World War III Will Have to Wait

By Noah Rothman

Monday, June 10, 2024

 

Purveyors of or participants in what passes for discourse on social media are routinely confronted with the imminence of the apocalypse.

 

The airstrike that eliminated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general Qasem Soleimani was said to be prelude to the end of days. Indeed, social-media users seemed to enjoy reveling in their own fatalism. Is Israel’s war in Gaza “the starting point of World War III, or the apex of U.S. empire, signaling irreversible decline?” asked Global Uplift Project founder Robert Freeman. “The difference could not be more important.” Freeman has a point there, although it’s reasonable to doubt his own comprehension of it.

 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s response to it have met the needs of those who find some measure of personal satisfaction in predicting the coming end of civilization — a bizarre proclivity fueled, in part, by Joe Biden’s muddled thinking and irresponsible rhetoric. The latest opportunity to languish in doom and gloom occurred late last month when Biden reluctantly acceded to his allies’ demands and allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-made ordnance to strike targets inside Russia, where Russian forces are staging their assaults on Ukraine.

 

“Joe Biden’s move unleashes another military escalation that increases the chance of a nuclear conflict,” said the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s general secretary, Kate Hudson. “He’s put us on a slippery slope to catastrophe.” The highly excitable venture capitalist David Sacks agreed. “Never once during the Cold War would we have dreamed of striking Russia on its own soil, even through a proxy,” he remarked. “I’ll take a ‘convicted felon’ over World War 3 any day.” The Center for Renewing Democracy, run by Russ Vought, who served in the Trump administration as director of the Office of Management and Budget, took the news that Biden had greenlit Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets in stride. “Globalist elites are pushing the U.S. toward World War 3!” it yelped.

 

Moscow rarely misses an opportunity to broadcast its willingness to risk Armageddon whenever it encounters a battlefield setback, so it’s no surprise to hear the Kremlin’s rhetoric echoed by those who are most receptive to its bluster. It is, however, curious that Vladimir Putin’s Western stenographers seem to hear only what they’re listening for.

 

“Putin indirectly indicated that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with Western-provided weapons do not cross a supposed Russian ‘red line’ that would result in Russian nuclear escalation,” the Institute for the Study of War recently observed. “Putin stated that Russia’s nuclear doctrine calls for Russia to only use nuclear weapons in the event of ‘exceptional cases’ of threats to Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Putin stated that he does not think such an ‘exceptional’ case has arisen, so ‘there is no such need’ for Russia to use nuclear weapons.”

 

This is only the latest of Putin’s “red lines” to be crossed without producing any significant changes in Russian behavior. That is not to say that the threshold for escalation does not exist — merely that the provision of U.S. weaponry to an anti-Russian proxy fighting against Moscow’s forces from a defensive posture doesn’t meet it. Indeed, that describes the status quo in relations between Russia and the West for much of the last 75 years, save a brief interlude between the end of the Cold War and the Syrian civil war.

 

NATO powers should be leery of being in a position in which its forces could be fired on directly by Russian soldiers using Russian weapons. Likewise, regular NATO forces should avoid engaging Russian forces directly using Western weaponry. But those who reflexively default to the belief that a world-ending cataclysm is right around the corner display little knowledge of how nuclear deterrence works or the circumstances that would lead nuclear powers to risk its breakdown deliberately. Nor do they seem inclined to educate themselves. Rather, they seem to take a perverse delight in advertising the impendence of nuclear war — conveying little beyond their own ignorance in the process. I suppose everyone needs a hobby.