Prior to Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was a de facto member of NATO. Since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has been a de facto member of NATO (aside from NATO countries explicitly waging war on its behalf with their own forces).
Every day that NATO fights Russia in Ukraine, we run a dramatically higher risk of nuclear war with Russia and the end of life on earth as we know it. Read Annie Jacobsen’s book, Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024) and tell me you want to risk this.
On the other hand, the survival and prosperity of Ukraine as an independent nation has not effect on America’s freedom and prosperity and strength.
US assistance helped Ukraine slaughter hundreds of thousands of Russians. The US is on the verge of going to war with Iran in part because Iran assisted in the slaughter of hundreds of Americans in Iraq. Why would Russia not resent America for similar reasons America resents Iran?
Side by side in Wiesbaden’s mission command center, American and Ukrainian officers planned Kyiv’s counteroffensives. A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.
One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said.
The partnership’s guiding idea was that this close cooperation might allow the Ukrainians to accomplish the unlikeliest of feats — to deliver the invading Russians a crushing blow. And in strike after successful strike in the first chapters of the war — enabled by Ukrainian bravery and dexterity but also Russian incompetence — that underdog ambition increasingly seemed within reach.
An early proof of concept was a campaign against one of Russia’s most-feared battle groups, the 58th Combined Arms Army. In mid-2022, using American intelligence and targeting information, the Ukrainians unleashed a rocket barrage at the headquarters of the 58th in the Kherson region, killing generals and staff officers inside. Again and again, the group set up at another location; each time, the Americans found it and the Ukrainians destroyed it.
Farther south, the partners set their sights on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet loaded missiles destined for Ukrainian targets onto warships and submarines. At the height of Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive, a predawn swarm of maritime drones, with support from the Central Intelligence Agency, attacked the port, damaging several warships and prompting the Russians to begin pulling them back.
But ultimately the partnership strained — and the arc of the war shifted — amid rivalries, resentments and diverging imperatives and agendas.
The Ukrainians sometimes saw the Americans as overbearing and controlling — the prototypical patronizing Americans. The Americans sometimes couldn’t understand why the Ukrainians didn’t simply accept good advice.
Where the Americans focused on measured, achievable objectives, they saw the Ukrainians as constantly grasping for the big win, the bright, shining prize. The Ukrainians, for their part, often saw the Americans as holding them back. The Ukrainians aimed to win the war outright. Even as they shared that hope, the Americans wanted to make sure the Ukrainians didn’t lose it.
As the Ukrainians won greater autonomy in the partnership, they increasingly kept their intentions secret. They were perennially angered that the Americans couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give them all of the weapons and other equipment they wanted. The Americans, in turn, were angered by what they saw as the Ukrainians’ unreasonable demands, and by their reluctance to take politically risky steps to bolster their vastly outnumbered forces.
On a tactical level, the partnership yielded triumph upon triumph. Yet at arguably the pivotal moment of the war — in mid-2023, as the Ukrainians mounted a counteroffensive to build victorious momentum after the first year’s successes — the strategy devised in Wiesbaden fell victim to the fractious internal politics of Ukraine: The president, Volodymyr Zelensky, versus his military chief (and potential electoral rival), and the military chief versus his headstrong subordinate commander. When Mr. Zelensky sided with the subordinate, the Ukrainians poured vast complements of men and resources into a finally futile campaign to recapture the devastated city of Bakhmut. Within months, the entire counteroffensive ended in stillborn failure.
The partnership operated in the shadow of deepest geopolitical fear — that Mr. Putin might see it as breaching a red line of military engagement and make good on his often-brandished nuclear threats. The story of the partnership shows how close the Americans and their allies sometimes came to that red line, how increasingly dire events forced them — some said too slowly — to advance it to more perilous ground and how they carefully devised protocols to remain on the safe side of it.
