BUSINESS TIMES
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/the-ukraine-war-bidens-dilemmas
The Ukraine war: Biden’s dilemmas
With no sign of an end to the conflict in sight, America’s current approach of providing military and economic aid to Ukraine without the need to deploy US military troops there may not be viable in the long run, not least if Russia raises the ante.
Wed, Sep 28, 2022
MUCH of the focus of the discussion in Washington and other Western capitals in recent days has been on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine in response to what he perceives to be a possible threat to Moscow’s core national interests.
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will use all available means to protect Russia and its people – this is not a bluff,” he stated last week (Sep 21) during an address delivered from the Kremlin.
At the same time, the Russian leader also announced “referendums” in areas of Ukraine already occupied by Russia that were expected to result in declarations that they are part of Russian territory after formal annexation.
In that case, the argument goes, if Ukraine forces attempt to push back Russian troops from those occupied areas, the Kremlin would define that as an invasion of Russia, which Putin pledged to defend by any or all means, including supposedly by tactical nuclear weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons are smaller than strategic weapons, with a shorter range and lower yield, built to take out specific targets in specific areas without widespread destruction.
While tactical nuclear weapons haven’t been deployed on the battlefield, military experts believe that the radioactive debris from its use in Ukraine could spread into the Russian troops as well as to Poland and other geographical neighbours of Ukraine.
Putin has also called up 300,000 Russian reservists to improve Russia’s position following the dramatic military setbacks his troops suffered, including the failure to invade the capital Kiev, and an embarrassing retreat from the north-eastern Kharkiv region.
Yet it could take several months for these reservists to blend into a Russian army that doesn’t seem to function very well. That therefore raises the risk that Putin wouldn’t be able to rely on conventional methods of war to halt the Ukrainian military advances, including further headway toward Crimea and the Donbas region.
But there is no reason to believe that Putin would use nuclear weapons, tactical or strategic, as a way of overcoming the military challenge from the Ukrainians.
Ukraine is, after all, a mid-size regional power that doesn’t possess nukes that could threaten a global superpower like Russia. Even under the worst-case scenario from Russia’s perspective, Ukraine doesn’t have the power to attack Moscow and impose a political outcome on the leaders there.
Moreover, employing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1945 is a risky proposition that could possibly trigger a Western military response that could in turn ignite a full-blown world war and the possible use of strategic nuclear weapons.
Why would Moscow risk using nuclear weapons when it has conventional military resources under its control that could inflict so much death and destruction on the Ukrainians?
It should be recalled that the single most destructive bombings raid in human history wasn’t the US detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945, but the firebombing air raid on Tokyo by the US Army Air Force during 2 nights in March 1945 that left an estimated 100,000 Japanese civilians dead and over 1 million homeless. (The atomic bombing of Nagasaki resulted in the deaths of between 40,000 and 80,000 people).
In fact, numerous attacks on civilian populations during World War II, including by German bombers and missiles that targeted British cities, and the devastating bombing of Berlin, Dresden and other German urban centres by American and British air forces, were as much if not more destructive than the possible impact of a tactical nuclear bomb.
Over 7.5 million tons of bombs were dropped by the US and its allies during the Vietnam War that proved a partial success when it brought Hanoi to the peace negotiations in 1972, but ultimately and despite the horrific suffering by the civilian population failed to force the North Vietnamese into submission.
On the other hand, the aerial bombing campaign carried out by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) on Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War in 1999, as well as the use of missiles to attack Belgrade and Pristina, marked a turning point in that war and forced the then leader of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, to agree to a peace deal, leading eventually to his downfall.
Hence if Putin seeks to raise the ante and increase the military pressure on Kiev, there is no reason for him to employ tactical nuclear weapons, that could provoke a Western military response and perhaps even lead to a nuclear war, not to mention turning Russia into an international pariah. Instead, he can use airpower and launch missiles in order to achieve his goals of trying to force the Ukrainians to capitulate.
President Joe Biden and his aides have indeed sent signals to Moscow that the use of tactical nuclear weapons would trigger a direct Nato response. But at the same time, the Americans have insisted they would not intervene in the conflict directly as long as the conventional war is confined to the territory of Ukraine. They therefore have warned the Russians not to attack neighbouring countries that are Nato members and have urged the Ukrainians not to target the Russian territory.
But what would be the US response if and when Russia launches a massive aerial bombing campaign against major urban centres like Lviv that could result in big numbers of civilian casualties, with the images of rising death and destruction. That could create pressure on Washington and Berlin to move towards direct military intervention in the conflict, for example, by establishing no-fly zones in Ukraine.
To put it differently, the current “normal” of providing military and economic aid to Ukraine without the need to deploy US military troops there may not be viable in the long run if, as it seems, there are no signs of a diplomatic agreement on the horizon.
Moreover, there is no doubt that the economic costs of the war for Western governments would increase in the coming months, especially as energy costs rise during the winter while inflation remains a threat to an American economy that may be entering a recession.
American consumers may, to an extent, be willing to pay the economic costs of confronting Russia and assisting the Ukrainians in defending their country from aggression.
But as the war in Ukraine threatens to expand with the Ukrainians attacking targets inside areas annexed to Russia, which in turn triggers more devastating Russian military responses, Biden and his Nato allies may find themselves in a position when the only choice available to them – if they want to protect the Ukrainian people – is direct military intervention in the war.
If that happens, and the Americans end up starting to suffer casualties in Ukraine and US soldiers return to America in body bags, the same members of Congress who had called on Biden to “do something” to save the Ukrainian civilians, will now probably criticise him for driving the nation into a costly military quagmire.