The Morality and Hypocrisy of Proxy War in a Nuclear Age

Since the Moscow Crocus Concert Hall attack of March 22nd, Ukraine has renewed its heavy missile and drone attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod, principally using Czech 122mm Vampire MRLS systems which are not guided but blunt-edged weapons for saturation bombing highly dangerous in populated areas.

Pro-Russian analysts complain that Ukraine is at fault for extending the war into Russian territory, since this has nothing to do with the territory that was originally in dispute namely, Donbass and Crimea.

Certainly, the attacks on Belgorod are a significant escalation of the conflict, as were the invasion attempts by the GUR-funded and trained RDK attacks in Briansk, Kurch and Belgorod oblasts. But one might equally as well complain that Russia, in launching its missile attacks in 2022-2023, significantly extended the war well beyond the territories in dispute, as indeed did the opening stages of the Russian SMO. If one is looking at exceptionality of war crimes then the better place to look might be at the absence of military justification for Ukraine’s attacks both on Donetsk City and, now, on Belgorod, and the resulting civilian casualties. However, to sustain that argument one has to believe Russian assurances about their intentions to target locations only of military significance and/or take the view that the deaths of civilians impacted by these Russian operations, however unintentional, did not constitute reckless endangerment to citizens. Further, while it may always be argued that attacks on energy and transport systems are attacks on infrastructure that is critical to an opponent’s military strength, the impacts on civilians are so egregious that the argument of military significance lacks credibility.

The further extension of this war against civilian targets is in itself, of course, another indication of the overall vacuity Ukraine has demonstrated of an ethical framework for its justification and conduct of the war. This is manifest in numerous ways: an ideological alignment of the Kiev regime - itself the product of a violent coup d’etat promoted by the collective West in 2014 - with neonazi, Banderite values and beliefs; egregious disinformation campaigns (e.g. Bucha) that wrongly smear Russia in ways that inhibit movements towards peace; lack of good faith (as in the withdrawing from the Istanbul negotiations of March 2022, simply because the collective West promised, falsely as it turned out, to provide the necessary weapons for a prolongation of the war until victory).

We should also talk about deceptive character of the Zelenskiy government (e.g. coming to power on a “peace” ticket; its willingness, even eagerness, to engage in an existentially damaging war merely for the dubious advantage of becoming a member of NATO - a status which even now NATO withholds; the promotion of inexperienced Zelenskiy goons from the entertainment world into ministerial positions; a primitive neoliberal ideology underlying the regime’s behavior and in the service of Western corporate interest; and its manifestly wasteful attitude towards human life, with respect to its own soldiers, many times clinging on to indefensible positions long after they should have been abandoned, as well as towards the safety and welfare of the millions of Ukrainians who exited the country while they still could, and to those who remained, there men being press-ganged into military service in a context of demographic catastrophe.

My own view of the SMO is not simply that it was clearly provoked by the collective West, a provocation that unfolded across many decades even in the face of clear and stark warnings of what might happen if NATO was allowed to extend right up to Russian borders - warnings given by both Russian (e.g. Yeltsin, Putin) and Western leaders (e.g. Burns), but that it was absolutely necessary.

I will note, first, that in addition to the phenomenon of Western provocation, there was extensive Western preparation for this war in the provision to Ukraine of the assistance and funds that it needed in order to build sophisticated fortifications in the Donbass itself in the period 2015-2022. Secondly, it is clear that there are times when the aggressive intent of an opponent becomes so richly clear, so dangerous (e.g. nuclear capable missile systems close to the Russian border) and so thoughly unstoppable (e.g. continual refusal to acknowledge Russiuan security interests) that one must presume that the aggression will take concrete form - possibly building on the amassing of very large armies on Russian borders on the pretext of engaging in joint militar “exercises.”

When that judgement is reached, it is likely incumbent on the target of such aggression to make the best of a very dangerous situation by seizing the initiative and determining the start and the mode of conflict. That is what Putin did in choosing the moment at which to initiate his SMO (it coincided with a massive build-up of Ukrainian forces on the borders of the People’s Republics) which, one should carefully note, was a highly contained if, at first, very puzzling operation, confined to specifically articulated objectives that barely went beyond the existing reality, as it then was, of a Russian Crimean and two People’s Republics in the Donbass.