Well, as long as there were protocols…
I love protocols. Surgery uses protocols. Airline pilots use protocols. Journos should use protocols. Protocols are better than winging it but don’t impute to protocols heavier burdens than they can bear.
The Americans were generally right. The Ukraine counter-offensive was a disaster.
Grok says:
The war in Ukraine, ongoing as of March 30, 2025, has elevated tensions between Russia, a nuclear-armed state with the world’s largest arsenal (approximately 5,580 warheads, including tactical and strategic weapons), and NATO, led by the nuclear-armed United States. Several factors amplify the nuclear risk:
Escalatory Rhetoric and Doctrine Changes: Since the invasion began in February 2022, Russian leadership, including President Vladimir Putin, has repeatedly invoked nuclear threats. In November 2024, Putin revised Russia’s nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for use, allowing nuclear retaliation against a non-nuclear state (like Ukraine) if supported by a nuclear power (e.g., the U.S. or NATO), or in response to a conventional attack threatening Russia’s sovereignty. This shift broadens the scenarios where nuclear use might be considered, increasing perceived risk.Battlefield Dynamics: Russia’s conventional military struggles—facing setbacks like the 2022 retreats from Kyiv and Kherson, and ongoing pressure from Ukrainian advances—could push a desperate Kremlin toward extreme measures. Analysts suggest that if Russia perceives an existential threat to its regime or territory (including annexed regions like Crimea), it might employ tactical nuclear weapons to coerce Ukraine into submission or deter Western support. The U.S. assessed a 50% chance of Russian nuclear use in fall 2022 when Ukraine retook territory, a historic high estimate that reflects how close the conflict has veered toward escalation.
Western Involvement: NATO’s increasing military aid—such as U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles used by Ukraine against Russian targets since November 2024—has prompted warnings from Moscow that it views such actions as tantamount to direct NATO aggression. Russia’s deployment of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile in response signals a tit-for-tat escalation cycle, where miscalculation could spiral into broader conflict.
Global Precedents and Proliferation: The war has weakened nuclear taboos. Putin’s threats, unchallenged by actual use despite crossed “red lines” (e.g., Western arms deliveries), may embolden other nuclear states like North Korea or China to adopt similar coercive strategies. Ukraine’s regret over relinquishing its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in 1994 (via the Budapest Memorandum) has also fueled debates in non-nuclear states like South Korea about acquiring deterrents, potentially increasing future nuclear flashpoints.
However, countervailing factors temper the odds. Russia has not moved tactical nuclear weapons from storage, suggesting restraint despite rhetoric. Diplomacy—such as U.S.-Russia military communications and China’s reported pressure on Putin—has so far averted the worst. The military utility of a tactical nuclear strike is questionable, with limited battlefield gains offset by global backlash and fallout risks to Russian forces. Historically, nuclear powers have lost conventional wars (e.g., the U.S. in Vietnam, Soviet Union in Afghanistan) without resorting to nuclear escalation, indicating a high bar for use.
Expert estimates vary widely. In 2022, Graham Allison pegged the odds of U.S.-Russia nuclear war over Ukraine at less than 1% to 0.1%, far below Cuban Missile Crisis levels (33%-50% per Kennedy). Others, like the U.S. intelligence community in 2022, saw a 50% chance of limited nuclear use in specific scenarios. More recent analyses, given Russia’s 2024 doctrinal shift and battlefield momentum, suggest a rising but still low probability—perhaps in the single digits to low teens for tactical use, with a full-scale nuclear war remaining less likely due to mutual assured destruction.
In short, the war has undeniably increased the odds of nuclear conflict from a peacetime baseline near zero to a heightened but still uncertain level. The risk is real—higher than at any point since the Cold War’s end—but not inevitable, hinging on unpredictable human decisions and the absence of effective de-escalation. Without a firm pre-war probability to compare, it’s impossible to say “how much” the odds have risen numerically, but the war has clearly shifted the world into a more precarious nuclear landscape.
