By Michael F. Duggan
Did anybody not anticipate something like this happening in a large, open-ended war?
Yesterday a weapon initially identified as a Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile, hit the town of Przewodow, about four miles inside of Poland, killing two people. Given that a deliberate attack on a NATO member could trigger the collective defense provisions of Article Five of the NATO Charter—and therefore World War III may be in the offing—this is obviously a serious matter.
In the fog of war, unintended situations long characterized by American servicemen with the colorful acronyms FUBAR and SNAFU (look them up) are ubiquitous in military operations, and geopolitical situations contingent on them not occurring are inherently precarious.
On October 27, 1962, the darkest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down by a Soviet S-75 (NATO designation SA-2) surface-to-air missile over Banes, Cuba, killing its pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson. Around the same time, a U-2 on a polar air-sampling flight, veered dangerously off course and strayed into Soviet airspace over its easternmost territory, Chukotka. MiGs were scrambled, but the spy plane returned safely. Although the downing of the U-2 over Cuba was intentional, cooler heads prevailed and the larger crisis was resolved two days later.1
Screw ups and friendly fire incidents are common in war, more common than most of us realize. In Sicily on July 11, 1943, U.S. antiaircraft batteries accidentally shot down 23 American transport planes carrying paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division, killing 141 U.S. servicemen. A little more than a year later, American bombers attempting to soften up the German lines in Normandy during the initial phase of General Omar Bradley’s much-vaunted Operation Cobra, accidentally bombed U.S. positions, killing 25 U.S. soldiers, and wounding 130 more. As horrifying as these incidents are—events made worse by their self-inflicted nature—they are an intrinsic part of armed conflict and reflective of our fallible nature. C est la guerre.
When the dust settles—and it should settle quickly—the current SNAFU will be seen for what it likely is, an accident. Consider the two scenarios: 1). Russia may have had some reverses in recent months and thus, with its hands already full, does not want the additional burden of fighting NATO forces. 2). Russia is winning the war, and thus does not want to ruin its chances by giving NATO an excuse to enter into the fight. Although it would make more sense for Ukraine to want to bring NATO into the war, if the missile was indeed launched from Ukraine, it will be difficult to tell whether it was an accident or a false flag incident.
Hopefully neither side will attempt to make escalatory hay out of another of the war’s uncounted tragic events.
Note
- See generally, Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).