The Coming War With Russia
By David Pugliese
September 02, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - "Ottawa
Citizen " -
A couple of months before he retired in July,
the head of Canada’s air force provided a blunt assessment of what
might emerge from the current military mission to Ukraine.
“We pray that our ongoing NATO mission isn’t
accompanied by the escalation of deadly force and the shedding of
blood,” Lt.-Gen. Yvan Blondin wrote in the magazine RCAF Today. “We
have everything to lose and nothing to gain through a show-down with
our former Eastern Bloc foes.”
It was an unusual and candid observation from a
veteran Canadian officer about the increased tensions and worsening
situation in Ukraine. But Blondin’s warning also reflects an
increasing concern among some in the United States and Europe about
the possibility that the standoff in eastern Europe between Russia
and the West could somehow end in war.
Political and military analysts don’t believe that
either side would deliberately start such a war. But with large
numbers of military forces operating in such close proximity,
anything could happen, they warn.
Bloodshed could be spurred by something as simple
as miscommunication between military units, for instance.
Or it could involve an accident, such as what
almost happened in April when a Russian SU-27 fighter jet came
within an estimated three to six metres of a U.S. military
surveillance plane over the Baltic Sea. (The Pentagon complained to
the Russians about the pilot’s aggressive flying but the Russians
countered that the U.S. spy plane was flying towards their border
with its identification transponder turned off.)
Over the last year, tensions have increased to the
point where Latvian Foreign Affairs Minister Edgars Rinkevics warned
that Russian-Western relations had sunk to their lowest level since
the Cuban missile crisis of the early 1960s.
NATO vessels, including Canadian frigates, now
regularly patrol the Black Sea, closely monitored by Russian
warships. American, Canadian and other NATO troops are training on
Russia’s doorstep. In October, NATO will launch one of its biggest
exercises in years, with up to 36,000 personnel involved in war
games designed to send a message to Russia that the alliance is
ready to respond militarily if required. Some 1,600 Canadian
military personnel, along with aircraft and five warships, will take
part.
NATO has given much publicity to the exercise
because it doesn’t want any misunderstandings with the Russians that
could lead to a confrontation. NATO hopes Russia will do the same
for its own training exercises but so far that hasn’t happened.
In March, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
raised concerns that the tensions have hurt communications with the
Russians, who have launched a series of unscheduled, large-scale
military exercises in eastern Europe. He worried the result could be
miscommunication, sparking an incident between Russian and NATO
forces that could spiral out of control.
The tense situation hasn’t been helped by
inaccurate claims from the alliance’s commander, U.S. Gen. Philip
Breedlove. When the crisis first started in 2014, Breedlove made the
stunning announcement that Russia had assembled 40,000 troops on
Ukraine’s frontier, and he warned that an invasion was imminent.
Months later, he claimed that more than 1,000 combat vehicles, as
well as Russian forces, had crossed into Ukraine.
Breedlove’s statements rattled officials in German
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office. German intelligence agencies,
which had good sources in the region, were reporting that there was
no invasion. Merkel’s officials dismissed Breedlove’s claims as
dangerous. The general didn’t retreat on his statements.
But this past April, Breedlove surprised U.S.
senators by acknowledging just how little NATO and the U.S. knew
about Russia’s activities.
He admitted he first learned from social media
about a massive Russian exercise that unfolded in March across
Eastern Europe. “Some Russian military exercises have caught us by
surprise, and our textured feel for Russia’s involvement on the
ground in Ukraine has been quite limited,” he told the senators.
Canada has its own concerns about war with Russia
but the official line is that the situation can be contained.
“There is no doubt that (Russian President
Vladimir) Putin’s aggression in Ukraine is not an isolated concern,”
said Lauren Armstrong, spokeswoman for Defence Minister Jason
Kenney. “We believe that a message of resolve and deterrence, in
concert with our allies, is the best way to prevent a miscalculation
on the part of Mr. Putin.”
Others are not so sure. The lack of “textured
feel” that Breedlove talked about has prompted former military
officers in both Russia and the U.S. to call on their countries for
new safeguards on the use of nuclear missiles.
Despite the end of the Cold War, the system
governing the launching of such nuclear weapons is still geared
towards crews firing those missiles within minutes of receiving
their orders. In addition, Russian military doctrine calls for the
use of nuclear weapons even in a conventional conflict if it
believes its forces will be overwhelmed by the enemy.
In April, retired U.S. Gen. James Cartwright, who
had commanded American nuclear forces, and retired Russian Maj. Gen.
Vladimir Dvorkin, who headed the research institute of Russia’s
Strategic Rocket Forces, warned that both countries were at
increased risk of an accidental war as the situation in Ukraine
deteriorated.
Putin has already raised the spectre of nuclear
war. Early on in the Ukraine crisis, he sent a less-than-subtle
message. “It’s best not to mess with us,” he told a gathering of
Russian youths in August 2014. “Thank God, I think no one is
thinking of unleashing a large-scale conflict with Russia. I want to
remind you that Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers.”
Months later, Putin confirmed that he had
contemplated whether nuclear weapons would be needed in the showdown
with the West over the Crimea, acknowledging that he was ready to
bring his country’s nuclear weapons to a high state of alert.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev also
sounded warnings. He is critical of Putin’s actions in Ukraine but
he also blamed NATO for significantly increasing tensions as it
expanded the alliance towards Russia’s borders. “It could all blow
up at any moment if we don’t take action,” he told the German
magazine Der Spiegel in January 2015. “Moscow does not believe the
West, and the West does not believe Moscow.
