Wed, Dec 18, 2024 at 1:26 AM

The USA is risking a world war in Ukraine, with European interests falling by the wayside. It is now important to examine which parties stand for a chance of peace.

Diplomacy and a U-turn in the war in Ukraine are obviously becoming increasingly necessary. While the military situation on the ground is becoming increasingly disastrous, the current escalation is endangering all sides of the conflict. Are our politicians and the media giving us a realistic picture of the explosive and dangerous events unfolding? Are the possible consequences for Germany an issue? To help us see the bigger picture, the following text first offers a summary based on well-known international sources such as the Associated Press, Reuters and the New York Times, as well as assessments by military experts who are all too rarely heard from in the mainstream, if at all.

by Angela Mahr

[This article posted on 12/17/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/das-drehen-an-der-eskalationsschraube.]

ATACMS and Storm Shadow

For about a year now, new terms have been part of our language. Nobody really knew how to pronounce ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles before. I find it difficult to say them myself. They have a range of up to 300 kilometers and are therefore also suitable for attacking Russia deep inland.

In September 2023, Joe Biden agreed to the delivery of several hundred ATACMS long-range missiles to Ukraine, including for use on the Crimean peninsula. In addition, the Ukrainians had already received deliveries of Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles from Great Britain and France. The following year, Ukraine used many of these missiles “in a concerted action against Russian military targets in Crimea and the Black Sea,” according to the New York Times.

The delivery of these weapons to Ukraine began with Zelensky’s trip to North America in September 2023. ATACMS are also capable of transporting cluster munitions. What does that mean?

111 states have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the “Oslo Convention”. They are thus prohibited from using, manufacturing, transferring and storing these weapons. Cluster munitions are banned for good reason: This is about humanitarian considerations and concern for the civilian population in countries that have been scarred by war and its consequences. The term cluster munitions refers to “missile warheads, artillery shells and bombs, each containing a high number of small explosive devices (so-called submunitions), which, after launch or launch, are scattered over large areas and are intended to explode there”.

“Canada’s support for Ukraine in the form of weapons and equipment has enabled us to save thousands of lives,“ Zelenskyi said in a speech to parliament in the capital, Ottawa, and was celebrated with great applause and cheers.

But what does saving lives look like?

“At least five dead and 124 injured in Crimea,” reported Spiegel on June 23, 2024.

“Many were apparently sunbathing when they were hit: a Ukrainian rocket has claimed several victims in the port city of Sevastopol, including three children. A Russian official accused Ukraine of using cluster munitions.”

According to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, Ukraine fired five ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) missiles – short-range ballistic missiles produced in the United States.

“According to the Russian army, Ukraine fired five missiles, four of which were intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses over the sea,” reported Spiegel in June 2024. Sevastopol was attacked ‘in broad daylight with ballistic missiles with cluster munitions,’ said Mikhail Razvoshayev, the governor of Sevastopol. Debris from the missiles that were shot down fell in the coastal region.

“Videos published by Russian media show people on a beach fleeing after explosions.”

The restrictions on not attacking deep inland were still in place at the time. These will no longer apply to the US and UK and their missiles from November 2024.

Worrying escalation

Since mid-November, the U.S. has authorized the Ukrainian army to use weapons with a longer range to attack targets across the border in the Russian hinterland.

For the first time, US President Joe Biden authorized the use of ATACMS missiles to support the Ukrainian attack in Kursk. ATACMS have a range of up to 300 kilometers and were designed to attack deep in the enemy’s rear, well behind the front lines.

“Mr. Biden’s decision marks a significant shift in U.S. policy,” the New York Times reports.

“His decision has divided his advisers, and the change comes two months before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, who has promised to limit further support for Ukraine.”

US officials said they did not expect the decision to fundamentally change the course of the war. The goal would be to deter the North Koreans.

The decision was made in the US with the knowledge that “it will not achieve a fundamental change in the situation,” said Harald Kujat, summarizing the situation.

Some U.S. officials expressed concern that the use of missiles by Ukraine across the border could prompt Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to launch a forceful retaliation against the United States and its allies, according to the New York Times. This assessment “warned of several possible Russian responses, including increased arson and sabotage against facilities in Europe and potentially lethal attacks on U.S. and European military bases.”

