The Economist - UK (2022-03-19)

TheEconomistMarch19th 2022 BriefingThewarinUkraine 17

↑ On March16tha bombstrucka
theatreinMariupolwherehundreds
of peoplearethoughttohavebeen
sheltering.Anearliersatellitepicture
shows theword“children”writtenin
Russianateachendofthebuilding.

Chernihiv

Chernobyl

Prybirsk

Ivankiv

Makariv

Irpin

Hostomel

Nizhyn

Brovary

Kyiv

Antonov

Airport UKRAINE

BELARUS

Dneiper

Russian

Convoy

40 km

AssessedRussianadvances*

AssessedRussian-controlled

March th

*Russiaoperatedinorattacked, but does not control

Source:InstitutefortheStudyof War

The fi ghting around Kyiv

Russia’sdepletedforcesmadelittle

progressintoKyiv,buttherewerefierce

battlesforitswesternandeasternsuburbs

anda spikeinrocketfire.Ukraine’sarmy

hasbeenfanningoutintotheforests

aroundthecity.

↑ At least one person died after debris

from an intercepted missile fell on an

apartment block on March 16th.

are only pretending to negotiate.
Likely sticking­points are not limited to
the  territory  at  stake  (Russia  will  want  to
keep its gains in Donbas, including Mariu­
pol,  should  it  succeed  in  taking  the  city).
What  sort  of  security  guarantees  are  of­
fered,  and  by  whom,  will  matter  as  much
or  more.  Mykhailo  Podolyak,  one  of
Ukraine’s  negotiators,  told  The Economist
that the only acceptable deal would be one
with “specific and legally binding guaran­
tees” under which Ukrainian allies such as
America,  Britain  and  Turkey  “would  be
able to actively intervene in case of any ag­
gression”.  Andriy  Yermak,  Mr  Zelensky’s
chief  of  staff,  says  that  the  guarantors
would  have  to  include  not  just  countries
friendly to Ukraine but also all five perma­
nent members of the unsecurity council.
Mr Yermak also says that, although the
two  teams  of  negotiators  can  prepare  the
ground,  any  agreement  will  ultimately
have to be hammered out by the two presi­
dents. How strong their hands are will de­
pend on the fortunes of war between now
and  then;  the  negotiations  may  not  reach
their level until there is desperation on the
part of one or both of them. 
Come what may, though, the broadcasts
of March 16th showed that Mr Zelensky will
bring the goodwill of the world and the fer­
vent expectations of his people to the table:
“I would tell him ‘Fight until victory!’” says
Vladislav, the electrician in Kyiv. Mr Putin’s
position,  meanwhile,  will  be  shaped  by  a
domestic  situation,  and  an  attitude  to  it,
which are both far darker. n

The risks of escalation

Herman’s ladder

T

o a 16th-centurysiege warrior, the art

of  the  escalade  lay  in  climbing  up  a

city’s  fortifications  without  encountering

something  unpleasantly  hot  or  sharp.  To

the men who rewrote the rules of strategy

for  the  nuclear  age,  the  art  of  escalation

was the process which, bit by bit, moved a

limited war towards an unlimited one. As

in sieges of old, the key was a ladder: a con­

ceptual  one  where  each  rung  both  in­

creased the level of the conflict and sent a

signal to the other side. 

Herman  Kahn,  one  of  several  inspira­

tions  for  the  title  character  of  Stanley  Ku­

brick’s  unmatched  treatise  on  deterrence,

“Dr Strangelove”, devised a 44­rung escala­

tion  ladder  with  which  to  study  and  ana­

lyse the phenomenon. The step from rung

nine  (“Dramatic  military  confrontations”)

to  ten  (“Provocative  Breaking  Off  of  Dip­

lomatic Relations”), he noted, was the one

which  marked  the  point  at  which  nuclear

war ceased to be unthinkable. 

“Dr  Strangelove”  is  a  comedy  because

Kubrick  found  the  absurdities  of  such  es­

chatological accountancy and its affectless

theorising  impossible  to  put  on  screen  in

any  other  form.  That  does  not  mean  the

concepts  the  ladder  systemised  have  no

meaning. The invasion of Ukraine (rung 12:

“Large Conventional War”) has undoubted­

ly  moved  the  world  past  the  threshold

where  nuclear  war  stops  being  unthink­

able; in the words of Antonio Guterres, the

secretary­general  of  the  un, such  horrors

are “back within the realm of possibility”.

The chances of a conflict escalating into a

nuclear  war  are  greater  than  they  have

been for more than half a century. 

As it stands, only one side in the war has

nuclear  weapons; although  Ukraine  had

Soviet ones stationed on its territory until

a few years after it became independent in

1991, but they were never under its political

control.  Nor,  Russian  propaganda  to  the

contrary,  has  it  any  route  to  acquiring

them.  But  an  adversary  without  nuclear

weapons  does  not  guarantee  nuclear  re­

straint. And nato, which is both supplying

Ukraine with weapons and building up its

forces in the area, has nukes aplenty. 

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has

been keen to remind his adversaries of the

nuclear  risks.  In  a  televised  speech  at  the

How things get worse