{"id":49240,"date":"2024-09-13T05:50:32","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T13:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=49240"},"modified":"2024-09-13T05:50:32","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T13:50:32","slug":"escalation-in-the-russia-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/13\/escalation-in-the-russia-ukraine-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Escalation in the Russia-Ukraine War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Friday the 13th, and though I\u2019m not superstitious about the date, I\u2019m not liking this headline in today\u2019s New York Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Top News<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The topic will be on the agenda Friday with the first official visit to Washington by Britain\u2019s new prime minister, Keir Starmer.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a headline that proves once again that America is led by the best and brightest. (Sarcasm alert.)<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin has already said that long-range weapons striking targets in Russia means war between Russia and NATO. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s bluffing. And, lest we forget, Russia has nearly 6000 nuclear warheads in its inventory.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why is the U.S. and NATO allowing Ukraine to use missiles that can strike targets deep into Russian territory? The short answer is that Ukraine is losing the war. But any escalation by Ukraine can be matched (and over-matched) by Russia. The most likely scenario is an even more devastated Ukraine. The worst-case scenario is World War III.<\/p>\n

Wars are made by fools with stars on their shoulders and produce more fools, especially in government circles. Ukraine isn\u2019t going to win the war by launching Storm Shadow<\/a> missiles 150 miles into Russia. More attacks on Russia are likely to reinforce Putin\u2019s rule than to weaken it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to lose more territory to Russian forces in the east, as this map (courtesy of the NYT) shows.<\/p>\n

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\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In a war that\u2019s now lasted more than two and a half years, we\u2019ve been told repeatedly that new \u201cmagical\u201d weapons<\/a> will make all the difference for Ukraine, whether Leopard and Challenger and Abrams tanks or F-16 fighter jets or ATACMS or what-have-you. Yet the Russia-Ukraine War is largely an old-fashioned infantry and artillery war, a land war, an attritional war, in which Ukraine is slowly being worn down.<\/p>\n

Long-range missiles launched into Russia aren\u2019t going to turn the tide in Ukraine\u2019s favor. But they may provoke a devastating response from Russia that could provoke a far wider conflict. And for what, exactly?<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. It\u2019s Friday the 13th, and though I\u2019m not superstitious about the date, I\u2019m not liking this headline in today\u2019s New York Times: Top News The topic will be on the agenda Friday with the first official visit to Washington by Britain\u2019s new prime minister, Keir Starmer. That\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-49240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"More Missiles Are Not the Answer, Unless You Want World War III"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49240"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49253,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49240\/revisions\/49253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49240"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}