Ukraine fired Russian territory with U.S. ATACMS missiles on November 19, Reuters reported, “using the recently granted permission of the outgoing administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on the 1,000th day of the war”. According to an official Russian statement, its armed forces shot down five of six missiles fired at a military installation in the Bryansk region.

“Ukraine fires multiple U.S. long-range missiles at Russia for first time,” the U.S. Associated Press news agency reported on November 19. According to a US official, Ukraine fired about eight of the missiles, of which only two were intercepted by the Russians. The missiles hit a munitions supply site in Karachev, a city of about 18,000 in the Russian Bryansk region. Karachev is located about 115 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border.

This is a dangerous escalation and we don’t know what the consequences will be.

Russia revises nuclear doctrine

The day after Ukraine fired six newly-approved ATACMS missiles at a munitions depot in the southwestern region of Bryansk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would respond “commensurately”.

Hours earlier, Putin had signed a revised nuclear doctrine, the Guardian reported, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, while Russian lawmakers warned that US actions were bringing “World War III” closer.

Lavrov stressed that the Ukrainian attack in Bryansk constituted an escalation, the Associated Press reported on November 19, 2024. He called on the U.S. and other Western allies to examine the modernized nuclear doctrine.

“If the long-range missiles are deployed from Ukrainian territory against Russian territory, this means that they will be controlled by American military experts, and we will regard this as a qualitatively new phase in the Western war against Russia and will react accordingly,” Lavrov said on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Brazil, without going into detail.

The adoption of the document shows that Putin is ready to use his nuclear arsenal to force the West to back down, according to the US news agency.

“When asked whether a Ukrainian attack with US long-range missiles could potentially trigger a nuclear response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov answered in the affirmative on Tuesday, citing the provision of the doctrine that allows such a response after a conventional attack that threatens the ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’ of Russia and its ally Belarus.”

Putin first announced the changes to the nuclear doctrine in September. Prior to that, he had warned the United States and other NATO allies that allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons with greater range to strike Russian territory would mean war between Russia and NATO.

The updated doctrine also states that an attack against Russia by a non-nuclear power with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be considered “a joint attack on the Russian Federation.”

The document also notes that aggression against Russia by a member of a military bloc or alliance will be considered “an aggression of the entire bloc,” a clear reference to NATO.

Britain and France join in

Ukraine fired British-made Storm Shadow missiles at Russia for the first time since the conflict began, the Guardian reported on November 20. A day after Kiev used US-supplied long-range weapons to attack inside Russia, Ukraine fired UK-made missiles at Russia for the first time. The magazine again cites a “reaction to the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops on the Russian-Ukrainian border” as the reason.

Putin had warned that “the use of US- and British-made missiles within Russia’s borders would amount to direct conflict between NATO and Moscow.”

Following the US and UK, France also gave Ukraine permission at the end of November to use long-range weapons against targets on Russian territory.

The French designation for the identical Storm Shadow missiles is SCALP. France, like the UK, had begun delivering them to Ukraine since July 2023.

The US decision to authorize the use of longer-range weapons deep inside Russia could now put renewed pressure on Germany to reopen the debate on the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s position on this has been clear so far: “If we did that, we would be complicit in the war,” he said. Green party chancellor candidate Robert Habeck and CDU leader Friedrich Merz, on the other hand, express the opposite view. If Habeck were chancellor, he would supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Merz also generally speaks out in favor of the “Taurus option” The chair of the defense committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), even voted against the chancellor and for the CDU proposal regarding the Taurus deliveries in the Bundestag.

Donald Trump and the plan to end the war

During his election campaign, US President-elect Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. He has now nominated former General Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Kellogg already served as Trump’s security adviser during his first term in office. As early as June, Kellogg presented Trump with a plan to end the war.

Even then, Kellogg’s aim was to quickly bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table if Trump were elected. The plan is to “freeze the front lines in their current positions and force the governments in Kiev and Moscow to the negotiating table”.

“The value of any plan lies in the nuances and in taking into account the real situation on the ground,“ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters.

”President Putin has repeatedly said that Russia is and remains open to negotiations, taking into account the real situation on the ground.”

