Stephen Blank
Introduction
Crisis denotes both challenge and opportunity. The war in Ukraine is no exception. Moreover, both the crisis and the opportunity are clear. Russia continues to demand the de facto, if not de jure, destruction of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The opportunity now standing before Washington and Europe is the chance to defeat Russia and thereby affect the greatest strategic transformation in a generation. As of September 2024, the United States therefore stands at a decisive, strategic inflection point triggered by Ukraine’s offensive into Kursk Oblast, and concurrently, strong demands upon the West for both more and continuing support and the right to use Western weapons against deeper Russian targets persevere.
These events represent an inflection point despite mounting efforts by third parties—India and China—and misguided Western actors to arrange a negotiation process for the following reasons.
- Russia shows no signs of negotiating, especially with Ukrainian troops on its territory, even though it demands recognition of its conquests as constituting part of Russia.[1]
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that if the West allows its weapons to be used, as Ukraine has requested, this will mean that NATO is at war with Russia which will then draw the appropriate consequences.[2] This obviously is another threat of escalation, potentially to the nuclear level.
No comments:
Post a Comment