By Nicholas Khoo*
Russia’s war with Ukraine is now at a critical turning point. The relentless missile and drone strikes on the capital Kyiv may look like a sign of strength, but appearances can be deceiving.
The Russian assault is a sign of weakness. It is an attempt to weaken Kyiv’s air defences in advance of a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces in Ukraine.
Last week, a suspected Ukrainian drone attack damaged two residential buildings in Moscow. If confirmed, this would be the first strike by Kyiv on a civilian area in Moscow.
BBC Russia editor Steve Rosenberg, whose own Moscow home windows shook during the explosions, reported feeling “as if the hostilities are coming much closer to home now”.
But this was not the first drone attack on Moscow. In early May, the Russian government reported that two unmanned aerial vehicles had unsuccessfully attempted to attack the Kremlin.
The clear concern now is that the war is escalating. And the repercussions will affect the United States-China relationship, as well as Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.
Diplomatic absence
As University of Chicago scholar John Mearsheimer wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs in August 2022:
The maximalist thinking that now prevails in Washington and Moscow gives each side more reason to win on the battlefield so that it can dictate the terms of the eventual peace. In effect, the absence of a possible diplomatic solution provides an added incentive for both sides to climb up the escalation ladder.
If this sounds alarmist, it shouldn’t. Does anyone doubt Vladimir Putin’s political (and possibly personal) survival rests on winning the first land war in Europe since the 1990s, one that directly involves NATO and Russia?
And does anyone doubt that NATO will not rest until its efforts in Ukraine secure Russia’s strategic defeat? That is the obvious interpretation of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s April 2022 statement:
We want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to protect its sovereign territory. We want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine.
While we may be sympathetic to that statement, its escalatory implications are clear.
With a few notable exceptions, Russia has almost always been a relatively weak great power, Stephen Kotkin writes in this 2016 essay. What can that history reveal about Putin’s foreign policy today?https://t.co/SiJgE0dJ1Z
— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) February 24, 2022
An escalation triangle
The current regime in Russia is arguably its own worst enemy. As Stanford historian Stephen Kotkin has written, Putin is repeating a pattern of failed modernisation and unsuccessful aggression that can be traced back to Tsar Peter the Great (1672-1725).
The savagery of the Russian campaign in Ukraine demands the scrutiny of an international criminal court. Whether this happens or not, history should teach us not to expect a consolidated liberal democracy to emerge from the ashes of the Putin regime. Indeed, the only thing worse than its continuation could be what replaces it.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has also escalated existing tensions in the US relationship with China.
If that relationship was adversarial before the Ukraine war, it is far more so now. The war has turbocharged Beijing’s view of US expansionism, and the US sense that it should press its advantage against its Chinese and Russian rivals.
Evidence suggests Beijing will do all it can to ensure the Putin regime’s survival, and eventually support the transition to a more restrained Russian leader who remains aligned with China.
NZ and the ANZAC alliance
These escalations are now being felt within Australia and New Zealand’s strategic environment.
In recent years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has made clear that China’s “national rejuvenation” cannot be achieved without “reunification” with Taiwan. The present situation, he has said, “cannot go on [from] generation to generation”.
Since 2020, New Zealand’s sole alliance partner Australia has borne the brunt of a coercive economic and diplomatic sanctions policy initiated by China. Canberra responded with the ambitious 2021 AUKUS initiative, a strategic technology-sharing partnership with the US and UK.
China then escalated tensions by signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands in May 2022. The operational details weren’t transparent but the strategic target was clear – Australia.
These developments profoundly affect New Zealand’s own security. This explains Minister of Defence Andrew Little’s announcement in April 2023 that Wellington is interested in hearing more detail about possible “pillar two” participation in AUKUS.
One necessary casualty of the current era of conflict escalation is a worldview based on plentiful security and few hard choices. How far we have come from the benign era when New Zealand signed a free trade agreement with China in 2008.
*Nicholas Khoo, Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Otago. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
39 Comments
That assumes the generals below Putin will follow his order (if every given). Not so sure that would happen, as they all have families and love Mother Russia and know the response from the west. The best scenario is another group (not likely democrats) in Russia shoots Putin.
