How can sending weapons to Ukraine escalate the war with Russia?

Members of the NATO met in Brussels last week to discuss how far they should go in supplying military equipment to Ukraine.

The challenge for NATO throughout this war has been how to give Ukraine enough military support to defend itself, but without getting drawn into the conflict and finding itself in war with Russia.

The Ukrainian government has been explicit in its requests for help.

If it wants to have any chance of fending off the next Russian assault on the Donbass region in the east of the country, Ukraine says, then it urgently needs the West to supply it with more of the anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft missiles that their forces have been using in this war.

But Ukraine wants more.

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The foreign ministers of the NATO member countries met in Brussels.

It wants tanks, fighter jets, drones and advanced missile air defense systems to counter Russia’s increasing use of long-range airstrikes and missiles, with which they are constantly exhausting the strategic fuel reserves and other Ukrainian essentials.

So many people may wonder, what exactly is holding NATO back?

The answer is the conflict escalation.

The risk of Russia resorting to the use of nuclear weapons tactics (i.e. short-range) or the conflict spilling over Ukraine’s borders into a broader European war, is constantly on the minds of Western leaders, and the stakes are high .

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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been emphatic that he needs help from the West.

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BBC (BBC News World/)

NATO members fear that the supply of heavier offensive equipment, such as tanks and fighter jets, could lead to a open and direct conflict with Russia.

That hasn’t stopped the Czechs from delivering T72 tanks.

nuclear taboo

President Putin reminded the world from the beginning of this war that Russia is a nuclear weapons powerand that it was raising the level of readiness of its nuclear deterrence system.

The United States did not do the same, as it did not detect any movement of Russian nuclear warheads out of their storage bunkers.

Destroyed war tank in kyiv.

But Putin’s argument was clear: “Russia has a massive nuclear arsenal, so don’t think you can put pressure on us”.

Russian military doctrine allows early use of low-yield tactical nuclear warheads, knowing that The West abhors nuclear weapons.which have not been used for 77 years.

A man in Andriivka province, near kyiv.

NATO strategic planners are concerned that once the nuclear taboo is broken, even if the damage is limited to a localized target on the Ukraine battlefield, the risk of escalating to a catastrophic nuclear exchange between Russia and the West will inevitably increase.

Still, with each atrocity apparently committed by Russian soldiers, NATO’s resolve hardens and your inhibitions melt away.

Czech Republic has already sent tanks. It is the first NATO country to do so, even though they are obsolete Soviet-era T72 tanks.

Ukrainian soldiers receiving instructions.

Slovakia is sending its S300 air defense missile systems. Both moves would have seemed risky at the start of this war.

Some possible scenarios

Tobias Ellwood, the UK MP who chairs the Parliamentary Defense Committee, is one of those who believes that Putin is making a bluff when he raises the scenario of nuclear weapons and that NATO should do more.

“We have been too cautious about the weapons systems we have been willing to provide“, He says. “we need one firmer attitude. We are giving the Ukrainians enough to survive but not enough to win and that must change”.

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The war has caused devastation in cities like Mariupol, Ukraine.

So what would make this war between Russia and Ukraine turn into a pan-european conflict that involves NATO?

There are a number of possible scenarios that will no doubt occupy the minds of Western defense ministries.

Here are just three of them:

1. A NATO-supplied anti-ship missile is fired by Ukrainian forces in Odessa and sinks a Russian warship in the Black Sea. Nearly 100 sailors and dozens of Marines are killed. A death toll of this magnitude in a single attack would be unprecedented and Putin would be under pressure to respond.

2. A Russian strategic missile attack targets a military hardware supply convoy crossing from a NATO country, such as Poland or Slovakia, into Ukraine. If casualties were to occur on the NATO side of the border, that could trigger Article 5 of the NATO constitution, bringing the entire alliance to the defense of the attacked country.

3. In the midst of fierce fighting in the Donbás, an explosion occurs at an industrial facility, causing the release of toxic chemical gases. While this has already occurred, no deaths were reported. But if it were to result in the number of mass deaths that occurred in a poison gas attack in Ghouta, Syria, in 2013, and were found to be deliberately caused by Russian forces, then NATO would be forced to respond.

Destruction in Mariupol after a Russian attack.

control escalation

It is perfectly possible that Neither of these scenarios materializes.

But while Western nations have shown an unusual degree of unity in the strength of their reaction against the Russian invasion, there are allegations that they are simply being reactive and not thinking about what the end result should be.

A woman amidst the devastation in Bucha, Ukraine.

“The biggest strategic question”, says one of the most experienced British military officers who asks not to be identified, “is whether our government is involved in crisis management or real strategy”. That would require thinking this through to the end, she adds.

“What we are trying to achieve here is to give Ukraine all the help we can, barring World War III. The problem is that Putin is better poker player that we”.

MP Tobias Ellwood agrees.

“russia does this [la amenaza de escalada] very effectively. And we are scared. We have lost the ability to control escalation”.

Source: Elcomercio