By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The war in Ukraine will soon enter its sixth month. For all the talk of Russia crossing the West’s red lines with its conduct in the war and of the West crossing Russia’s red lines with its military assistance to Ukraine, the actual red lines have not yet been breached. Both sides hashed out a set of invisible rules at the war’s outset—unspoken but real. They include Russia’s acceptance of allied heavy-weapons deliveries and intelligence support for Ukraine, but not the use of Western troops. And they have Western states’ grudging acceptance of Russian conventional warfare within Ukraine’s borders (eager as these countries are to see Moscow defeated), as long as the conflict does not lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction. So far, these invisible rules have continued to function, proof that neither U.S. President Joe Biden nor Russian President Vladimir Putin wants a broader war.

Yet a wider war is undoubtedly possible. After all, no international mechanism controls the conflict. The United Nations has been peripheral, and the European Union stands on one side. The United States is not in a position to end the war on its terms, and neither is Russia nor Ukraine. Talks between Kyiv and Moscow have broken down, and despite ongoing efforts at deconfliction, there has been no U.S.-Russian diplomacy to speak of since 24 February, when the war began. Add to this the size and complexity of the conflict, the number of countries involved, and the new technologies in use, and the mixture becomes potentially toxic.

The shared desire of Putin and Biden to avoid a wider war is, therefore, no guarantee that the war will contain itself. A conflict can spin out of control even if neither side makes a deliberate decision to escalate or use nuclear weapons. And although unlikely, a nuclear attack is still in the realm of possibility, given Russian capacity and the opacity of Moscow’s actual atomic doctrine. Accidental escalation may be even more frightening than deliberate escalation since the latter holds the possibility of deliberate de-escalation within it. After all, a willed trajectory is easier to reverse than one that moves ahead of its own volition.

The Cold War may be a helpful guide for what lies over the horizon. Given the length of that conflict and the fallibility of political and military leaders on both sides, it was remarkable that the U.S.-Soviet confrontation ended peacefully. But behind the bright miracle of humanity’s survival in a nuclear age are the dark corners of near-confrontation and episodic escalation that characterized the second half of the twentieth century. The war in Ukraine will likely follow this pattern—including phases in which the overall confrontation is well managed, followed by phases in which the conflict abruptly and anarchically intensifies. Policymakers and diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic must prepare even more for this scenario than they prepare for the prospect of intended escalation. The fog of war, made thicker by the speed and unreliability of social media, is real. It can obscure even the best-laid strategies.

                                                                     

Red lines

Biden has been explicit about where he will not go in Ukraine. He will not intervene directly. He will not sanction NATO involvement in the conflict. He will not dictate to Ukraine war aims more maximalist (or minimalist) than those set in Kyiv. And although the United States is supplying immense amounts of equipment to Ukraine, Biden has emphasized the distinction between Ukraine’s self-defense, to which Washington is unequivocally committed, and Ukrainian strikes on Russia. Military support to Ukraine is calibrated along these lines. Biden wants Ukraine to win on its terms and its territory. He does not want this to become a regional war and has even used a New York Times op-ed to communicate these aims to Moscow.

Putin has been more ambiguous—promising “consequences” for allied military aid. Russian propaganda regularly advocates advances on Berlin or nuclear attacks on London. However, overblown, such messaging creates a permissive consensus within the Kremlin and Russian society. In June, amid a dispute over-delivering goods to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave separate from mainland Russia, Putin threatened Lithuania with unspecified punitive measures. Lithuania is a NATO member, and a Russian attack would trigger a direct military conflict. Elsewhere, Putin could engineer or exploit crises in the Balkans to enhance Russia’s position—staging coups, engaging in paramilitary activity, or launching an outright invasion. Major cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in Europe and the United States constitute another risk. Should they occur, the United States and others would likely retaliate, beginning a new chapter in the war.

Some of Putin’s rhetorical ambiguity is bluster. He cannot afford a wider war. Although Russia probably has the money to continue its policy of regime change in Ukraine, the Russian army has massive manpower deficiencies—a function of Putin’s ruinous initial war plan. Any additional conflict, especially against well-equipped NATO forces, would worsen these problems. In theory, then, Putin and Biden can meet halfway. They have incentives to abide by the war’s invisible rules of the same mind about not wanting a bigger conflagration.

                                                                 

Cold War redux?

In adherence to invisible rules, Putin and Biden have recaptured a critical Cold War dynamic. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the United States and the Soviet Union never formally agreed on how to fight proxy wars. Neither side, for instance, established ground rules for the Korean War—the first hot conflict of the Cold War era. Instead, over nearly four decades, both sides improvised their way to a sustainable way of doing business. There was the permissible: mutual denunciation, cultural and ideological competition, espionage, active measures such as propaganda and disinformation campaigns, the pursuit of spheres of influence, interference in the domestic politics of other countries, and support for the other’s adversaries in peace and war (usually sweetened by degrees of plausible deniability). And there was the impermissible: direct military clashes and the use of nuclear weapons.

One can only guess at today’s invisible rules. For Western countries, the most important appears to be keeping their uniformed soldiers out of war. Departing from the etiquette of the Cold War, the United States has abandoned the plausible deniability it cultivated while supporting Afghanistan’s mujahideen in its fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s. In Ukraine, Washington and its allies have openly provided the Ukrainian military with heavy weapons, military training outside Ukraine, and intelligence sharing to identify targets. Russia, for its part, has not targeted weapons convoys headed into Ukraine while they are still on NATO territory. Nor has Russia disrupted the steady flow of U.S. and allied political leaders into Kyiv, all of whom must travel through a country at war. This kind of restraint would have been unthinkable in World War II but was typical of the Cold War.

 

 

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