Amateur-Hour Armageddon
A Direct Path to Nuclear War through Ukraine
A little over thirty years ago, a massive US-led coalition assembled in Saudi Arabia for what would become the Gulf War. In retrospect, it’s easy to forget the Iraqi military of this era was one of the largest in the world and possessed formidable air defenses. Serious military projections suggested the invasion to liberate Kuwait could cost tens of thousands of coalition lives. Instead, Iraq lost a short war in one of the most lopsided defeats in military history.
Until that moment, the Western world had been preoccupied, for decades, with the threat of nuclear Armageddon. Then—practically the next day — smart bombs, stealth technology, and other advances enabled the US-led coalition to destroy and displace the massive Iraqi army—all without having to raze Baghdad or occupy Iraq, and with shockingly low casualties of its own. A new day had dawned, one in which Western military intervention faced historically low barriers to entry.
Sunrise in this new world prompted fear and panic in Moscow (and Beijing). The US had not only developed, but successfully employed a global precision strike capability without the use of nuclear weapons or widespread destruction. Might Washington use these “wonder weapons” elsewhere? After all, the US had just armed Iraq in its long war against Iran. What would the US do to a real enemy? Might a stealth fighter—or better yet, some heretofore unknown secret weapon— take out the Kremlin while leaving the rest of Russia intact?
This question spawned an obsession among Russian leadership, and reasonably so. Even the US’s known, older technologies had become more terrifying. A B-52 could take off from Louisiana, bomb targets halfway around the world, and then return to base—all without landing, thanks to aerial refueling technology and a massive logistical (and financial) footprint. No one else could do this, not even the US’s allies. Precision weapons reduced the need for the large formations that had been necessary and decisive in previous wars.
Fast forward a few decades to the present. Not only have US military technology and investment grown, but Washington has used both many times over. There was Serbia in 1999. A no-fly zone over Iraq, including many strikes on regime targets and, ultimately, the Iraq War. Afghanistan for two decades. NATO deposed Gaddafi on a whim, and Libya remains destabilized to this day. There there’s Russia’s ever-present concern over the possibility of non-violent “color revolutions,” foreign uprisings orchestrated to appear as organic, local revolts.
Why does all of this matter? Russia’s obsession over a regime change, whether by precision strike or color revolution, is very real in the minds of the country’s leadership. To be clear, an unending chorus of Western voices have dismissed this concern. But I’m describing the Russian perspective, not that of an elderly US politician, Twitter blue check, or former general, all of whom dismiss the dangers of escalation with a confidence that is as unshakable as it is unwarranted.
For nearly twenty-five years, the former Soviet Union has been a recurring focus of my personal and professional lives. I learned Russian, spoke it at home during my first marriage, traveled throughout some of the former republics, and produced many analytical volumes on related matters for the US and other NATO members. As such, little of what I’ve observed of the ongoing Ukraine war has come as a surprise—with one glaring exception. There is a clear path from Western intervention in Ukraine to nuclear war. Thankfully, we aren’t guaranteed to continue along this path. But it is far more likely than many understand. My real surprise is that I haven’t heard others describe the specific reasons and steps by which this could occur.
Russia’s perspective gets too little Western attention these day, and that’s a very dangerous reality. This used to be the job of intelligence professionals—to know their enemy and to be able to think like them. In our mania to punish Moscow, we devote almost no effort to understanding them, particularly in our public discourse. Society virtually tars and feathers not only those who voice dissent or suspicion of the party line, but even those who express a heartfelt wish for peace. The Western establishment’s policing of war-related speech reminds me of Stalin’s famous Order Number 227 during the Second War—Ни шагу назад! (Not one step back!)
The media trots out a cast of “intelligence professionals,” virtually all of whom describe the other side in nothing less than caricature. Moscow publicly produces voluminous national security documents. Kremlin leaders detail their intentions in public speeches. Moreover, the country’s investments, particularly in military modernization, demonstrate that the country is putting its money where its mouth is, so to speak. Russia tells us what it wants and thinks, we’re simply inattentive and dismissive. It’s worth considering Russia’s nuclear doctrine. Moscow will use such weapons to defend the homeland—included in this is the regime. In other words, an attempt at regime change would seem to those in the Kremlin to be an existential threat to the nation.
The West currently provides Ukraine weapons and targeting intelligence. Make no mistake, this assistance is nothing less than life support for the Ukrainian war effort. Had the war been between Russia and Ukraine instead of a proxy war between Russia and the West in Ukraine, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Western leaders all expected Kyiv to fall in a weekend or so. A proxy war was never part of the plan—it was (and is) a spontaneous reaction. That is, Western leaders are reacting; they are gambling with escalation.
Some propose a Western military intervention against Russia as the next escalatory step. That is, US and other forces in Ukraine, fighting Russia forces directly. This would be the most dangerous option because the opening moves of such a deployment would be indistinguishable from those of a broader move against Russia, including a decapitation strike. Western forces would have to suppress Russia’s integrated air defense system, both to have their own air support and to avoid attack from Russian aircraft. How would this occur? With the use of stealth aircraft or some other currently classified capability? How would Moscow know the move would be contained to the Ukrainian battlefield and not prompt, say, the release of air-launched cruise missiles inside of Russia’s air defense bubble?
The answer is Moscow wouldn’t know; it couldn’t know, especially given that many in the West have called for regime change in Moscow. Why would the Kremlin not take this seriously?
(This piece belongs to the thematic series, “Western Leadership and Other Myths.”)