Europe’s a crowded continent, and no place for a jumpy trigger finger, but accidents are an unavoidable part of warfare.Īny one of these mishaps could lead the Russians, or the United States, or both, to increase the alert status of their nuclear arsenals.
They might suffer a misfire or a targeting error of some kind that puts Russian ordnance on NATO territory. Or they might incorrectly believe that Russian aircraft have been attacked by NATO forces. The Russians might shoot at NATO aircraft after misidentifying them. There are countless opportunities for such errors in the chaos now overtaking Ukraine. And let us not forget that the Russian forces now on the march belong to the same military that in 2014 managed to screw up and shoot down a commercial airliner over Ukraine while claiming that it wasn’t even there in the first place. forces killed Qassem Soleimani, the Iranians shot down a commercial airliner-from Ukraine, no less-in their own country. Two years ago, during the crisis between Iran and the United States after U.S. In 2015, Turkey, a NATO nation, shot down a Russian jet that had strayed over the Turkish border. Human beings and their machines make mistakes, sometimes with dire results. War is always a risky and unpredictable affair, even when one side is far stronger than the other. But, again, there is no evidence that Putin intends to take this path.Ī far more likely possibility would be a crisis arising from an accident. If Putin were to decide, for example, that his great crusade to roll back the collapse of the Soviet Union should include recapturing the Baltic states or driving NATO forces from Poland, he would effectively be declaring World War III and throwing the entire world into the abyss. This is the doomsday scenario that NATO was created to prevent, and it would come about only if Putin were seized by an even greater madness than the one driving him to war in Ukraine. All of the Atlantic alliance, including the United States and its nuclear arsenal, would be required to come to the aid of the nations in danger. The least likely occasion for a nuclear crisis would be if Russian forces directly and intentionally threaten NATO territory.
Read our ongoing coverage of the Russian invasion in Ukraine Nonetheless, there are multiple paths to a dangerous nuclear confrontation that could embroil Moscow and Washington in a situation neither of them expects or wants.
And while Vladimir Putin is, in my view, unhinged and reckless, I see no indication that he is seeking war with the United States or NATO. The Russians are going to defeat the overmatched Ukrainians, and they do not need nuclear weapons to do it. A nuclear crisis is unlikely, but not impossible. Concern about the role of nuclear weapons is perfectly understandable, however, now that a paranoid dictator has led Russia into a major war in the middle of Europe, attacking a country that shares a border with four of America’s NATO allies. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a nuclear crisis. Sign up for Tom’s newsletter, Peacefield, here.
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