November 22: Ukraine’s 1,000 days of war

In which, Ukraine marks a grim milestone, Russia and the US trade vetoes in the UN Security Council, and the ResistanceTM makes its opening moves.

Ukraine’s 1,000 days of war

This last week marked 1,000 days from the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The week was marked by one word: escalation.

The appearance of North Korean troops in the Kursk salient coupled with Russian advances on the ground in eastern Ukraine prompted the Biden administration and the UK to greenlight the use of long range missiles for strikes inside Russia. Additionally, the Biden administration OK’d the use of anti-personnel mines to slow the Russian advance. Both moves were denounced by Putin as escalatory and matched by the Russians through upgrading their nuclear doctrine to make it easier to deploy nukes to the battlespace, then Russia followed that up this week by launching an ICBM tipped with a conventional warhead into Ukraine.

The upgraded nuclear doctrine has been a tool utilized before by Russia as a deterrent response to perceived American escalation, but letting an ICBM off the chain put some seriousness behind Putin’s nuclear saber rattling that has not yet been seen.

Conservative alarmists in the US are decrying Biden’s moves as escalatory, but there’s an argument to be made that the Biden administration is actually creating some helpful negotiation space for the incoming Trump administration, not to mention helping Ukraine stabilize its front. That being said, the war has escalated and danger remains of additional actors being pulled more directly into the fight. In diplomacy, there is a place for escalation to shape peace negotiations, but that doesn’t make it any less a dangerous, delicate matter.

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Read my latest article for Providence Magazine: Was St. Paul a Christian Realist?