we The atrocities committed against Ukrainians and the fear of new invasions is leading many to call for drastic actions to contain Russia. However, should the West put its foot on the first rung of the escalation ladder it must be willing to climb it.
In just days, Russia's high-risk war of aggression in Ukraine has become a nuclear crisis. A nuclear crisis is a confrontation with a heightened probability of military hostilities that takes place in and is conditioned by the shadows of nuclear weapons and their possible use. And this nuclear crisis may endure for some time. We don't know how long this will last or where it is headed. As things stand Ukraine may be spared a rapid conquest. But it may suffer the distress of a protracted way of occupation, well beyond the time costs that Putin's regime hoped for. The war itself is already conflicting with brutal losses. And now that both Ukraine, NATO, and a broader US coalition counter it with arms, economic sanctions, intelligence and diplomacy nuclear-armed states are on a dangerous collision course through miscalculation the economic war, proxy war, or war of words could end in an actual shooting conflict.
How long do the warring sides, Ukrainians, the wider West and Russia survive this? But survival does not only mean staying alive. For the time the conflict is centered in Ukraine, it flows from a more profound and wider collision over how Europe should stand. It will take prudent management to contain the spillover. It is a time for cool heads capable of grasping enough of the problem's complexities even amid velocity and fog of war and end in a major war.
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