HANNAFORD： Inching to Armageddon？
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Summary
The war between Russia and Ukraine seems to have risen to a new threshold of international concern. With the use of British and American-made missiles by Ukraine to reach targets deep in Russia, meanwhile the Russians are responding in kind and have also enlisted the help of North Korea, it looks like the whole thing is escalating out of control. What is it with me today? Professor Rob Hubert from the University of Calgary Center for Military and Strategic Studies, one of the leading centers of excellence in military and strategic studies in North America.
Transcript
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good evening western standard viewers and welcome to hanaford a weekly politics show
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the war between russia and ukraine seems to have risen to a new threshold of international pension
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with the use of british and american-made missiles by ukraine to reach targets deep in russia meanwhile
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the russians are responding in kind and they have also enlisted the north koreans it looks like the
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whole thing is escalating out of control what is it with me today is professor rob hubert
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from the university of calgary center for military and strategic studies one of the leading centers
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of excellence in military and strategic studies in north america welcome rob hi nigel nice to see you
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rob you're known internationally as an expert in the politics of the arctic and in maritime
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and strategic studies and the latter i think is a polite way to describe a study among other
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things of how nuclear war might be fought rob is the serious possibility of nuclear war
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what we're really looking at in eastern europe now well it looks as if the dangers are increasing
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um again everyone will always say it's low probability but the issue is in what direction
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does that probability go we have three factors at heart that you've more or less outlined in
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your introduction the first one is of course the type of weapons that we're talking about we've
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seen a very continuous effort on the part of the russians and the chinese to build weapons that can
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evade the american anti-missile defense so in fact we've got the hypersonics the new type of
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poseidon the new delivery systems that are designed to basically evade the americans
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this means they are incredibly fast and they're incredibly stealthy the second factor that we have
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that shows an indication of the increase of the threat is that for the first time since the
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end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a Soviet slash Russian leader threatening to use nuclear
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weapons. That type of rhetoric basically at the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis when
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Khrushchev and Kennedy both realized that they would be committing mutual suicide with the
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weapons systems that they had at the time, if in fact nuclear weapons came to be utilized,
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you just simply didn't see the Soviet leadership ever really threatening. I mean, there were one
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or two sort of background threats, you know, at the 73 war, but nothing over where they're saying,
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we will use nuclear weapons. And so the fact that Putin is very loudly and repeatedly saying it
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is a very troubling sign. And the third point, as you so eloquently begin your introduction with,
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is the fact that we are seeing an increasing use of the different types of delivery systems that
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the russians have at their avail and so there's a certain degree of learning how to use these
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weapon systems how they you know which ones can be shot down which ones cannot and so that we
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see the russians probably trying to learn what works best which means that if the the situation
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start continues to escalate as we are seeing it go so the russians are trying to figure out how
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to do it and all of these three factors are combined are very troubling rob it seems that
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this took off after president biden who had already uh seen his party defeated in the u.s
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national election gave permission to ukraine to use american missiles that to that point had been
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held back i guess the thought was that these were more sophisticated more likely to be effective
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and, therefore, it would represent an escalation in the war
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Now, at this point, you have a president-elect sitting there.
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and at the same time you have, I'll have to say,
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the lame duck president on the way out giving this authorization
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to use these more sophisticated weapons and up the ante.
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Well, I would think that you actually have to take it even further back
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because, I mean, again, Western leadership does not like to acknowledge it,
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And so many people are saying, well, how do we understand the escalatory processes
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that you've just outlined in terms of Biden giving permission to fire the missiles into Russia?
