The second variant of the conflict between Russia and NATO is nuclear-free. According to the author, the chances that the countries participating in it will be able to refrain from using nuclear weapons are vanishingly small, the likelihood of the start of a global nuclear missile war is much higher, but still there is some scanty probability of a non-nuclear conflict. Here the role of aircraft carriers will very much depend on how and under what circumstances such a conflict will begin. And if so, then let's put off the aircraft carriers until the next article, but for now let's figure out what can lead to a full-scale non-nuclear conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation and what goals such a war can pursue.
Is it possible that the Russian Federation will become an aggressor? Historically, Russia has never sought to conquer Europe, the Russian people simply do not need this. Nothing like the invasions of Napoleon and Hitler The Russian state has never suited Europe, and why? No Russian tsar, general secretary, or president ever considered the conquest of Europe to be beneficial to Russia.
However, the absence of a desire to conquer Europe does not at all mean that Russia does not have its own interests in Europe. These interests have historically been:
1) Provide Russia with free trade with Europe, which needed stable access to the coasts of the Baltic and Black Seas, and the Straits on the Black Sea
2) "To enlighten" overly zealous neighbors who regard the property and population of Russia as their legitimate prey (but at least the Crimean Tatars in a certain period of our history, Turks, Poles)
3) Support Slavic societies outside Russia (Slavic brothers)
In addition, Russia sometimes entered military European conflicts, fulfilling allied obligations to any or several European countries.
Thus, we can state: Russia has never been (and will not become) a country that would like to conquer Europe. But at the same time, Russia is historically not very inclined to tolerate peoples bordering on it and openly hostile to it. Those were conquered by Russia (Poland, Crimea), after which Russia tried to assimilate them, without suppressing, at the same time, national identity. Also, Russia can enter into a conflict for its local interests if it sees that someone is threatening these interests with open force.
In recent years, we have already seen several times how the Russian armed forces are involved in operations outside their homeland, but the term "aggression" is of little use here. In the event of an operation to enforce peace in Georgia, or a war on 08/08/08, the Russian Federation had unconditional formal grounds for intervening in the conflict: Saakashvili's armed forces dealt a blow, including at the Russian peacekeepers, and Russian servicemen were killed. On no account can the actions of our Aerospace Forces in Syria be called aggression - they are there at the invitation of the officially acting and completely legitimate government.
But with Crimea it is already much more difficult, because, according to international law, the armed forces of the Russian Federation nevertheless invaded the territory of a neighboring, completely independent (and in some ways even non-tough) state. But here's the thing - in addition to the letter of the law, its spirit exists, and in this case the following happened:
1) In Ukraine, a coup d'état inspired by the outside has taken place
2) The overwhelming majority of the Crimean population did not welcome this coup and wanted to return to Russia
3) The new Ukrainian government under no circumstances would give the Crimeans the right to self-determination
In other words, the leadership of the country that is alien to the Crimeans, which they did not choose, limits them in absolutely legal rights from the point of view of international legislation. And now the armed forces of the Russian Federation absolutely illegally invade the territory of a foreign state and … ensure the absolutely legal rights of citizens living there. And then Crimea, after holding an absolutely legal referendum, is absolutely legally part of the Russian Federation. This, by the way, is a legal incident that turned out to be beyond the mind of Ksenia Sobchak - the entry of Crimea into the Russian Federation is completely legal from the point of view of international law. Only the entry of troops was illegal, but from the point of view of the same legislation, this entry and the referendum in Crimea are completely unrelated events.
An exemplary analysis of this situation can be found in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The author, Professor Reinhard Merkel from the University of Hamburg, teacher of philosophy of law, gave completely comprehensive explanations on all the nuances of Crimea's joining the Russian Federation from the point of view of international law:
“Has Russia annexed Crimea? No. Did the referendum in Crimea and the subsequent separation from Ukraine violate the norms of international law? No. So were they legal? No: they violated the Ukrainian constitution - but this is not a matter of international law. Shouldn't Russia have rejected the accession because of such a violation? No: the Ukrainian constitution does not apply to Russia. That is, Russia's actions did not violate international law? No, they did: the fact of the presence of the Russian military outside the territory they rented was illegal. Doesn't this mean that the separation of Crimea from Ukraine, which became possible only thanks to the presence of the Russian military, is invalid, and its subsequent annexation to Russia is nothing more than a hidden annexation? No, it doesn't mean."
