![]() ![]() ![]() The measures listed here are more prudent-designed to bolster Ukraine’ s fighting strength without pushing Russia into mutual escalation and paving the way to a war between the United States or NATO and Russia.įormalize military aid through lend-lease: NATO and the European Union (EU) should follow the United States’ lead by formalizing their military aid program to Ukraine, modeling it on the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022. The following steps should be considered if Russia continues its indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure and population centers, but on a larger scale. Each set of measures is set off by separate crisis triggers, but they are still listed in order of escalating intensity. Each choice is accompanied by an assessment of how it might play along the consequence/appropriateness spectrum, based on its impact on Ukraine, Europe, and the rest of the transatlantic community. We have assembled a list of possible policy responses the West ought to consider according to the approximate level of escalatory severity. How will it seek to aid beleaguered Ukraine should Russia choose to escalate? What will it do in direct response to heightened Russian aggression? And what can it do right now to dissuade Russia from taking dangerous next steps that could precipitate a wider war? This is why the West needs to prepare itself for intensified warfare between Ukraine and Russia, or even between Russia and the West (chiefly of a hybrid nature). In short, the Kremlin’s invasion may have slowed to a war of attrition against the Ukrainian military-but it still has enough tools at its disposal to escalate the war. While also remote, there is a chance of the use of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons to break the entrenched and battle-hardened Ukrainian lines in the Donbas. Carpet bombing or chemical or biological attacks could be used to quash Ukrainian resistance in major occupied cities such as Kherson-especially if a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive risks ousting the Russian military there. The Ukrainians’ successful use of Western-supplied, high-precision weapons such as the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) might compel the Kremlin to boost its aggression.Īlthough seemingly unfeasible, Moscow could still attempt to conquer all of Ukraine at a later date, or simply wear down the Ukrainian military with eye toward forcing Kyiv into once-unthinkable concessions. Even though its military has sustained heavy losses-and while the Kremlin’s current objectives are much smaller than its initial goal of capturing Kyiv and overthrowing the government-the chances of escalation in this war persist. JClimbing the escalation ladder in Ukraine: A menu of options for the Westīy Francis Shin, Damir Marusic, and Tyson WetzelĪfter making slow but steady gains in eastern Ukraine recently, Russia has inched closer to its recalibrated goal of seizing the entire Donbas region. ![]()
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