During his state visit to Kazakhstan on November 27, President Putin commented on the current situation, here translated by Thomas Röper on Antispiegel:

“Various options are possible. If the current President Biden believes that by escalating the situation and increasing the level of confrontation, he is creating conditions for the future administration, it is easy to get out of this situation because the newly elected president will say, ‘This is not me, this is the people who are completely crazy. I have nothing to do with this. Let’s talk.’ Of course that is an option.“

Harald Kujat, former inspector general of the Bundeswehr, presents a possibility for peace in an interview with military analyst and historian Markus Reisner:

”I think what his deputy, Vance, said is the most obvious. (…) We will, so to speak, freeze the front. We will set up a demilitarized zone to the left and right of this front. Ukraine will renounce the territories that Russia has now occupied; they will remain with Russia. (…) Ukraine will not join NATO. And, and I find this an interesting formulation, it will declare its neutrality towards Russia. (…) There is one critical point here: this demilitarized zone. Vance says: Under no circumstances will Americans take over the monitoring there; it must be done by Europeans” (1).

Experts assess the current escalation

In the talk show of the Austrian television channel Servus TV, moderator Michael Fleischhacker talks to Harald Kujat and Markus Reisner about the current situation. Despite their differing views, the conversation is characterized by respect, calmness and expertise, as one can only dream of on German television on this topic.

“We can now see that after more than a thousand days, the war is actually taking a turn that has to be seen in the context of the so-called Russian summer offensive,“ Markus Reisner reports on the current situation.

”They have actually managed to break through the Ukrainian positions at certain points and actually advance.”

The situation on the front, which is over 1,200 kilometers long, is becoming increasingly critical. It is a war of attrition, and with that comes “the dilemma that the side that has the better resources will win”. Russia has “more staying power in terms of material” due to its resources and its allies (2).

The moderator asks Kujat (3) whether he agrees with massive, actually unrestricted support for Ukraine because the security and values of the West are being defended there, and receives a clear answer:

“Western security is definitely not being defended there. I have my doubts as to whether Western values are being defended there. And that is not really the deciding factor either. You (to Reisner) have already mentioned a deciding factor. That is the question of Russia violating international law. That is now clear. Now we have seen this happen many times in history, other states have been attacked in violation of international law, and there has always been a settlement. Whether it was sustainable or not. We can still see today that there are states where this has not been resolved, I will mention Iraq now, or take Libya, or take Syria. Of course, there has to be a settlement. A war always arises from a specific political situation and it leads to a new political situation. And if this new situation is to endure, then it must be agreed politically, contractually if possible.”

Regarding the question of whether Ukraine’s 1991 borders should be restored, Kujat replies: “That has not been successful and will not be successful either.”

From his own experience, he reports that it had always been in Russia’s interest to establish a buffer zone between NATO and Russia to prevent a clash, which he was openly told in the mid-1990s (5).

In discussions, we are repeatedly told that a state should simply join NATO if the country and its people so decide. Quite apart from the issue of the massive information war that has been waged for decades and the attempted or implemented regime changes that play a central role here, a fundamental inherent characteristic of NATO is ignored, as Kujat explains:

“We have to refer precisely to Article 10 of the NATO Treaty. And there are two crucial aspects. The first aspect is that no country can say, ‘I want to become a NATO member now’ and then become a NATO member. Rather, each member must be invited by all member states in consensus. And to do that, that country must meet certain conditions. I conducted the first accession negotiations with Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. There is a wide range of qualifications that must be met. But the key one is that the country must provide added security value for the existing member states. NATO is a system of mutual collective security. (…) The first thing is that many NATO states do not see it that way. Secondly, they also believe that we are not only gaining a new member, but that with this membership we are basically importing a conflict into NATO” (6).

Germany’s role in the war in Ukraine

We learn more about Germany’s role and situation from Harald Kujat in the interview with Roger Köppel in Weltwoche on November 26.

Kujat emphasizes that the Taurus is not comparable to Storm Shadows or ATACMS, but is a completely different category, a different system, and more powerful in terms of its strategic effect:

“People have to realize this. (…) This decision means a fundamental change in war. If we make this decision, the world will look different the next day than it did before.”

Furthermore, the Ukrainians cannot deploy Taurus themselves:

“We have to take the planning, the preparation, the entire execution of this operation into our own hands. That means: we are taking the step from indirect war participation to direct war participation. Anyone who does not understand this does not deserve to hold any political office. And then whoever says: we’re doing this, whatever the consequences, even if we don’t achieve anything for Ukraine. He should actually be completely withdrawn from politics.”