Well you argue it went nuclear when the UK sent depleted uranium shells. (Putin said Russia considers this a dirty bomb.) Does anyone have a good ethical argument that DU is OK and tac nukes are not? (Maybe one is more "nuclear" than the other but this is all just degrees)
But if you definition of nuclear is nuclear explosions from a warhead it's just going to overtime escalate to this level. Neither side (NATO and Russia) is prepared to back down they now have too much at stake (the UK especially is escalating the weaponry at the moment). The only way out if if the European populations comes to it's scenes and has an uprising against the leadership.
So just big explosions are bad? DU is "nuclear" and has lasting effects on the population.
Both weapons have "fallout" that effects civilians. My understanding was this is reason for making nukes taboo.
Unironically yes. There are set definitions for what constitutes nuclear weapons and depleted uranium shells don't meet them.
Depleted uranium is basically dangerous in the same way other heavy metals like lead are. Plenty of awful shit gets thrown around during war, agent orange was probably much, much worse than depleted uranium shells.
I wish none of this stuff would get used but you're being obtuse if you think they are anywhere near the same risk as an actual fission-based nuclear weapon.
Your asserting that an undisputable ethical argument has been made. Not making one. Yes, I am not going to argue agaisnt that a 100kt nuke is worse than 10kt nuke worse is worse than DU. It's where the line was crossed and when you introduce birth defects and cancer onto the populations living there that's the "nuclear" line, this is directly attributable to this one weapon in Iraq.
As far as the agent orange "whataboutism" (WTF): Hypothetically, would you have any sympathy if someone using the toxin gets nuked in response. They have both crossed the line.
Russia changed their "rules" on what's a nuclear weapon before the DU was sent. We are well beyond "rules" here, we have Russia, China and Middle East openly disagreeing with the "rules".
The OSHA permissible oral intake of soluble uranium is based on its chemical toxicity and is the same as lead for adults: 50 micrograms/kg a day (about 100 mg a year for a 70 kg adult).
Roughly speaking uranium is about as toxic as the lead in all those bullets that people spend exactly no time anguishing about. It is in zero way comparable to nuclear or chemical weapons.
Hypothetically, would you have any sympathy if someone using the toxin gets nuked in response. They have both crossed the line.
The crux of it is that the people making these choices are unlikely to be the ones facing the consequences of said choices, so the only moral choice is to not use them at all. Better still, don't have wars to begin with but that's hopelessly naive.
We have bans on chemical and nuclear weapons as their use can escalate into something unimaginably awful. Depleted uranium weapons are not in this category no matter what Russia says, the West knows this and Russia knows this, it's all posturing. The West doesn't need to follow their "rules" any more than Russia has been following the West's "rules".
Do you think the Iraqi birth defects are fabricated? (We don't see this in every war) or that sufficient amounts of other heavy metals have already been released into Ukraine to cause something similar? How is DU dust not a chemical weapon with a nuclear component? There will be lasting civilian harm, we are on the chem/nuclear spectrum. (Just because the DU usage will be small because these tanks wont last too long ,its fine?) DU is used to improve firepower just like nuke warhead are.
The West doesn't need to follow their "rules" any more than Russia has been following the West's "rules".
So they are just convenient rules not principles. This is just a convenient line at the time. DU is still very early in the escalation chain where it is much easier to stop but it's on it.
Another mostly hypothetical: What happens if a stockpile of DU rounds is located with a large amount of other munitions and is blown up scattering DU over population's land using the weapons. Is this not a small dirty bomb? Does the line between this and a small yield tac nuke on a remote military installation start to get a tiny bit blurry.
There are thousands of harmful substances deployed during wartime. Correlation does not equal causation. There could be many other causes for birth defects other than depleted uranium and the science is far from settled on this.
And it's important to realize that war has a huge range of negative outcomes for the civilian population, so the specific risk of DU should be evaluated in the larger context. This also confounds scientific studies, because war-affected civilians typically have experienced profound stress, lack of access to clean food and water, lack of adequate healthcare, severe existential crisis, etc. and all of these are known and correlated with poor health outcomes in their own right, so attributing those health outcomes to DU exposure would be very difficult.
And weighing the possible risk of health problems ethically and politically is also difficult. There is an obligation to minimize the risk of civilian casualties but that obligation is not unlimited, particularly when it's not just a matter of cost but also a matter of weapon effectiveness.
It's also important to note that regular munitions can also create toxic conditions on the battlefield as well, such as lead contamination, or mercury contamination, so the use of DU must be weighed in that context as well.
So they are just convenient rules not principles. This is just a convenient line at the time. DU is still very early in the escalation chain where it is much easier to stop but it's on it.
