Red Line 2: Nuclear Boogaloo
What does it mean to exist?
Following up on today’s Defcon Watch, if the Kremlin ultimately perceives the invasion itself as posing a threat to Russia’s existence, more so now that it’s already bogged down in a “bloody stalemate,” even without an all-out hot war with NATO, would that be enough to cross Putin’s invisible red line?
The only way to defuse the situation is to give the Kremlin an out that allows them to claim false victory while the rest of the world knows better. Permanent neutrality for Ukraine coupled with NATO security guarantees to prevent a future invasion (think “Article V Light”) . Russia pays damages and then some for the war, but keeps Crimea and Donbas (headaches for Kyiv anyway), though not the land-bridge bit between them. Then we all keep spying the hell out of each other.
As if a Ukraine dominated by extreme Fascist elements armed by NATO and Baltic States armed by NATO does not constitute a prospect of breaking apart the Russian Federation and killing millions. One could argue that in 2014 Russia accomplished all it wanted. NATO and the Ukraine did not agree. Russia was not prepared for the sweeping hatred and sanctions it surely faced in 2014 had it broken the Ukraine by partition and was ill prepared today. War was brought to the doorstep and war is a kind of fake solution to many pressing problems facing global humanity. We have discovered once more Appeasement works as a diplomatic tool and the truth of Clausewitz's most famous saying about war, that it is the continuation of politics (policy) by other means. Here is the passage in full: https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/clausewitz-war-as-politics-by-other-means