Blunders have a cost, and the cost of the Kremlin’s blunders is developing into direct conflict between US and Russian soldiers.
by Dr Paul Craig Roberts
This is a serious development.
As I have said over and over, the Kremlin’s go-slow limited military operation is a fatal mistake resulting in a wider war. An operation that should have been concluded in a week is now in its seventh month and seems destined to continue indefinitely as the Kremlin does nothing to disrupt the Ukrainian government’s war effort or the endless supplies of weapons that the West pours into Ukraine. The long-running conflict has allowed Western propaganda to portray the Russian military as unsuccessful and to convince Western decision-makers that Russia can be defeated in Ukraine. This conviction has led to ever higher states of Western involvement.
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| Ukrainian servicemen load a truck with the FGM-148 Javelin, American made-portable anti-tank missiles provided by U.S. to Ukraine, at Kyiv's airport Boryspil on February 2022 [ Photo:Sergei Supinsky / AFP via Getty Images file] |
With the Pentagon’s creation of a “Ukraine Command,” we move closer to the introduction of US troops. In fact, US military forces are already involved. They train Ukraine’s soldiers at the US Army’s European Headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, thus committing Germany to the intervention in Ukraine. US military personnel provide targeting information for Ukraine’s attacks on Russian positions. Yet, despite the growing involvement of US/NATO, the Kremlin holds on to its limited operation, dangerous in its failure and miscalculation, as Russia’s dilly-dallying has convinced the West that the Kremlin has no stomach for real conflict, encouraging Washington to take another step toward sending troops by forming a “Ukraine Command.”
Putin’s emphasis on legalisms might be the undoing of Russia. The Kremlin could have avoided the Ukraine conflict by doing in 2014 what it is doing, belatedly, in 2022–accept the Donbass Russians’ request to be returned to Russia. The Kremlin could have avoided the US/NATO military commitment to Ukraine by knocking out Ukraine before the West had time to react.
Blunders have a cost, and the cost of the Kremlin’s blunders is developing into direct conflict between US and Russian soldiers.
Dr Paul Craig Roberts is a well-known economist who received his PhD from the University of Virginia. He was, in the early 1980s, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Ronald Reagan. He has been the associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has been a columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns at www.paulcraigroberts.org have attracted a following worldwide.
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