While Russia warned of the risks of a Third World War with nuclear weapons because of NATO “starting a proxy war,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin openly expressed in Kyiv US ambition that Russia “become so weakened that it can no longer can do what it did in Ukraine’.
It is language that tempts some experts, following Russian rhetoric, to once again portray the worst-case scenarios as real. That might be a little too fast. “War is war,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. But rhetoric is rhetoric, you might add – and it has to be understood in its context.
And that is the ‘critical phase’ the war is in, with the serious Russian effort in the Donbas finally achieving military success. Mark Milley, America’s top general, calls the coming weeks critical. Ukraine needs ‘continued support’ to ‘be successful on the battlefield’.
The US will move heaven and earth to support Ukraine
In that context, the meeting of forty countries on Tuesday about intensifying arms support to Kyiv at the American air base in Ramstein, Germany, fits in this context. Over the past week, countries from four continents, the US leading the way, have significantly increased their arms support to Ukraine in view of the heavy battle in the Donbas.
This involves heavier and partly advanced equipment to withstand the superior Russian firepower. Even Germany, which has been struggling for weeks with the question whether heavier weapons should or can also be sent, is coming over with the delivery of ‘Gepard’ armored anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine.
According to Austin, the US will move “heaven and earth” to continue to supply Ukraine with sufficient weapons and ammunition. The longer the battle lasts, the more challenging it becomes. In order to be able to cope with this better, they are also switching to western equipment. Nevertheless, it remains uncertain whether Ukraine will be able to sufficiently withstand or eliminate Russian firepower from the ground and from the air.
As the battle lasts, Russia will also be faced with shortages in equipment and personnel. Russian experts suspect that weakening his own armed forces could put President Putin in a position of facing difficult decisions.
Russian end-of-the-world rhetoric indicates things are not going well
Declaring a general mobilization could (partly) solve those shortages, but that is a drastic means that affects many Russians – whose support for the war is probably not as deep, broad and extensive as the state propaganda would have you believe. Then escalation in weapons may well be Putin’s preference, thinks his former adviser Stanislav Belkovsky.
Against this background, what does Russia’s end-of-the-world rhetoric about world wars and nuclear weapons and Western intentions to wipe Russia off the map mean? That things are not going well on the battlefield, cool heads answer dryly. And that every effort must be made to sell this ‘special operation’ to the Russian public. The Orwellian inversion of the facts is nothing new.
Critics question whether Austin’s statements about Russia’s military weakening are helpful in this regard. They fit into the Russian narrative that this is an all-encompassing conflict with the West which (security chief Patrushev said Tuesday) wants to “destroy” the entire Russian population via Ukraine, and like Hitler at the time.
In this barrage of one-liners, it remains of great importance to separate the wheat from the chaff rhetorically. What Austin seems to want to emphasize with his statements and the meeting in Ramstein is that Ukraine continues to receive enough support not to succumb. That is the signal to Moscow: keep in mind in your war plans that we will not give up Ukraine. That steadfastness has been increased by indications of large-scale Russian war crimes and the approach of completely pulverizing Ukrainian towns and villages.
Letting Russia run its course – now counts as the greater danger
Russian Minister Lavrov warns the West of a ‘war by proxy’ against Russia. That is a distorted view, as it is a defensive response to Putin’s aggression. Nevertheless, in many western countries this fear of threshold did initially exist. Now the alternative – letting Russia run its course in Ukraine – is seen as the greater danger.
This has weakened the effect of disinformation and bloated rhetoric with which Russia continues to be successful in parts of Western societies for years. The large Western arms support to Ukraine shows that Putin has crossed a line with this invasion – even among friends who were willing to forgive him almost everything, such as Germany.
A Third World War? So far, Western countries have strictly abstained from a direct military confrontation with Russia. That’s no coincidence. A nuclear war? Since 1945, limited conventional wars have always remained possible without the use of nuclear weapons, writes Gideon Rose in Foreign Affairs, an influential American foreign policy magazine. There is a reason for this: the negative consequences of the use of nuclear weapons are many times greater than any gain to be made, even for those who use them first.
“Rhetorical escalation is the last weapon of a true despot,” said John Chipman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank. “Ukraine’s right to repel Russian attacks and to obtain all necessary military resources from international partners is in no way diminished by Russian nuclear weapons clatter.”