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if you look in terms of how the western states have tried to figure out how to support
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the ukrainians after the russians invaded and seized a good proportion of their territory in 2014
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we've seen this sort of okay how much of a of weapons can we have in canada of course
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we had the whole debate between 2014 to 20 uh 2022 do we provide them with lethal aid or non-lethal
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aid and that was a a very pointed debate within canadian circles the ultimate decision being
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made not to provide lethal aid and we've seen this with the americans we've seen this and it
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doesn't matter if it's republican or democrat how much can you provide to ensure that you have a
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first and foremost an avoidance of a ukrainian defeat and then secondary from that a ukrainian
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victory which has been put in terms of the return of the conquered territories and so the problem
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that has occurred is that the russians have been able to maintain the pace of attack for i think a
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lot longer time than people thought was going to be happening at the same time the ukrainian
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resistance has been has been very dogged and so we have this almost world war one style you know
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sort of in your face type battle but the question is well okay how do you actually apply enough force
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to achieve your your objective victory depending on which side you're on and do so so that you
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do not escalate it beyond the boundaries of the current conflict and so we've seen a continuation
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of the improvement of the type of forces for example there was a huge debate should we be
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providing the ukrainians from the west with air power and we know that that decision was actually
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ultimately crossed and there are f-16s that ukrainians are now now training on and so the
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decision to allow the ukrainians to use missiles to hit safe military zones where of course the
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russians were staging much of their attack in ukraine is a logical progression in the nature
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of the military battle and so i would think that no all western leaders that are serious about
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providing assistance to ukraine are facing this escalation issue how much do you provide enough
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since the russians have been able to maintain their attack and not go over the limit and and
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this is a learning process for biden for trump uh for for any of the leaders that we see actively
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providing assistance so this is a this is still then in the war fighting zone it's not yet in the
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deterrence zone because if they were talking about deterrence they would do something dramatic to
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make a point am i correct in that well we're past the for for the regional nature of the conflict
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we're past the deterrent they're into the war fighting and one side or the other will ultimately
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be able to achieve the majority of its objectives it means basically either the ukrainians are
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successful in seeing the something that forces the russians out of the eastern ukraine and out
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of Crimea and a cessation to battle, or on the Russian side where they're able to exhaust the
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Ukrainians and basically hold on to that territory and presumably put in a puppet government in that
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regard. And so we pass the ability to deter each of those two sides on the nature of this issue,
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and so we're in war fighting. The question of deterrence then goes to what the great powers
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are doing with their nuclear weapons and in that context we're still in deterrence in other words
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we haven't seen the russians actually make good of any of their threats that they both have stated
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and and the policy changes that they have for their nuclear doctrine which is to increase the
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threshold of what or decrease the threshold for when they feel that they can utilize the weapons
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that deterrence is still in play here the question is well what happens if this goes on even longer
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and the Russians decide to escalate on their side. And then that's the question of, well,
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does Putin make good on his threats in some capacity to use nuclear weapons? And at that point,
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deterrence breaks down considerably. It doesn't go away. It could still be a situation
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where the Americans, British, and French, who all have nuclear weapons, still deter from
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utilizing them against the russians and the russians deter from utilizing it against the
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the nato countries but again everything is in flux right now excuse me yes um it is in flux and
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one other thing we haven't mentioned so far is the arrival reportedly of north korean troops
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in theater the initial report was 10 000. i have seen other reports that i haven't seen confirmed
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that it could be as many as 100 000. obviously that's a significant reinforcement to the uh to
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the russian forces uh does this start to make if you've got the north koreans coming in on the
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russian side and we know they've been feeding ammunition to the to the russians for some time
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meanwhile you've got the united states and great britain and europe feeding russians into the
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ukrainian side and authorizing their use it's starting to look like this is no longer a
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struggle in eastern europe but something that you could almost call a world struggle not a war
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because it's not happening in the far east yet or in in the rest of europe but i mean it's a
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global implications here. Oh, absolutely. I mean, for your viewers that have a historical orientation,
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shades of the Spanish Civil War come forward again. We start thinking in the context of,
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of course, the Western support for the Republican forces, and we think of the German and Italian
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support of the nationalist forces, and how ultimately we saw a similar escalation of weapons.
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Remember, the Germans actually supplied direct bombers and fighters to the nationalist force
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in their fight. So again, over time, we saw that escalatory in the internationalization.
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I think to put it even further into contact, this internationalization that you talk about,
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you even have to go back probably to 2008. And that is, of course, where we saw a very
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messy situation in Georgia that gets tied into the discussions that NATO was having about whether or
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not georgia and ukraine at that point should be joining nato and again there's all sorts of you
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can have all sorts of debates in terms of how you are seeing the the the actual catalyst for
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russian involvement but the net effect is that international nature of what happens in georgia
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in 208 to a very large degree starts many of these processes in in going nato's talking about
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allowing Georgia to come into membership. The Russians then find a reason to go in and use
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military force to stop that discussion, which of course, it stopped at that point. And we fast
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forward to 2014, when the same type of discussion starts happening, except in this case, you know,
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and again, if you want to use a historical analogy, you think of the total lack of response that the
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west had when the germ is of course intervened in austria to stop to basically integrate that
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society and then the western realization at czechoslovakia had to do more but still not
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being able to do it so you go 208 204 you think 19 i'm going to get my date slightly wrong i think
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it's 36 37 and then of course you get up into poland and so this is the danger the the very
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nature of that internationalization that you talk about so you know points to how serious this
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conflict is in the scale that it is being played for and so again we start thinking the horrific
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you know similarities to history may not be repeating exactly but you know somebody said
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history may not repeat itself but it certainly rhymes with itself and so we see this escalation
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continuing and it gets back to your very initial point about how dangerous this is becoming
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obviously if you're in ukraine extremely dangerous but now that um british missiles have been used
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uh i don't know whether american ones have but certainly the
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anglo-french storm shadow missiles have been have been actually fired at targets i mean the
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possibility of some kind of hostile gesture towards great britain and into france is is no
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longer off the table. Two things I think we need to really talk about. One is if we're going to go
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into the history of this, the czarist policy in the 19th century and the 18th century was to have
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a string of essentially demilitarized states between themselves and Western Europe. In our
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own time there are people i mean the french tried to invade russia did invade russia in 1812
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there are people alive today in russia who would remember the german forces invading in 1941 42
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it seems reasonable to imagine how the russians would feel more comfortable having a string of
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neutral states between them and Germany, and they see parts of Ukraine as being that.