Of course, the reunification of Crimea with the Russian Federation is completely legal. Nevertheless, this accession has shown with all certainty that the Russian Federation can and will defend its interests by armed force, even if this, to some extent, contradicts international law.
In no case should you be ashamed of this. The modern world did not care about international law - if the laws could cry, then the African deserts would become lakes of tears when the European coalition killed the statehood of Libya and the family of Muammar Gaddafi. One can only be proud that while violations of international law by other countries lead to wars, mass deaths, banditry and internal chaos, violation of the same legislation by the Russian Federation entails an almost bloodless restoration of legality and historical justice, the fulfillment of the aspirations of two million people …
However, such actions of Russia, at least theoretically, can cause an armed conflict in which the Russian Federation can be considered an aggressor on a formal basis.
Let us recall the unfortunate episode in Syria, when a Turkish fighter jet shot down our Su-24. The Turks claim that our "drying" for as much as 6 seconds entered Turkish airspace, that they tried to contact the plane, that the Su-24 was attacked when it was in the sky of Turkey. The Turks do not deny that the plane was shot down in the skies of Syria. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation says that the Su-24 did not enter Turkish airspace and no calls from our pilots were recorded for communication. In general, whether the rights of the Turks were formally violated or not is a moot point. But it is quite clear that if such a violation did take place, it was just formal, since it did not contain any threats to Turkey - the entry into its airspace was short-term, the Russian aircraft did not pose any threat to the Turks, and did not perform reconnaissance functions.
At that time, the Russian leadership did not consider the death of the Su-24 as a reason for the retaliatory use of force - they limited themselves to the embargo, and it was canceled quite quickly. It is interesting that many compatriots (including the author of this article) considered such a response incongruously small and unworthy of the Russian Federation. But at the same time, it should be admitted: if the Russian Federation undertook a forceful retaliation, this could become the beginning of a full-scale conflict between the Russian Federation and Turkey, which, as you know, is a NATO member.
For better or for worse, things did not come to a retaliatory strike against Turkey - the Russian leadership did not dare to take such actions, but this does not mean that another Russian president will do the same in the future. In other words, in the future, in a similar situation, Russia may agree to escalate the conflict, and this, in turn, may entail a large-scale military confrontation (although, of course, it may not).
These are, in fact, all the reasons why the Russian Federation could become the "instigator" of the conflict with NATO, as the author sees them. As for Europe, everything is simpler here. Our country experienced two terrible pan-European invasions in 1812 and 1941-45: Napoleon and Hitler.
It is interesting that there is quite a lot in common between Hitler and Napoleon - no, they were completely different people, and were guided by different motives, but their actions turned out to be utterly similar. Each of them made their country the strongest European power, and then conquered Europe. But, being the strongest in Europe, they automatically became opponents of England, whose entire European policy for centuries was to prevent any power from strengthening to the point of being able to consolidate Europe, because in this case England came to a quick end.
So both Hitler and Napoleon were enemies of the British, both of them had the most powerful armies that could easily crush the British troops, but both did not have a fleet capable of delivering these armies to England. As a result, both of them were forced to switch to indirect methods of warfare. Napoleon invented the Continental Blockade in order to impede European trade with the British and to strangle the British economically. Russia did not want and could not at that time stop trading with England, she could not support the continental blockade of Napoleon, and this led to the Patriotic War of 1812. Hitler suggested that the destruction of the last remaining mighty power on the continent, which was the USSR, would help him achieve peace with Great Britain, since she, in the person of the USSR, would lose the last possible ally in Europe.
Therefore, we can assume that both invasions were undertaken as actions due to the confrontation with Great Britain, but you need to understand: even if no England existed, Hitler and Napoleon would still invade Russia, although this would probably have happened later. The only realistic way, if not to avoid, then at least to delay the invasion, was to vassalize Russia, i.e. recognition of ourselves as a state of the second class and rejection of an independent role in politics.
