Written by Thomas Magstadt   

Our army is nothing, our police are nothing…Yanukovych was worse than nothing…But if Russia crosses the border we'll fight – we have to defend ourselves.

~Leonid Shvets, Ukrainian journalist/editor/activist

Every day we read and hear harrowing stories about the "new cold war" being waged over Ukraine. Worse still, it is becoming a hot war in Ukraine where it is escalating to a extremely dangerous level – a level that is (or should be) forcing policy makers and the Pentagon's top brass think about the unthinkable.

Fortunately, at this stage the crisis does not yet overtly involve armies facing off against each other. Less fortunate, however, is the fact that it sets up an asymmetrical conflict, because it's only happening on one side – the West. Indeed, pundits in the United States are engaged in an acrimonious debate over the causes of the crisis in Ukraine.

The asymmetry arises largely from the fact that Vladimir Putin controls the mass media and all signs indicate most Russians strongly support his tough stand against the West. The contrast between the united front Putin's Russia presents and the weak image the Obama White House and a leaderless Europe project is starkly apparent, as is the peril it poses to the postwar world order.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States is viewed as an effete and bitterly divided country with a grotesquely oversized military and a dysfunctional government. As war clouds gather on Ukraine's eastern front, America looks to the world like a bad re-make of an old sci-fi film – the incredible, shrinking superpower. Meanwhile, The Economist calls the Ukraine "The Disappearing Country".

Listen to right-wing Russophobes and the fault lies entirely with Putin and the his former KGB cabal in the Kremlin. FOX News on any given day provides a full roster of old Red-baiters and reactionaries. Google Senator Ted Cruz, Senator John McCain, or conservative pundit Cal Thomas, who paints a picture of Putin and the Russians that's downright scary:

Recently, Russian news anchor Dmitry Kiselyov took to the Rossiya 1 news channel to declare that Russia is the only country capable of turning the United States into 'radioactive ashes.' A picture of a mushroom cloud was projected on the screen behind him. Iran might see this bragging by Russia as a challenge to its own nuclear ambitions.

"But it's not only the reactionary nostalgic for the Cold War. Indeed, Russian revanchism and a desire to recreate the old empire is the line most commonly taken in the mainstream media."

Notwithstanding, most commentators sympathetic to Ukraine are careful to note that some of the blame for the violence rests with Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. Also, many Putin critics concede that the US and the EU have shown a foolish disregard for Russian interests, power, prestige, and national pride in trying to get Ukraine to choose between Russia and Europe. This assessment from an old friend who also happens to be a seasoned foreign intelligence analyst hits all the main points:

"Today’s news about the firefight and Ukrainian mobilization…is tripping a switch that the Russians undoubtedly are primed for. It’s hard...to believe that the shooters in eastern Ukraine are...either Russian special forces, FSB knuckle-draggers or the former Ukrainian police paramilitaries under Russian military leadership. And one wouldn’t have a fight, irrespective of any accidental beginnings, without being ready to either escalate short of invasion or invade. Hence, a repeat performance of the arrival of military units without unit patches to protect the 'persecuted' Russian speakers, etc. shouldn’t be far off...For NATO...there is no...treaty obligation to act. But the repeated demonstrations of dithering combined with the steady erosion in the standing of the Kiev rump government is a [slippery] slope....

One wonders what the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, not to mention the Poles are thinking this afternoon..."

On the other side of this debate are shrill critics who assert that neoconservative hawks in the United States conspired with extreme rightwing nationalists in Ukraine (including neo-Nazi elements) to overthrow an elected president - Viktor Yanukovich. Furthermore, they contend, by moving to incorporate the former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO when the Soviet Union self-destructed, the US violated a tacit understanding between the two countries to respect each other's sphere of influence. How would Washington react, they ask, if Moscow forged a military alliance in the Western Hemisphere and admitted Cuba and Mexico, among other Central and Latin American states? Finally, they charge the West with providing financial and political aid to anti-Russian groups in Ukraine. In this view, it's all the fault of the last three U.S. presidents, George Soros, and the notorious "neocons".

What nobody in a position to act is talking about, however, is the possibility of a major war in Europe. Why not? Is it because such a war is unthinkable? Somehow, I doubt it. What policy-makers, war planners, and military strategists on both sides are thinking about and what they are willing to talk about publicly are two different things.

If the history of the 20th Century teaches us anything, surely it is this: Appeasement in the face of aggression is a palliative, not a policy. In a recent report on the crisis, BBC correspondent Gavin Hewitt concluded darkly, "The risk is a new war in Europe." Refusing to think about a war with Russia does not make it any less possible - the real danger is that it will make it more likely.

Note: I recently posted a more extensive analysis of the danger of a major war in Europe at my Open Salon "WorldViewWest" blog at

http://open.salon.com/blog/dakotakid/2014/05/11/ukraine_between_russia_and_the_west_is_war_unthinkable