WASHINGTON – For nine weeks, President Biden and Western allies have stressed the need to keep the war for Ukraine in Ukraine.
Now the fear in Washington and European capitals is that the conflict could soon escalate into a wider war – spreading to neighboring countries, cyberspace and NATO countries, which are suddenly facing a halt to gas from Russia. In the long run, such an expansion could turn into a more direct conflict between Washington and Moscow, reminiscent of the Cold War, as each seeks to destroy the power of the other.
For the past three days, the US Secretary of Defense has called for efforts to reduce the capabilities of the Russian military so that it cannot invade another country for years. The Russians cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, which joined the North Atlantic Treaty after the collapse of the Soviet Union; Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, immediately condemned the move as an “extortion tool”. Explosions shook a disputed area of Moldova, a natural target for the Russians, and gas depots and even a missile plant in Russia mysteriously caught fire or were directly attacked by Ukrainian forces.
And with increasing frequency, Russians are reminding the world of the size and power of their nuclear arsenal, an inconspicuous warning that if President Vladimir Putin’s conventional forces face more humiliating losses, he has other options. U.S. and European officials say they see no evidence that the Russians are mobilizing their nuclear forces on the battlefield, but behind the scenes, officials are already playing on how they would react to Russia’s nuclear test or demonstration explosion over the Black Sea or Ukrainian territory.
“No one wants to see this war escalate more than it already is,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday when asked about Russia’s nuclear threats. “Certainly no one wants to see or no one should want to see, this is escalating in the nuclear field.”
U.S. and European officials say their fears are based in part on a growing belief that the conflict could continue for some time, as Secretary of State Anthony J. recently said. Blinken.
Talks about a diplomatic resolution or even a ceasefire, tried at various points by the leaders of France, Israel and Turkey, among others, have died down. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces are digging in the long run, focusing on what they expect to be an artillery war in the south and east of the country, where Russia has concentrated its forces following a humiliating retreat from Kyiv and other key cities.
“Putin does not want to back down, nor do the Ukrainians, so there is more blood ahead,” said Robin Niblet, director of Chatham House, a British think tank. At the same time, America’s and Europe’s determination to help Ukraine defeat the Russians hardened, in part as the atrocities in Bucha and other Russian-occupied cities became clear, with even Germany overcoming its initial objections and sending artillery and armored vehicles.
Seth J. Jones, who heads the European Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said on Wednesday that “the risk of a growing war is serious at the moment.”
“Russian casualties continue to increase, and the United States is committed to supplying more powerful weapons to those victims,” Jones said. Sooner or later, he added, Russian military intelligence could begin directing these arms shipments within NATO’s borders.
Last week, a rocket hit a tire assembly plant in Lviv, western Ukraine. Credit … Finbar O’Reilly for The New York Times
Not all lines of communication between Washington and Moscow have collapsed. The United States and Russia announced an exchange of prisoners early Wednesday. The exchange took place in secret in Turkey, where Trevor Reed, a former Marine, was replaced by a Russian pilot, whom the Justice Department has long called an “experienced international drug trafficker.” But even that was a return to the Cold War, underscoring how much of the current conflict is a power struggle between Washington and Moscow.
The moment seems to reinforce an argument that Stephen Kotkin, a professor at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, recently made in Foreign Affairs when he wrote that “the early end of the Cold War was a mirage” as Russia’s integration efforts The West slowly collapsed.
Mr Biden himself has backed the theory that Mr Putin has projects that go beyond Ukraine. The invasion, he said on the day it began, February 24, was “always for overt aggression, for Putin’s desire for an empire by all means.”
But so far, the war remains largely within Ukraine’s geographical borders. The United States and its allies have said they aim to make Russia withdraw its forces “irreversibly”, as Mr Blinken put it, and to respect Ukraine’s borders as they were before the invasion. Mr Biden has refused to impose a no-fly zone to pit American and Russian pilots against each other. Mr Putin has condemned the influx of Western weapons into aid to the Ukrainian military, but has never attacked these supply lines on NATO territory.
There are now signs that the limiter is breaking.
When Gazprom, Russia’s energy giant, cut off inflows to Poland and Bulgaria, it was a clear warning sign that Germany – heavily dependent on Russian gas – could be next. Russia has used its most powerful economic weapon, sending a message that it could bring pain and significant cold next winter in Eastern and Western Europe without firing a shot. U.S. officials have said it is an obvious effort to break up NATO allies, who have remained united so far.
Coincidentally or not, Mr Putin’s move came just after Defense Minister Lloyd J. Austin III went beyond the administration’s oft-repeated statement that he wanted to make sure Russia came out of its experience in a strategically weakened Ukraine.
Some Europeans are wondering if Washington’s military goals have expanded from helping Ukraine defend itself to striking Russia. Credit … Lincy Addario for The New York Times
“We want to see Russia weakened to the point that it can’t do the things it did when it invaded Ukraine,” said Mr. Austin, a line that seems to suggest that the United States has wanted to undermine Russian military power for years. Putin remains in power. The export controls that the United States has imposed on key microelectronic components that Russia needs to make its missiles and tanks appear to be designed to do just that.
Some Europeans have wondered whether Washington’s military goals have expanded from helping Ukraine defend itself, which has widespread support, to harming Russia itself, a controversial goal that would be part of Russia’s narrative that Moscow’s actions in Ukraine are for protection against NATO.
Some administration officials have argued that Mr Austin’s comments have been over-interpreted and that he does not offer a long-term strategic goal of undermining Russia’s power. Instead, they say, he is simply reinforcing past statements about the need to sharpen Mr Putin’s choice, while hampering Russia’s ability to launch a new invasion once it regroups.
But many in Europe thought his statement suggested a long war of attrition that could have many fronts.
“Are we heading for a wider war, or is it just an Austin blunder?” Asked Francois Heisburg, a French defense analyst.
“There is a growing consensus on Ukraine’s supplies of howitzers and more sophisticated weapons systems, and now everyone is doing so,” Mr Heisburg said.
“But it is different to direct the goal of the war from Ukraine to Russia. I do not believe that there is a consensus on this issue. “Weakening Russia’s military capacity is ‘a good thing,'” Heisburg said, “but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself.”
There are other factors that risk escalating the conflict. Sweden and Finland are expected to seek NATO membership within weeks, expanding the alliance in response to Mr Putin’s efforts to break it up. But the process could take months, because every NATO country will have to ratify the move, and it could create a period of vulnerability. Russia could threaten both countries before they are formally accepted into the alliance and covered by the NATO treaty, which says an attack on one member is an attack on all.
But there is less and less doubt that Sweden and Finland will become the 31st and 32nd members of the alliance. Mr Niblet said the new NATO enlargement – exactly what Mr Putin had opposed over the past two decades – would “clarify new front lines of opposition to Russia”.
Not surprisingly, both sides are playing on the fear that the war could spread, in propaganda campaigns parallel to the ongoing war on the ground. The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky often raises this possibility in his evening radio speeches; Two weeks ago, begging NATO allies for more weapons, he said “we can either stop Russia or lose all of Eastern Europe.”
Russia has its own handbook, which occasionally claims that its goals go beyond the “denazification” of Ukraine until the removal of NATO forces and weapons from allies that did not accept any of them before 1997. Moscow’s frequent mentions of growing The risk of nuclear war seems to be aimed at bringing home the idea that the West should not go too far.
The message resonates in Germany, which has long sought to avoid provoking Mr Putin, said Ulrich Speck, a German analyst. To say that “Russia should not win,” he said, is different from saying “Russia should lose.”
There are fears in Berlin that “we should not push Putin too hard against the wall,” Mr Speck said.
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