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The Ukrainians hate that idea, but first of all, we've got to come to what's the Canadian
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role in this, but is there any merit in believing that the Russians want to establish a zone
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Well, the problem with that argumentation, and I've heard it, is, of course, the Western willingness to provide the Soviet-slash-Russians, when it's transitioning under Gorbachev, you know, very substantial assistance, both directly in terms of the demobilization of their nuclear forces, the ability to bring them in.
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And so, for that argument to hold, and it tends to be the narrative that Russian observers
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tend to provide, is that you have to illustrate that NATO actually intends to somehow invade
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Russia, that it is going to be the aggressor to try to transform or change Russia itself.
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The other part, if we're going to do the historical analysis, and this becomes the counter to
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the point, is of course the history between the Ukrainians and the Russians is one of
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We think of the starvation during the periods of the 1930s were very significant proportions.
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And one that even goes back to the Civil War, where we know there were extreme acts of brutality
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in 1919, 1920, after the First World War ends, but we start having the battles between the
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Ukrainians and the Bolsheviks as they try to achieve either independence or control.
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We go to the post-World War, Second World War treatment of the Ukrainians, which, again, until 1954, tends to be equally bad.
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In 1954, it's when Khrushchev comes roughly within power, and we start seeing a little bit of a liberalization of their content.
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And so rather than taking the Russian narrative that, in fact, they need this zone, because it always comes back to, well, zone against what?
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I mean, there's been no indication of NATO that NATO represents a Napoleon or Hitler,
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because that's where that argument has to stand.
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With your saying, well, we have to focus in terms of the treatment of the Ukrainian people in particular,
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that's where history is clearly that the type of defensive guarantees that Ukrainians start trying to seek,
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really after there's a change of government in Ukraine in 2014, then that, of course, very much changes.
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Then you have an authoritative leadership trying to reimpose its, well, to be blunt, horrific treatments of a certain population.
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And so once again, you can take the Napoleon and Hitler, but you have to find who is that person then within the NATO.
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And of course, the answer is, well, there is no one.
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But you can look at the suffering that has been bestowed upon the Ukrainians in the self-defense that they want.
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And so that's where that argument, in my view, falls apart.
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So if I were to pursue that argument further, I would say, well, from the Russian point of view,
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having a hostile state right on its western border, that would be Ukraine,
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isn't that a bit like having Russian missiles on Cuba in 1962?
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No wonder the Americans reacted like a, you know, like a cat on a hot tin roof when that was starting to go.
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Why would the Russians not feel anxious about having the Western-orientated, Western-armed, Western-supported, hostile Ukraine on their Western border?
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Well, they weren't, I mean, they don't become Western-armed until the second phase of the war.
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In other words, there's a huge reluctance to the West to provide any real meaningful munitions.
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And remember, again, for that argument to stand, you'd have to say, OK, well, does Ukraine at any point represent a threat?
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Remember, the Ukrainians get rid of their nuclear weapons.
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When the Soviet Union dissolves, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kallostan all have nuclear weapons.
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And as newly independent states, they are recognized to be able to have the right to contain it.
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They voluntarily gave up those offensive weapons to demonstrate to the Russians that they posed no threat.
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And so once again, in that equation, the Ukrainians did about as much as you could possibly do
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to demonstrate that they were not going to retain the capability to really meaningful threaten the Russians.
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They weren't getting Western offensive weapon capabilities until 2022.
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and they foresaw the nuclear weapons on the guarantee that Russia would never attack them.
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And so the Russians broke that agreement, the Ukrainians, I think.
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There are some observers who have said that there is a regret that they did not retain them
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because that could have possibly been a form of deterrence that we were talking about earlier.
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Since the development of the Cold War, Canada has played a critical role in the deterrence system.
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And the way that we have played that role is geography and our alliance with the Americans and subsequently with the Western Europeans.