That's basically the gist of it. The only real rule is mutually assured destruction, which is why some hard lines haven't been crossed e.g nuclear and chemical weapons.
Burning coal also releases radioactive elements. Would Ukraine burning coal be similar to a dirty bomb? As you said the lines are blurry.
Apparently the reason DU is not banned or controlled is because UK, US, France and Israel block it at the UN.
Playing the unproven card. You can just say the high amounts of cancer and birth defects in Iraq and Yugoslavia are either fabricated or nothing to do with DU, I know there heaps of stuff to hide behind.
The majority of depleted uranium's negative health outcomes come from the fact it's a heavy metal, not from radioactivity. Tungsten and lead are also awful to inhale when they are aerosolized, but this doesn't make them chemical weapons when their primary usecase has been as kinetic pentrators.
I'm not saying that depleted uranium is free of negative health effects, but that the effects on birth defects are heavily contested. The reason why I bought up agent orange previously is that is an example of something that has well-proven and non-disputed connections to birth defects which has not been the case with depleted uranium, and if it was so clear cut there would be far more evidence from a wider variety of sources.
And the unproven card goes two ways, you can just say the high amount of cancer and birth defects in Iraq and Yugoslavia (debatable) are from depleted uranium rather than considering that there could be a variety of other contributing factors at play.
The majority of depleted uranium's negative health outcomes come from the fact it's a heavy metal, not from radioactivity. Tungsten and lead are also awful to inhale when they are aerosolized, but this doesn't make them chemical weapons when their primary usecase has been as kinetic pentrators.
Stated above. It's not a nice material but the negative health outcomes are primarily from its toxicity as a heavy metal than its radioactivity.
No! Alpha particles are the most carcinogenic form of radiation. The mitigating factor is that they're readily absorbed with minimal shielding. An unexpolded shell basically shields itself. If you inhale that dust though you're fu*k3d. The particles will be embedded in your lung epithelial tissue, and the inverse square radiation law means that the epithelial cells proximal to the hot particles will receive massive doses of cancer causing alpha radiation over days, months or years. There are so many papers on this I can be bothered doing a full search, but here are a couple. Oh and yeah it's cytotoxic aswell.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/tx700026r (after 72 hours they see radiation damage, so what happens after weeks or years)
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.0211051
https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/1999/02000/Inhaled_Ura…
I think there’s a non-trivial possibility of it. I have done some reading on it and it’s fraught assigning a probability, but the highest I have seen is around the 5% mark. That intuitively feels too low but what do I know.
If the war turns strongly in Ukraine’s favour and they mounted a victorious or potentially victorious attack on Crimea, it might happen. As Putin no doubt sees Crimea as Russia’s now, even though it’s not as per international law. Would be interesting to know what Ukraine are thinking about Crimea, surely they want it back but they must also understand the risks?
It’s certainly hard to see how this war will be resolved, positions of both sides so entrenched.
I would hazard a guess that a full scale nuclear war is very unlikely. But I reckon there could be a chance of Russia using a couple of tactical nukes on Ukraine if Crimea is under serious threat.
Then the question is what is the NATO response? It probably won’t be nukes but if it’s a very strong conventional strike on Russian forces in Ukraine then that has the potential to escalate, but hopefully ( and heaven forbid) at that point there would be a settlement (Russia keeps Crimea?)
Do you really think NATO are that far ahead they would able to go up against nukes "conventionally"? (I don't) Is the MSM still giving you the impression that NATO air defence is effective? (and just has not been sent yet?)
One by one every airstrip in Europe would have drone holes all though it's runway and any sizeable gathering of military forces would just get nuked. Once the first nuke flies either the other side surrenders or its on.
I don’t read the MSM on this at all. I read credible international strategy and international affairs websites.
I didn’t say NATO conventional forces go up against Russian nukes. The scenario I am describing is as follows (and this comes from my readings):
- Russia uses a tactical nuke or two on Ukraine. As a show of intent, but also potentially to wipe out some of the Ukraine forces
- NATO responds via very heavy and intense air attacks on Russian forces in Ukraine. It would be intolerable for NATO to do nothing. It would be suicide for NATO to nuke Russia
As I say there is risk that conventional NATO attack might prompt Putin to go full nuclear.
Lots of conundrums.
China’s response to use of tactical nukes would be interesting. I suspect they would still side with Russia, despite the atrocity. Because they are an evil authoritarian regime in their own right.
