JRL NEWSWATCH: “What If the War in Ukraine Spins Out of Control? How to Prepare for Unintended Escalation” – Foreign Affairs
“… [T]he true red lines have not yet been breached. … [B]oth sides hashed out a set of invisible rules …. Russia’s acceptance of allied heavy-weapons deliveries and intelligence support for Ukraine, but not … Western troops. … Western states’ grudging acceptance of Russian conventional warfare within Ukraine[] … (eager as [they] are to see Moscow defeated), as long as the conflict does not lead to [WMD] …. Yet a wider war is certainly possible. … [with] no international mechanism …. The [UN] has been peripheral … [T]he [EU] stands on one side. The United States is not in a position to end the war on its terms, and neither is Russia nor Ukraine. Talks between Kyiv and Moscow have broken down … [T]here has been no U.S.-Russian diplomacy to speak of since … the war began. Add … the size and complexity of the conflict, the number of countries involved, and … new technologies …, and the mixture becomes potentially toxic. …”