The Washington Post - USA (2022-03-02)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

russia invades ukraine

BY KAROUN DEMIRJIAN

Russia, careening toward eco-
nomic crisis under the weight of
devastating Western sanctions,
has put its nuclear forces on alert
as the Kremlin’s siege of Ukraine
intensifies.
The United States and its
NATO partners have sent thou-
sands of troops and advanced
weaponry to harden defenses in
the alliance’s eastern flank while
funneling billions of dollars’
worth of military hardware to
Kyiv — moves met by the Krem-
lin with threats of “consequenc-
es.”
There is no deconfliction line
— nor, according to U.S. officials,
does Moscow seem interested in
one.
The rapid escalation, observ-
ers say, has made the once-theo-
retical risk of direct confronta-
tion between Russia and the
West a tangible possibility with
little hope of the tension subsid-
ing, maybe for years to come.
“My worry is that there’s a
miscalculation, a misunder-
standing, an accident, a mistake”
that touches off more wide-
spread conflict, said Jim
Townsend, who managed Europe
and NATO policy at the Pentagon
during the Obama administra-
tion.
“How long could we have this
kind of risk? ... I don’t see it
ending.”
Russia’s advance through
Ukraine has brought the Krem-
lin’s forces closer to NATO’s bor-
ders. Should those troops remain
in Ukraine and Belarus, the “con-
tact line” would shift “signifi-
cantly west,” said Sam Charap, a
Russia expert with Rand Corp.
“A nd that changes the strategic
landscape.”
“Poland has relied on Belarus
to serve the function of a buffer,”
he added. “If that’s no longer
there, that’s just a totally differ-
ent ballgame.”
Russia’s moves compelled
Western officials last week to
activate the NATO Response
Force and its Very High Readi-
ness Joint Defense Force for the
first time in the alliance’s history.
The mobilization, NATO Secre-

tary General Jens Stoltenberg

said, is meant to deter a Russian

attack and prevent the war in

Ukraine from spilling over into

any NATO-allied country.

President Biden has ruled out

putting U.S. troops in Ukraine,

but he has authorized the de-

ployment of an additional 14,

military personnel along with

elite F-35 fighters and Apache

attack helicopters to allied coun-

tries in the Baltics and Eastern

Europe, a sign of how seriously

the United States hopes to ward

off the Russian threat.

Gestures and statements such

as Stoltenberg’s and Biden’s are

designed to dissuade Russian

President Vladimir Putin from

intentionally challenging the al-

liance’s resolve, but some won-

der whether the message is get-

ting through.

Alina Polyakova, president

and CEO of the Center for Euro-

pean Policy Analysis, said the

Russian leader may be “ready

and willing” to test the alliance’s

commitment to its collective de-

fense. She pointed out that

NATO’s 40,000-member re-

sponse force “pales in compari-

son to Russia’s military capabili-

ties” in the region; the Kremlin

has about 150,0 00 troops in and

around Ukraine.

Russian forces have a history

of playing dangerous games in

NATO border areas. Recently,

Russian fighter jets have con-

ducted low or near-pass flights

over U.S. ships in the Black Sea

and U.S. surveillance aircraft fly-

ing over the Mediterranean. The

potential for such maneuvers to

result in a collision or confronta-

tion — and for that incident to

spiral into a greater fight —

grows exponentially greater

amid an active war.

Ukraine’s land borders with

four NATO countries — Poland,

Slovakia, Hungary and Romania

— have also emerged as potential

hot spots. Observers are particu-

larly concerned about the poten-

tial for humanitarian calamities

as more than 500,000 refugees

use those routes to flee the

country.

Absent a peace deal, few ex-

pect that Ukrainians will lay

down their arms even if Russia

assumes formal control of their

country. The resulting insurgen-

cy would make the business of

occupation “rough” for Russia,

Townsend said, noting that Rus-

sian soldiers patrolling the coun-

try’s borders will be operating

“on a knife’s edge ... because

they’re expecting a Ukrainian

insurgent behind every tree.”