Possessing almost absolute power in Europe, both Napoleon and Hitler would sooner or later turn their gaze to the east, not tolerating a powerful and independent policy of power next to them. Napoleon could well have done without the invasion of 1812 if Alexander had accepted his terms with slavish obedience and made every effort to fulfill them. True, in this case, with a great degree of probability, Alexander himself would have had a "apoplectic blow to the head with a snuffbox" which befell his father, Paul I. In the future, a new tsar would come to power, ready to ignore the "continental blockade" of Napoleon, and the war would still take place. But even if he had not come, the whole logic of Napoleon's reign led to the fact that he did not need any neighbors that were militarily strong at all.
As for Hitler, he finally decided to invade the USSR when negotiations with Stalin showed him that the USSR absolutely did not accept the role of a junior partner, “without speeches” content with what the hegemon would allow him. It can be assumed that if Stalin had accepted such a humiliating role for the USSR, then perhaps the invasion of the USSR would have taken place not in 1941, but a little later.
Thus, we come to the conclusion that a necessary prerequisite for a global invasion of Europe in the Russian Federation is a certain militarily strongest power capable of consolidating Europe and placing it under centralized leadership. With some reservations, we have such a force - this is the United States and NATO.
Of course, Napoleonic or Hitler's Europe has fundamental differences from NATO, if only in the fact that NATO is, in essence, a conglomerate of countries that cannot agree among themselves. This is by no means a united Europe, because each of its members is trying to pursue its own interests and is trying to shift the purely military aspect to the hegemon, that is, the United States.
But with all this, today's NATO has at least two features that are frighteningly similar to Napoleonic and Hitler's Europe:
1) NATO reacts extremely painfully to any political independence of Russia. That is, NATO would absolutely suit the Russian Federation, which is trailing in the tail of European politics and does not have a voice of its own in anything, but any our attempt to show independence (not to mention the protection of our own interests) is perceived in the most negative way.
2) NATO views war as a normal, natural means of solving its political problems (see the same Libya)
Thus, we are forced to admit that it is not only a threat, but the preconditions for a large-scale NATO invasion of the Russian Federation do exist. But why does the author consider such a possibility to be vanishingly small? For one simple reason: a country can become an aggressor only if, as a result of the war, it can achieve a peace that will be better than the pre-war.
Napoleon was dissatisfied with the fact that Russia continues to trade with England and it is possible that English goods (already under Russian brands) penetrate Europe. If he forced Russia to join the blockade, he would be able to prevail over his main enemy - England, and thus would consolidate his final hegemony on the continent. In the event of a victory over the USSR, Hitler also got the opportunity to settle his affairs with England and eliminate any continental threat to Germany, and in addition received his "Lebensraum". Thus, both of them hoped to achieve a better position for their empires by means of a war with Russia than before the war.
In a non-nuclear conflict, NATO can count on success. The military potential of NATO today significantly exceeds that of the Russian Federation. Therefore, if the United States and NATO, having properly prepared and concentrating their forces, undertake a "non-nuclear" invasion, it will hardly be possible to stop it with conventional weapons. But today Russia is a nuclear superpower. And although, as we wrote in the previous article, its nuclear arsenal is completely insufficient to wipe out Europe and the United States, or at least the United States alone, the Russian Federation is quite capable of causing unacceptable damage to both.
The unacceptable damage is not "the whole world to dust" and not "we will kill all Americans eight times." This is the kind of damage that completely excludes the achievement of a peace better than the pre-war one for the aggressor.
If the US and NATO armies invade the Russian Federation, then the Russian Federation may well use nuclear weapons first. NATO will reply that they still have left and Armageddon will still take place: it is likely that in this case the United States and NATO will prevail. But at the same time they themselves will suffer such heavy losses that it will take tens (and maybe hundreds) of years of hard work in order not to return something, but at least to approach the pre-war level. In other words, if a large-scale invasion of the Russian Federation will automatically entail Armageddon, and it, in turn, will not bring anything but "blood, sweat and pain" to the US and NATO, why start all this?
