at the moment. But negotiations will be needed at some point. Paying close attention to the views of ordinary Ukrainians is vital, for any proposed peace settlement requires their general consent to have a chance of taking hold and enduring.

By Paul Robinson, Canadian Dimension, 9/22/22

“War,” said the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, “is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force. Each side, therefore, compels its opponent to follow suit; a reciprocal action is started which must lead, in theory, to extremes.”

With this, Clausewitz introduced the concept of escalation into the theory of war. As it meets resistance, each side increases the amount of force it applies, inducing the other side to do likewise, setting in motion an upwards spiral that has no theoretical limit other than the physical capacities of those involved.

So it has proven in the current war in Ukraine. When Russia began hostilities in February, it seems to have envisioned a short war ending in a negotiated settlement. Consequently, it applied only a limited percentage of the resources available to it. But its hopes of quick triumph proved to be in vain. Once it became clear that Ukraine would survive the initial onslaught, Western powers initiated the process of escalation, sending large volumes of military aid to Ukraine. This aid has proven very effective, enabling the Ukrainians first to halt the Russian advance and then to push the Russians back. The culmination of this process was a successful offensive this past month which saw the Ukrainian army recapture a large area of conquered territory without much of a fight.

However, as Clausewitz pointed out, the natural response to setbacks in war is not to give in but to apply more force of one’s own. And thus we should not be surprised that the Russian reaction to its recent defeat has not been to surrender but to escalate even further.

This week, the escalation has taken shape in two important ways. The first consisted of declarations by the authorities in four Russian controlled Ukrainian provinces—Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhe and Kherson—that they would carry out referendums between September 23 and 27. The inhabitants of the provinces will be asked whether they wish to join the Russian Federation.

One may assume that the outcomes of these referendums are pre-determined. When the results are declared, it is almost certain they will claim that the great majority of the population of all four provinces have voted to join Russia. Speaking on Wednesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that he would respect the wishes of the people as expressed in the referendums. One may expect, therefore, that soon after the votes are held—perhaps as early as October 1—all four provinces will be absorbed into the Russian Federation.

Putin also used his speech to make an announcement concerning the second form of escalation. For the president declared a partial mobilization, calling up 300,000 military reservists. To date, Russia has only sent around 200,000 troops to the war in Ukraine. While some experts doubt Russia’s logistical ability to effectively deploy another 300,000, the more than doubling of the army’s size in Ukraine cannot but make a difference.

Until now, Russia has had a material advantage over Ukraine in terms of equipment, especially air power and artillery. But the Russians have been at a serious disadvantage in terms of manpower. This is a result of the unwillingness so far to use anything other than contract soldiers and volunteers. Simply put, the Russian army has not committed enough troops to effectively cover the entire 1,000 kilometre front. The partial mobilization of reservists is designed to resolve this problem. It will take several months, however, for the effects to be felt. The Ukrainian army has roughly to the end of the year to press its current advantage. After that, as the Russian reservists reach the front line, it may find the going much harder.

The impact of the forthcoming referenda in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhe and Kherson provinces will be more immediate. The legal framework for what the Kremlin euphemistically calls the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine does not allow the use of conscripts outside of the territory of the Russian Federation. It would, of course, be relatively easy for the Russian government to adopt a new framework, but for economic and political reasons it wishes to avoid doing so. The annexation of the four Ukrainian provinces provides a neat work around. For once they have been absorbed into Russia, their territory is no longer foreign soil according to Russian law, and therefore conscripts could be legally deployed there.

This does not mean that the Russian army will necessarily do so. The political optics of deploying conscripts to the war zone remain poor. But the option will suddenly become available, and even if conscripts are not sent to the front, they could be sent to the newly annexed lands to free up soldiers currently engaged in activities behind the lines. The impending annexations offer up important opportunities for Russia to solve its manpower problems.

Beyond that, the likely absorption of Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation severely complicates any potential peace negotiations. Although it was clear from the start of the current war that Russia intended eventually to annex Donetsk and Luhansk, it was less clear that it had this intent with regard to other Ukrainian territory it had occupied. Indeed, it seems likely that the initial plan was to use such territory as a bargaining chip that could be traded in for Ukrainian concessions on other matters. The outlines of a peace deal were something along the lines of Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO and accepting the loss of Crimea and Donbas, and in return getting back its other lost territories.

That deal is now firmly off the table. In 2020 the Russian Constitution was amended to state that action “directed at alienating parts of state territory as well as calls to such will not be permitted.” Once the four Ukrainian provinces become part of the Russian Federation, the Russian government will be constitutionally forbidden from giving them back to Ukraine as part of a peace deal. Moreover, it will also be unconstitutional for anybody in Russia even to suggest such a deal. Exchanging land for peace is no longer a possibility.

Russia is now committed to defending its newly conquered territory to the bitter end. If the additional resources announced this week don’t do the trick, then one can expect further escalations down the line. Ukraine, meanwhile, has made it clear that it has no intention of making peace on any terms other than the return of its lost land. Consequently, it is extremely difficult to see how any peace deal could be struck. The most one could possibly hope for would appear to be a ceasefire that freezes the conflict along the front lines existing at the moment that the guns fall silent, without any formal peace treaty (the ending of the Korean War is an example). For that to happen, though, there has to have been a prolonged period of stalemate from which both sides see no obvious exit. We are far from reaching that point.

In the meantime, Western leaders seem to be banking on Ukraine’s ability to achieve a total military victory. This week’s developments make this considerably less likely than before. Somewhat paradoxically, the developments may also mean that the final outcome may end up being less favourable to Ukraine than would have been the case had Western states not given it so much military support. For as previously mentioned, Russia might originally have been willing to give up some of its conquered land in return for various non-territorial concessions. But by enabling Ukraine to mount a successful military resistance, the West has induced Russia to escalate and to now adopt a position that makes a return of the lost territory impossible other than by military means that may be beyond Ukraine’s capacity.

All that, however, remains to be determined. As Clausewitz noted, war is a realm of chance and uncertainty. It would be a rash analyst who dared to predict how this current war will turn out. About the only thing of which one can be confident is that it will continue for a long time yet—certainly many months, and perhaps even years, until the two sides reach a point of mutual exhaustion. Every war must end, but at present this one’s ending seems to be far out of sight.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.