Cheerleading versus shivers down your spine: what will the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive bring?

To be sure, there are, among readers of my essays, a certain number of cheerleaders for the Russian side in the ongoing war in and over Ukraine. Some are keenly interested in the facts and the risks that each escalation in the conflict brings with it.  Others are often quite ignorant about Russia and have no sincere interest in that country, any more than the Washington elites rooting for Ukraine care about the realities or the fate of that country. These folks are playing the Grand Chessboard, and their logic is ‘you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs,’ by which I mean that the losses of the combatant sides are merely collateral damage in a much needed realignment of the World Order that takes America down from its pedestal. Quite apart from the cynicism that underlies such position-taking, it ignores that we may all become ‘collateral damage’ if one or the other combatant side miscalculates and touches off a nuclear war.

Meanwhile, I see that both Scott Ritter and Col. Douglas Macgregor continue their cheerleading of Russian forces with daily predictions of a rout of the Ukrainian army.  They are both talking nonsense, and bring their fake news to very large Western audiences.   Why do I say nonsense? Because no one really knows what the situation on the ground will be when the Ukrainians launch their counter offensive next month. 

Both sides have imposed strictest secrecy on their current operations and plans for the coming couple of months.  Though the Russians continue to make progress in their capture of Bakhmut and Avdievka, there is little movement elsewhere on the very long front. Both sides are engaged in minor sorties to find out weak spots in the defenses of the other side for purposes of the big battle to come.

In the past few days, Zelensky has played down the Ukrainian military potential for the purpose of squeezing more and more aid from the West and to make the possible Ukrainian breakthrough during the counter offensive appear all the more remarkable if it indeed occurs.

The Russians have been digging in, literally, with spades to fortify their defensive positions in a series of lines. The Russians are nervous over what the USA and NATO actually have dispatched to Ukraine, which they believe may be much more advanced than what the newspaper accounts are saying. Forget the tanks, which are a side show. The real threat is long range ballistic missiles and other weaponry that can reach into the supply depots, regional command centers and barracks of reservists in Crimea and the Russian oblasts bordering the Donbas.

Should Russian fears, which we hear set out in some detail on the daily talk shows these days, be justified and not merely a message to their own leadership to take maximum precautions and not to be giddy with success, then you and I should be very, very nervous. Why?  Because if the United States indeed goes va banque and throws in as a further guarantee of success NATO piloted aircraft and battalions of infantry, then the possibility of Russians resorting to tactical nukes raises its head. 

For some time now John Mearsheimer has been warning of the Russians resorting to nuclear weapons if they are too heavily pressed in the Ukraine war.   I had been resisting his logic by pointing to the unique new conventional weapons like the hypersonic missiles that the Russians have largely been holding back until now but could throw into the battle if needed.  After all, in principle, the Russians are fully capable of decapitating the Ukrainian political and military leadership by precision strikes on Kiev at any time of their choosing.  However, that may itself be as risky in terms of relations with the USA and NATO as a nuclear strike in the field would be, and it would leave no one with whom to negotiate an end to the war.  

And so, sadly and reluctantly, I take back my words about the impossibility of Russian use of nuclear weapons in the field. I have done this privately in a letter to Professor Mearsheimer. Now I do so publicly.

If US assistance to the Ukrainian counteroffensive goes over the top, we may all become collateral casualties of war, both here in Europe and on the mythically secure shores across the Atlantic.

For all of these reasons, I repeat the argument of the Appeal drafted by European Parliament deputies and published here a week ago:  this war must end NOW, and imposing a cease-fire is the most urgent task of international diplomacy.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023