It is not just a question of incompetence or ideology or ignorance.

“It is basically also a criminal irresponsibility towards the security of one’s own population in one’s own country. (…) We cannot allow this.“ (7)

The leeway of a German Chancellor is ‘as great as he himself wants this leeway to be,’ Kujat makes clear.

”I can take two examples of this. The most recent example is former Chancellor Schröder, who said he would not take part in the Iraq war. (…) We can fully exploit the scope of our sovereignty” (8).

Former US weapons inspector Scott Ritter (9) talks about the war in Ukraine and the situation in the US and Germany in an interview with Gegenpol on November 26. According to him, those institutions in the US that are “based on the idea that they are in a hostile relationship with Russia” are currently “very aggressively pushing to make the situation in Ukraine very complicated, to make relations between the US and Russia complicated.” They are trying to thwart Trump’s plans (10).

With regard to the Oreshnik medium-range missile from Russia, Scott Ritter addresses the Germans and issues a stark warning. Germany must understand that if the time comes that Russia decides to attack NATO targets, Germany will bear the brunt of Russia’s wrath.

“Ramstein, the various air bases that America flies to with equipment, Rheinmetall factories where the Taurus missile is built, where the Leopard tank is built, where the Marder is built, where your weapons are built that are sent to Ukraine to kill Russians. All of this will be destroyed, and you can’t do anything about it, nothing. (…) This is Germany literally committing suicide on the altar of NATO, in the name of Ukraine” (11).

Is Scott Ritter exaggerating? Who are the institutions currently trying to thwart Trump’s plans? Who could have such interests and why? It is obvious that our highly paid and corporate media continue to promote war and insult Trump. We are supposed to fear Trump, not the Taurus. This becomes clearly apparent again and again in ever new talk shows with the same old plot, and it had been shown similarly during Trump’s first term in office. Of course, there are profiteers of war, and there are always only a few of them, for example in the arms industry. And of course there are imperial interests in the USA. Anyone who is bothered by Scott Ritter’s statement will find plenty of evidence in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”. For Brzezinski, who was a long-standing and influential security adviser in the USA, imperial logic was indispensable. He describes it as follows:

“If one uses terminology reminiscent of the more brutal age of the old empires, the three great imperatives of imperial geostrategy are: to prevent collusion between vassals and to maintain their dependence in matters of security, to keep tributary states docile and protected, and to ensure that ‘barbarian peoples’ do not unite” (12).

In Germany, elections are scheduled for the end of February 2025.

It seems to me to be of central importance to get a clear picture of which parties want to draw us deeper into this war and which stand for a swift and diplomatic end to it.

Our task is not to be influenced by the ongoing war propaganda and to think, act and vote according to our own conscience. In this sense, I hope that the current escalation serves as a salutary shock, that we as a society reflect on our actual values and take the new elections as an opportunity to take a more peaceful course.

Sources and notes:

(1) Minute 01:00:40 in the talk show on Servus TV

(2) Minute 20:40 in talk at Servus TV

(3) As Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, Harald Kujat was the highest-ranking officer in Germany. He was Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and thus also of the NATO-Russia Council from 2002 to 2005.

(4) Minute 24:45 in talk at Servus TV

(5) Minute 43:40 in the talk show on Servus TV

(6) Minute 33:19 in the talk show on Servus TV

(7) Minute 36:05 in the Weltwoche interview

(8) Minute 28:10 in the Weltwoche interview

(9) Scott Ritter is a former US weapons inspector who worked for the United Nations in connection with the Iraq war.

(10) Minute 08:52 in the interview with Gegenpol

(11) Minute 05:48 in the interview with Gegenpol

(12) Brzezinski, Zbigniew: The Grand Chessboard. American Primacy and the Contest for Eurasia, 2024, page 62

Angela Mahr studied cultural anthropology, North American studies and literature in Berlin. As an author, she focuses on the interplay between propaganda and society, intercultural communication, the deep state and power politics. As a filmmaker, she has traveled to China, Tibet and India and publishes her work through alternative channels. For more information, visit angela-mahr.de.