After two years of war, the loss of over a million lives and damage to many more, and in a context of overall defeat of Ukraine - apparent since the collapse of the Ukrainian offensive of the summer and fall of 2023, and measurable in so many different ways - the illegitimate coup regime of Kiev and the collective West permit and encourage the war to continue at the continuing price of massive loss of human life. This, at a time when the Ukrainian RADA cannot bring itself, for fear of public uprising, to pass a new mobilization law.

Western partners continue to provide finance, even if the USA itself, for the time being, has blocked further aid. The collective West has an established military presence in Ukraine of specialists, technicians and others for the purposes of espionage, surveillance and the operation and targeting of Western-donated weaponry. France, along with the Czech Republic, Poland (although Polish behavior is deeply ambivalent), Romania and the Baltic States are talking about and perhaps even now are deploying troops in Ukraine. Practically all of Ukraine’s weaponry is now provided by the collective West. It is very likely that the flow of weaponry continues in subterranean fashion, unaccountable, even when it appears to be contained and measured at parliamentary levels. Although Germany persists in voting down the supply of Taurus missiles, several European countries are committed to the supply of small numbers of F16s although the first batch (of 6) will not arrive till June and most wont arrive till early 2025. Only 12,Ukrainian pilots have been trained to fly them, so far. As I predicted a year ago, President Putin has warned that particularly in light of the fact that F16s are possibly nuclear armed, Russia will not hesitate to destroy them at their intended points of departure in places like Poland or Romania.

In so many different ways, there is a danger of escalation of the conflict to nuclear status. John Mearsheimer, in interview yesterday with Napolitano, seems to think this is only a small risk. But because the danger of nuclear war may only be “small,” its consequences are unimaginably awful, and the “smallness” of risk (and of course there is plenty of scope for disagreement with Mearsheimer’s assessment) is hardly a good reason for engaging in behavior that breathes continuing life into that small risk.

We come to a fundamental ethical question. If in a conflict one party is clearly the aggreived party (Russia) and the other is the foundational aggressor, is there a point at which the aggreived party (Russia), whether losing or winning, has an ethical responsibility to stop the conflict?

Contemplation of the answer to this question might indeed relate to the matter of nuclear risk. I am inclined to think that the answer, theoretically, is “Yes,” that Russia does have that ethical obligation - in deference to the existential future of the human species.

However, there are a number of severe caveats that complicate this exercise of ethical consideration. First of all, the danger of nuclear escalation comes from both sides: either Russia, if it considers that it can no longer protect its sovereignty by conventional means, might have recourse to a nuclear option; or the West, existentially embarrassed by its foolishness over embarking upon a literally unjustifiable, proxy war with Russia might decide, even as a false flag incident, the same.

If one side demonstrates lack of resolve, there is no guarantee that the other will soften. For Russia it is indeed an existential matter whereas for the collective West it is a glorious war-game at the expense of 500,000+ Ukrainian lives fought in the silly thought that a Western “win” would involve the dismemberment of the Russian Federation and privileged access of Western corporations to the wealth of the RF’s constituent nations.

That is purely fantastical and irresponsible, and of course utterly immoral, foolery.

If Russia demonstrated lack of resolve, therefore, there is every strong likelihood that the collective West would leap into the breach and pick up on that very same foolery with ever greater energy. Furthermore, there is no sign whatsoever that Ukraine, as represented by the new dictator, Zelenskiy, is ready to negotiate anything at this juncture, even on the brink of hell.

There is no sign that the collective West can bring itself to meaningfully contemplate a settlement since the entire being of its political, billionaire class is currently determined by the desperate plight of the US Democratic Party to keep propping up a senile President, one who has established a very dubious political and business relationship with Ukraine, that may yet be exposed by impeachment proceeding, and to hold back the steam-roller of a second Trump campaign.

Finally, as I have argued many times before, Russia has absolutely no reason to think, nor should Russia at this time think, that the collective West, in whatever guise that entity might take, is either motivated or capable of any kind of negotiation that is conducted in good faith and can be trustworthy. This is the lesson of the failure of the Minsk Accords of 2014-2015, the failure of the Istanbul talks of March 2022, the entire history of NATO-Russian relations since 1990, throwing into consideration for good measure, the miserable lies of the Nord Stream sabotage, and over two hundred years of hysterical Western anti-Russian propaganda and self-grooming.