By Michael F. Duggan
In response to the rolling up of the Russian right flank by Ukrainian forces, Vladimir Putin is calling up 300,000 reservists—a partial mobilization—to fight in Ukraine. More than an escalation, it may be a proportional analog to the Chinese entry into the Korean War in November 1950. In the words of Douglas MacArthur, we may be “facing an entirely new war” in the coming months. Russia is also in the process of conducting a five-day referendum on the assimilation of Ukraine’s eastern most provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson.
From the start, the term “special military operation” has sounded like the typical kind propagandistic newspeak used by militaries worldwide to spin nasty realities (e.g. the “police action” in Korea, “peacemaker” missiles, and mercenaries called “private contractors”). But relative to what could be coming, it might be an apt name for the mission of Russia’s anemic forces in Ukraine to date (Russia probably has around 200,000 military personnel in Ukraine facing a force that can draw from a pool of millions). The mobilization currently underway suggests that, in the language of Texas Hold ‘Em poker, Russia is now “all in,” in case there were any remaining doubts. For historical context, the previous two times Russia mobilized were in 1914 and 1941. This should be keeping all of the rational people in the world up at night.
If this escalation was not significant enough, Russian recognition of the eastern Ukrainian regions as its own territory will mean that any attack there will be regarded as an attack on Russia itself. Worse yet, if the West should escalate and actually launch rockets or missiles from a third country on Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, it might be seen as an attack by NATO on Russia itself. This could mean the beginning of the “hot” war that the United States and Soviet Union successfully avoided fighting during the first Cold War.