As a matter of fact, this is why a global nuclear missile Armageddon, according to the author, is more likely than a large-scale non-nuclear conflict. The fact is that the exchange of nuclear strikes is extremely short-lived and leaves almost no time for joint consultations and decision-making. There have already been cases where early warning systems have erroneously reported the beginning of a nuclear missile attack, fortunately, so far it has been possible to sort it out before a full-scale response follows. But no system can guarantee 100% failure free. And therefore, there is always a nonzero probability that one of the parties, being absolutely (albeit mistakenly) sure that it has undergone an unprovoked nuclear attack, and having time to make a decision, at best, within 15-20 minutes, will give no less a full-blown nuclear response. The other side, without any error and will answer on the same scale and … here you are, grandmother, and St. George's Day.
Therefore, the first (and, perhaps, the only real) reason for nuclear Armageddon is a mistake.
But perhaps, if there is (and it does exist!) The probability of the death of hundreds of millions as a result of a banal mistake - maybe it makes sense to abandon nuclear weapons altogether? In no case. Because due to the current political situation (independent Russia and consolidated Europe) and in the absence of a "great peacemaker", which is the nuclear arsenal, the third world war is, in fact, inevitable. It is worth remembering that the instigators of both the First and Second World Wars did not anticipate the apocalyptic slaughter that followed their outbreak. No one expected that the First World War would drag on for years, and the creator of the Second World War, Hitler, hoped for a blitzkrieg. But the result is years of battles, tens of millions of victims.
So it will be in the third (even if nuclear-free) world, if we allow it. At the same time, the power and capabilities of modern non-nuclear weapons are such that everything that the armies of the First and Second World Wars fought with are just children's toys against its background. Accordingly, there is no point in giving up nuclear weapons because of the extremely unlikely Apocalypse, almost guaranteed to pay for it with tens of millions of lives lost in another world war.
The United States and NATO can take the risk and nevertheless carry out an invasion of the Russian Federation only on one condition - if their leadership is absolutely sure that Russia will not use its nuclear arsenal. How can such confidence arise? She has nowhere to come from.
Disarming Strike? Not funny, the flight time of cruise missiles to missile silos in Siberia is more than enough to make a decision on nuclear retaliation. The use of hypersonic non-nuclear weapons? Completely, if suddenly the detection systems detect a large-scale missile launch in the direction of our country, no one will understand whether they have nuclear warheads or not, and nuclear weapons will be immediately used. Missile defense? Today, all that the creators of such systems can count on is repelling a strike by several ballistic missiles, and even then … not with a hundred percent probability. In other words, today there are no technical means capable of protecting or preventing any large-scale nuclear strike. And it won't exist for the foreseeable future.
What other weapons do our enemies have? Dollar? This is definitely serious. Many commentators on VO argue that our ruling elite would prefer to surrender their own country, saving their lives and savings in offshore companies. But here's the thing … even if that were the case, none of this would have happened. Oddly enough, the reason for this is the extremely short-sighted policy of the United States and NATO.
One can blame the leadership of the Russian Federation for anything (whether it is justified or not - another question), but no one has ever denied him the instinct of self-preservation. And what should this instinct suggest? How did the leaders of states that were invaded by the armies of the West end their lives? They spent the rest of their days enjoying life in villas by the sea, spending billions earned by "honest labor"? Not at all.
What happened to Slobodan Milosevic? He died of myocardial infarction in a prison cell. What happened to Saddam Hussein? Hanged. What happened to Muammar Gaddafi? Killed by an angry mob after hours of violence. Who from the leadership of the Russian Federation would like to follow their example? The question is rhetorical …
Here one can argue that, in the end, it was not NATO soldiers who killed the same Gaddafi, but their own compatriots, and this is certainly true. But does anyone really think that the crowd of our oppositionists, give it power, will show more mercy?
Whoever takes the post of President of the Russian Federation in the future, no matter what personal qualities this person possesses, he will be firmly convinced that the loss of Russia in the war means his personal physical, and, perhaps, very painful death, and even, very likely, death of relatives and friends. Needless to say, much can be expected from a person placed in such conditions, but never surrender.