NATO responds via very heavy and intense air attacks on Russian forces in Ukraine.
What do you think happens as they are building up for this, carrying it out and afterwards? Somewhere in there WW3 start and Russia starts advancing into Europe to prevent the strikes. If nukes have been used they won't stop being used here. Russia do not need nukes to beat Ukraine(, only possibly to end the war sooner??) any nukes would be to deter NATO.
Are you arguing that Russia's just going to sit back and take the airstrike and then run home? NATO would have done this already if they though it would work. I think their first though would be that they have to gear up to advance all the way to western Europe to stop the invader like they have done at least twice by my count. There will be a conflict till one side surrenders.
Russian troops are in Ukraine. It’s an invasion of a sovereign country. Nato air strikes would not be on Russian soil. If you think that gives Russia the mandate to use strategic nukes then we might as well give into the asshole Putin now.
So… if Putin used a couple of tactical nukes in Ukraine what do you suggest Nato do? A few tutts tutts and scolding?
your comment that NATO would have gone in but they haven’t because of Russia’s nuclear threat, so they won’t if Russia uses tactical nukes is a silly one. Completely different thresholds of military escalation.
Having said that, Russia’s use of tactical nukes should not necessarily be an automatic trigger for NATO airstrikes. Tactical nukes can be pretty low yield so it should depend on how many of them and how powerful they are. And where they are deployed. For example a strike on a small city would be intolerable. A couple of small battlefield deployments? Maybe very strong condemnation from NATO and no strikes. Maybe …
NATO can't just punish Russia or something and then say no take backs. It can choose to start WW3 over it. There's no higher authority here to intervene if Russia break the rules. The first thing I said on this was NATO cannot just squash Russia when it chooses are you disagreeing on this?
Russia have the best missiles and air defense. If NATO attacks Russia will weather it and shoot a number of planes down and carry on and then start blowing up the airports. If NATO continues well they might have enough planes to sustain it but it would be a war not something that one sided.
As for what we should do. Well our only recent connection to Ukraine is Brenton Tarrant and for that I can look the other way and carry on with my life, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia and so on. I would recommend watching "Ukraine on Fire" but as someone who still quotes the "sovereign country" propaganda (it's true but so redundant its not needed) you might struggle.
Carry on with life, sure up to a point. And a stalemate that drags on like those other places.
What I am talking about is a Russian escalation involving nuclear weapons. That’s the hard question. Not an endless stalemate of a war.
So, presumably you think the response to Russian nukes is a bundle of tutt tutts. And try to get to negotiating urgently? Easier said than done
But let’s go back a step - what do you think the probability of them using nukes is? Do you agree it’s not insignificant if Ukraine was to look like reclaiming Crimea? (Ps. I don’t have any inkling on how desperate Ukraine are to reclaim Crimea, do you? )
Our Government (or the next one) should be preparing now for any possible for future conflict over Taiwan.
Any attempt to take Taiwan through strategic or military measures has the potential to disrupt shipping lanes, supply chains and cause more inflation for the west.
Given NZ's location, we need to be ready for this.
Yip I think we should be preparing for a loss of trade with China given the deterioration in international relations we are seeing (not openly, but at least consider what this could look like and how we would go about managing this domestically - what are the chances these discussions are happening in Wgtn? Probably close to 0 I'd say).
The outcome of this loss of trade (assuming the conflict worsens) will be catastrophic for global economies.
If we thought supply chain problems were bad during/after COVID, imagine what permanently closed ports from China looks like for the west.
Certainly it will be painful for both sides (loss of export income for China), but equally we need to think about how reliant we are on their cheap labour/manufacturing and how this could impact our domestic inflation if we need to try and supply some of these same goods ourselves.
The period of low inflation as a result of globalisation could have come to an end unless we see a shift in these geopolitical tensions. Ray Dalio is seriously concerned about this and thinks there is a good chance of a shooting war (the final stage of war after all other avenues have been tried and failed to resolve the conflict) between China and the US within the next decade.
China nd Russia are both a joke, both verging on collapse. The only thing they have is the mass social media BS that puts the wind up of the vulnerable. Two despot leaders who are self deluded and isolated.
The sooner NATO go full on and deals to Russia the better. Shouda sorted them in '45.
Getting closer
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300894281/putins-chef-confirms-plans-f…
And this
https://maritime-executive.com/article/russia-ukraine-tensions-rise-as-…
Imagine if an LPG ship was bombed in port
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