But it would take a “really

serious incident” to touch off a

wider war, said Anthony Cordes-

man, a national security analyst

with the Center for Strategic and

International Studies, who said

the casualty count would need to

be so high or seem so deliberate

that NATO could not dismiss it a s

a mistake.

Ukraine and its border territo-

ries are also not the only places

that could precipitate the sort of

direct conflict with Russia that

the United States wants to avoid.

The intensity of the Russian

onslaught in Ukraine has

prompted Finland and Sweden,

which share borders with Russia

in the Arctic Circle and have long

adopted a neutral posture, to

publicly contemplate joining

NATO — a move that Russia

warned last week would precipi-

tate “military consequences.”

And the Baltic states of Esto-

nia, Latvia and Lithuania exist in

a constant state of geographical

vulnerability to assault, due to

shared and often snarled borders

with Russia and Belarus. Certain

roads crossing Estonia dip in a nd

out of snippets of Russian terri-

tory; the Baltics as a whole,

meanwhile, could effectively be

cut off from the rest of Europe

via the Suwalki Corridor, a 65-

mile stretch of Lithuanian-Polish

border that lies between Belarus

and the tiny Russian enclave of

Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea.

All NATO members, mean-

while, remain potentially vulner-

able to cyberattacks, which Rus-

sia has proved in recent years to

be adept at manipulating to its

advantage. The NATO secretary

general has said cyberattacks

could trigger the alliance’s col-

lective defense pact, but it re-

mains unclear what type or mag-

nitude of assault it would take to

warrant such a response.

How likely Russia is to pick

battles along new fronts may

depend on how long Ukraine can

keep up its resistance. The more

Russia is worn out from the fight

there, experts say, it becomes less

likely Putin will want to pursue

other ambitions where the long-

term risk of failure is far greater.

The moment of truth will

come if and when a NATO mem-

ber decides to call upon its allies

to help battle back any direct

Russian aggression. The collec-

tive defense pact has been in-

voked only once in NATO’s his-

tory, in the aftermath of the 9/

attacks on the United States. It is

untested when it comes to a war

in Europe.

“The credibility of the alliance

is on the line,” Townsend said. “If

our credibility is found wanting,

if NATO proves that it’s not quite

able to do the things that we’ve

talked about being able to do,

then that is a win for Putin.”

Yet even if the 30 NATO mem-

ber nations are able to maintain

the unity that they have found in

recent weeks to stave off further

Russian aggression, it is almost

impossible to avoid some spill-

over effects from the Ukrainian

experience thus far, observers

say.

While officials are not seeing

Russia’s recent nuclear threats as

cause for panic, nobody knows

what kind of backlash the free-

falling ruble could create in a

nation of 144 million people,

most of whom receive their in-

formation through pro-Kremlin

media. There are also global

implications for financial mar-

kets that are often an after-

thought in national security dis-

cussions, such as the agricultural

sector, where Ukraine and Rus-

sia together produce over a quar-

ter of the world’s wheat supply.

“No matter what happens

now, there’s going to be some

forms of spillover, whether ...

general instability arising from

refugee flows or broader global

implications because of

Ukraine’s key role in some of

these export markets,” said

Polyakova, with the Center for

European Policy Analysis, pre-

dicting there will be “more con-

flicts that the United States and

Europe have to manage.”

“That’s the reality we’re look-

ing at already,” she added, “re-

gardless of what exactly the out-

come in Ukraine is going to be.”

Crisis fuels fear of confrontation between Moscow, West

OMAR MARQUES/GETTY IMAGES

A U.S. Army soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division prepares a rucksack Feb. 23 at an operating base

at Arlamow Airport near Wola Korzeniecka, Poland, close to the Ukrainian border.

“The credibility

of the alliance is on

the line. If our

credibility is found

wanting ... t hen

that is a win for

Putin.”

Jim Townsend, former NATO

policy manager at the Pentagon

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