Accordingly, a massive US and NATO invasion of the Russian Federation with the use of non-nuclear weapons is extremely unlikely. But if all of the above is true, is it possible at all that a situation is possible in which the powers - the owners of the most powerful nuclear potentials of the planet - will come into conflict without using nuclear weapons?
Theoretically, this option is possible. But only in the unlikely event that the Russian Federation and NATO clash in some kind of local conflict that cannot be resolved at the diplomatic level, despite the fact that the goals of such a conflict do not justify the use of nuclear weapons for either side.
The fact is that neither the Russian Federation, nor the United States and NATO are at all eager to release the nuclear shaitan at will. Even after suffering defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the Americans did not use atomic bombs. Great Britain, after the capture of the Falkland Islands by Argentina, could well have sent "Resolution" or "Revenge" to the Atlantic, shandrack the Polaris with a nuclear warhead across Argentina (away from the United States, so as not to have problems with the hegemon) and repulse the following telegram to the President: "If the Argentine warriors do not leave the Falkland Islands within a week, then Buenos Aires and a couple of other cities at the discretion of the Queen will be wiped off the face of the earth." Instead, the Crown embarked on a highly risky and costly military expedition to recapture the Falklands with conventional weapons. Despite the fact that, in all honesty, the Royal Navy did not formally have superiority in the conflict zone, and was not technically ready for such feats (the absence of minesweepers, sane carrier-based aircraft, etc.).
Therefore, the most probable (for all its improbability) variant of the conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation is a suddenly flared up military conflict outside the Russian Federation, which no one expected. Scenario? Yes, even the same Su-24, shot down by the Turks. The Russian Federation is conducting some kind of military operation on the territory of Syria, the Turks shoot down our plane, allegedly invading their airspace, in response to this, the Russian Federation announces an operation to force the Turks to peace and burns the military base from where the interceptors flew with cruise missiles. Turkey does not agree … And now let us imagine that after all this NATO already announces the beginning of an operation to force Russia to peace. An operation strictly limited to specific countries - in our case - Turkey and Syria.
The space for such a scenario is ready - some are making serious efforts to increase the degree of Russophobia in the countries bordering on the Russian Federation. Just remember the same Ukraine … And this is fraught with military conflicts - of course, while everything is limited to anti-Russian rhetoric, nothing can happen, but someone can go from words to deeds, as happened with one Georgian president …
And yet, the above scenario of the confrontation between the Russian Federation and NATO is almost unbelievable: simply because such an escalation of the conflict can easily degenerate into a nuclear Armageddon, and no one wants that. But if somehow the politicians manage to agree on the localization of hostilities and the non-use of nuclear weapons, then … nevertheless, a much more likely option in such conditions is that a sudden non-nuclear conflict between the Russian Federation and NATO at its later stages will nevertheless develop into a nuclear one.
And one more condition is the period of tension preceding the conflict. A situation is possible in which no "preparatory period" will happen, because the beginning of the conflict may turn out to be completely unexpected, sudden for all the parties involved in it. Erdogan, giving the go-ahead for the destruction of the Russian aircraft, clearly did not count on a full-scale war with Russia. He just wanted to demonstrate his own worth and hoped that he could get away with it. Russia, focusing on Syrian affairs, did not expect Turkey to intervene. But (here we are already talking about a possible scenario) by inflicting a missile strike, the Russian Federation will give an adequate, from its point of view, military response and will expect that Turkey will not go to further escalation. And if it goes on, then for NATO all the events we have invented will become a completely unexpected and unpleasant surprise, but something must be done …
But it can happen in a different way - the political tension between the Russian Federation and NATO for some reason has reached its highest point, both sides decided to confirm the seriousness of their intentions by "rattling iron" at the borders, the United States carried out a massive transfer of its armed forces to Europe, the Russian Federation and NATO "in the power of grave" is looking at each other with sights across the border … and suddenly something provokes the beginning of a conflict.
In our next article, we will look at the use of US aircraft carriers in a suddenly flared up full-scale non-nuclear European conflict, and in an equally large-scale, but one that was preceded by a period of many months of aggravation of relations. But if dear readers see some other options, then the author asks to express themselves in the comments - your suggestions will be taken into account.
