This will not end well.
Most Americans are rooting for Ukraine’s army and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Others have noted that it is a sort of David and Goliath story.
For those of you who haven’t studied your Judeo-Christian Bible recently and only know that David was a little guy and Goliath big, here’s a short recap from 1 Samuel 17: David, the youngest of a bunch of brothers, had been sent by his father to bring food to his older brothers, who were serving in King Saul’s army fighting the Philistines. When he arrived, he found the Israelite army stymied by the Philistine giant, Goliath (reportedly more than 9 feet tall and a mighty warrior).
David is depicted as a teenager. But he goes to Saul and offers to fight Goliath. Saul, who, in his younger days, was depicted as a mighty warrior himself, is understandably skeptical. But after some negotiation, David proceeds out to confront Goliath. He picks up some stones from the wadi and uses his sling to hurl one at Goliath, hitting him in the forehead and killing him.
Today’s situation in Ukraine is a little like that. Russia is viewed as a mighty warrior because of the size and equipping of its army. Ukraine has just a portion of Russia’s population with a small army, poorly equipped. It should have been easy. Russia should have captured Kyiv in a few days, but they didn’t. Didn’t come close. The Ukrainians are proving to be very good fighters, helped in some measure by NATO equipment. This includes some former Russian equipment left over from the collapse of the Warsaw Pact 30 years ago.
As this is written, the Ukrainians are doing far better than predicted. They are counterattacking and driving the Russians back in some places. The question is: How long can this last?
One answer is: a very long time. And it won’t end well. Even though Russia is withdrawing its forces attacking Kyiv back to Belarus, Russia could still bombard Ukrainian cities nearly forever. This was the Russian strategy with Georgia (the Russian province) and Chechnya. These occurred early in Vladimir Putin’s presidency. Russia can bombard and bomb Ukraine until their ammunition runs out. Ukraine can fight back for a long time, too, but there won’t be anything left of the country.
The Biden administration appears to me to be genuinely afraid of Putin ordering a nuclear strike, probably with a so-called “tactical” nuke. (We have those, too.) What would we or NATO do if Putin used a nuke, whose radiation would nearly inevitably leak into Poland or the Baltic nations? Is that enough to trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which says an attack on one member nation is an attack on all?
This will not end well.
Yet another theory — or fear — is that Putin will order an attack on one or more of the Baltic nations: Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Now, these three little countries are members of NATO. All three were a part of the old Soviet Union, just as the Ukraine was. All three “escaped” when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Putin has said that this collapse is the greatest disaster of the 20th century.
Hence, as things now stand, if Russia attacks any of the three Baltic nations, it would trigger a NATO defense. It’s hard to know how that would end. On the one hand, the fighting would be within Russia’s area of influence and at the end of very long NATO supply lines. On the other hand, the Russian army has performed far below expectations in Ukraine. Their leadership doubtless has learned some things.
One of the things we have learned, or rather relearned, is that the junior leadership in the Russian army doesn’t demonstrate much initiative or leadership. We learned that after the end of the Cold War about the “vaunted” Red Army. During the Cold War, countless war games showed the Red Army rolling over NATO forces on the north plain of Germany. Only later did we find that likely wouldn’t have been so.
This time, we thought the Russian army would roll over the Ukrainians and achieve their objectives within days.
Finally, there is the issue of nuclear or chemical weapons. Putin has sort of threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We know he used chemicals in Syria a few years ago. No nuclear weapon has been used in combat since 1945.
Academics have a term, “rational actor,” when applied to national leaders. One reason there was no nuclear war during the Cold War was because both the Soviet Union and the United States were led by rational actors. This is why the Cuban missile crisis ended peacefully. Both John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were rational actors.
We do not know at this stage of his life whether Putin is a rational actor when backed into a corner or when it dawns on him that he is losing. Or at least a rational actor anymore.
This will not end well.
Reid K. Beveridge is a retired Army and Delaware Army National Guard brigadier general who commanded the 261st Signal Brigade He also was editor of National Guard magazine in Washington, D.C. He resides in Milton.