“Such a war today would probably lead inevitably
to nuclear war,” he added. “But the statements and propaganda on
both sides make me fear the worst.”
A slower march to war – rather than a
miscalculation – is another scenario that has raised concerns. The
former Soviet republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, all with
populations of ethnic Russians, are now members of NATO. Under the
NATO agreement, alliance countries are obliged to come to the aid of
fellow members if they are under attack.
But what would NATO do if Russia acted in Latvia,
Estonia or Lithuania, claiming it needed to protect the interests of
those ethnic Russians? How would NATO forces, training in Latvia or
Estonia, handle an incursion of covert Russian forces – troops
wearing unmarked uniforms, which happened in some disputed areas in
Ukraine?
“It is not difficult to imagine scenarios in which
either U.S. or Russian action could set in motion a chain of events
at the end of which American and Russian troops would be killing
each other,” wrote Graham Allison, former assistant U.S. secretary
of defence, and Dimitri Simes, publisher of the National Interest, a
U.S. foreign policy magazine.
Their April 2015 article in the National Interest,
titled “Russia and America: Stumbling to War,” also highlighted the
willingness of Russian hard-liners to use nuclear weapons if a
conventional conflict got out of hand. “In these debates, many ask
whether President Obama would risk losing Chicago, New York and
Washington to protect Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius,” the authors wrote.
“It is a troubling question. If you want to either
dumbfound or silence a table next to you in a restaurant in
Washington or Boston, ask your fellow diners what they think.”
For now, Americans and Canadians say they would
support a military response – at least in theory.
In June, the Pew Research Centre, based in
Washington, conducted a survey in 10 nations to gauge views on the
Ukraine crisis. The majority of Canadians and Americans interviewed
responded that their nations should act militarily if a NATO nation
was attacked. Almost half of those surveyed in the United Kingdom,
Poland, and Spain also agreed.
There was a split, however, among the populations
of some other NATO nations. “At least half of Germans, French and
Italians say their country should not use military force to defend a
NATO ally if attacked by Russia,” the
centre noted. (The survey was based on 11,116 interviews in NATO
nations, Ukraine and Russia.)
Another scenario, short of war, that could also
have serious consequences centres on the unintended effects of
ongoing economic sanctions against Russia. The result, some analysts
worry, could be widespread chaos, eventually leading to the
fracturing of Russia into uncontrollable nuclear armed mini-states.
The sanctions are supposed to force Putin to back
down on Ukraine and the Crimea. Yet he has shown no desire to
reverse course. In fact, the economic sanctions have further shored
up his support among the Russian people, who blame the West for
their troubles, according to Pew researchers. Meanwhile, Russia’s
economic situation has significantly worsened with the steep drop in
oil prices.
Canada’s Conservative government has called for
even more sanctions against the Russians but European nations, in
particular Germany, have been leery. Tougher sanctions would further
destabilize Russia, an outcome that is in no one’s best interest,
German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel warned.
It might, however, be too late to stave off such
an outcome. Earlier this year Stratfor, a private intelligence firm
with ties to the U.S. military and CIA, predicted economic
sanctions, combined with low oil prices, could lead to the eventual
collapse of Russia. Out of that would emerge smaller, poorer and
potentially uncontrollable states.
Russia’s central government would no longer have
control over the country’s 8,000 nuclear weapons – a situation
Stratfor termed “the greatest crisis of the next decade.
“Russia is the site of a massive nuclear strike
force distributed throughout the hinterlands,” Stratfor explained.
“The decline of Moscow’s power will open the question of who
controls those missiles and how their non-use can be guaranteed.”
The tension between Russia and the West isn’t
expected to get better anytime soon. On both sides, attitudes seem
to be hardening.
Some of Putin’s advisers see NATO’s ultimate goal
as crippling Russia to the point where it cannot challenge the West,
either militarily or economically. “The full financial force of the
West is concentrated on attacking us,” Nikolai Starikov, a popular
Russian pundit with links to the Putin regime, told a seminar in
Russia in December. “What they are doing is smashing the foundations
of a great geopolitical construction that will become their
competitor.”
Last month, meanwhile, U.S. air force secretary
Deborah James told American lawmakers that Russia was the biggest
threat facing the country today. Gen. Joseph Dunford, slated to be
the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed that view.
And U.S. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, who is to become American’s
number two military officer, said Russia has overtaken the Islamic
State as the greatest threat to the U.S. homeland.
Earlier this year, Canada’s Citizenship and
Immigration Minister Chris Alexander voiced similar views. He said
that while the war in Iraq and Syria is an important issue, the
number one threat to world security is the crisis in Ukraine.
Alexander called on all countries to come together to drive the
Russians out of Crimea and Ukraine.
“There is absolutely no scenario going into the
future that leads to peace and security for this world, that leads
to prosperity in Europe globally that does not include a full
international effort to give Ukraine the tools it needs to drive
Russian forces from their borders and to secure its borders for
good,” he told Ukrainian Canadians in a speech in Toronto Feb. 22.
Less than a month later, U.S. Army Maj.-Gen.
Robert Scales, former commandant of the U.S. Army War College,
outlined a similar solution to the crisis but in blunter language.
“The only way (the U.S.) can turn the tide is start killing
Russians, killing so many Russians that even Putin’s media can’t
hide the fact that Russians are returning to their motherland in
body bags,” the retired officer said.
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dpugliese@ottawacitizen.com -
Twitter.com/davidpugliese
