A dire warning
On Finland's bunkers, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and why the world shouldn't overestimate the odds of peace even as Ukraine scores widening victories against Russian aggression
Al Carns, a member of the British Parliament and recent former Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, warns: “We live in probably the most dangerous time [...] since the Cuban missile crisis, because Ukraine now is becoming unwinnable for Russia”. He thinks that’s going to lead to desperation moves by Russia that would drag out further warfare indefinitely.
■ A country can resist attack by a powerful aggressor in several ways. First, they can put up a strong fight on the battlefield itself and repel according to winning along battle fronts (like the Western Front of World War I). Clearly, Ukraine has devoted enormous resources to that approach.
■ Second, a country can harden itself so much that it becomes like a turtle withdrawn into its shell (or, perhaps, like a porcupine). Finland has been building this model for generations and now has 50,500 civil defense shelters across the country ready in case of Russian invasion. Ukraine wasn’t quite so hardened before and continues to suffer grievous losses as Russia attacks civilians in their apartments, schools, and hospitals. But Ukraine has been adapting with innovations like anti-drone nets over highways and cities.
■ Third, a country can repel an aggressor by making the fight so costly that the aggressor gives up in the face of staggering losses. Ukraine has imposed 1.4 million casualties on Russia -- an utterly astonishing figure -- and shows no signs of letting up. To the rational observer, it’s astonishing that the Kremlin cares so little about such mind-boggling losses, including nine times as many war fatalities as Russia and the USSR had suffered in every fight since World War II.
■ Fourth, a defending country can cripple the economic and material supply lines that make it possible for the aggressor to continue to fight. Ukraine has been pounding Russia’s oil refineries and supply chains and weapons factories for exactly this reason. If Ukraine can take out Russia’s tanks and trucks faster than Russia can replace them, then it doesn’t have to fight them on the front lines.
■ Against some astonishing odds, Ukraine has survived and advanced the state of the art of warfare far more than probably anyone could have imagined four years ago. A defensive victory is not assured, and Carns’s warning should be taken seriously: While the strategically (and morally) correct course of action is for allies to pour all the support they can behind Ukraine’s defense, even success by all measurable objectives won’t necessarily stop the Kremlin from desperate and irrational escalation. The sooner Russia quits, the better.