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After the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it became clear that nuclear war at that point had been a possibility,
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both sides took steps to ensure that each side knew that any use of nuclear weapons would be
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mutual suicide, you know, the policy of MAD, mutual assured destruction. And so that the Russians and
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the Soviets and the Americans developed weapon systems that could be launched to destroy the
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other side. They weren't about achieving military victory. They were about total destruction of the
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major cities and populations in the system it's a bizarre system when you work out its logic
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because it means you have to cooperate with both sides to develop these weapon systems but also
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develop a warning system so that if the other side ever does attack you you've got enough time
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to get your missiles up to kill them and it's that knowledge of mutual destruction that stops
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you from ever firing in the first place so you may be hating whatever the soviets are doing or the
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soviets may be hating whatever the west is doing but it's not enough to say okay well i'm still
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going to launch my missiles knowing i will die also and as part of that of the surveillance
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system to assure that we have as much confidence as one can ever have in these issues you needed
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to of course have the ability to detect any incoming missiles and the geography the arctic
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the geography of canada has meant that we are a critical part of that detection system it starts
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with the mid-Canada warning line, it develops into the due line, distant early warning system,
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and it morphs into the north warning system, which of course is now being modernized to continue
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the deterrence against the Russians. And so Canada is a critical component of it.
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Canada also plays a critical role in the defense of the region by our alliance with the Americans
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through the NORAD agreement and so once again it's all out of sight out of mind people don't
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want to think about the what nuclear deterrence actually means but Canada is a critical player in
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it our working with the Americans remains a critical element and if you are going to deter
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the Russians from thinking about the possibilities that we are discussing here you have to ensure
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that they they totally believe you when you say we're going to know anything you do and we can
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therefore have the ability to respond within time and we will not suffer a surprise we will not
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suffer a defeating surprise attack you may launch a surprise attack you're going down with us and
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that that's where canada plays its role i know rob that in the past you have been consulted by the
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government of canada on matters such as this if you were to be asked now whether canada is doing
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Well, my advice is that we basically understood what is necessary.
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You can find it in both the security and defense statements
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about modernization of NORAD, which is implicitly stating, yes, we get it. We have to play our role
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in terms of deterrence of the new weapon systems. And Manchin is made of hypersonics and other
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delivery systems. The problem that we've always faced is that starting from the point of Crutchin
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on, we haven't paid the piper. In other words, we understand it. The policy position, if you
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really read it carefully. If you read the standing committee, which is government-led but includes
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the opposition parties, if you read the reports that come out of committee, both on defense and
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foreign policy, you'll see we understand it. We get it. The question is, though, what we've avoided
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for actually paying what we get. So if I was advising government, it would be we got to pay
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for what we say we're going to be doing. Now, there are signs that we are starting to do that.
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There are significant indications that since 2022, we've started taking serious about paying for the elements of NORAD modernization, that the wheels are now starting to be oiled because they've become so rusty, one could say, that this is starting to move.
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Because what we have to be mostly concerned with is, of course, that our enemies, and
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that is the Russians and presumably the Chinese on that, do not see us as sort of a weak link
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And equally problematic, we can't be seen as a weak link by our American allies.
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Regardless if it's a Democrat or a Republican, they can't be thinking that we are allowing
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a kink in terms of the detection system and so therefore to come back i would be saying we've
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got to be really putting the full uh body press and it has to be an ongoing effort it can't just
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simply be some announcement of a defense minister getting up in front of a an old f-18 saying we've
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just spent four billion dollars next subject please this has to be an ongoing rebuilding and
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modernization um you know you can say okay well we got to meet two percent two percent in my mind
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is a somewhat arbitrary figure that we have picked but what it suggests is that we need to be doing
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more we need to have a system that is using the capabilities of 2024 not 1985 because northern
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the last time we had a major update was 85 and so that's where we have to be going we have to
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to be getting the F-35s up and running. We have to be getting the new river class operational.
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We have to be talking summaries. All of this is extensive. All of this is expensive. But it fits
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into the ability to assure the enemies that we as Canada are not a weak link. We will respond
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accordingly. We're almost out of time, Rob. Let me ask you this one last question. In six months'
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time, is the situation going to look much the same? Or does there come a point when it goes
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this way or that way? See, the problem with this is the difficulty of understanding at what point
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of the exhaustion scale are the Ukrainians and the Russians. There have been repeated suggestions
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that the Russian economy is on the teeter of collapse, but we've been seeing this discussion
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for some time. We've seen equal discussions that the Ukrainians are literally exhausted,
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both in terms of people and equipment. The problem is we don't know. We don't know what
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is happening behind the scenes, and that is always the difficulty of being able to bring
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any crystal ball forward. I think that it's going to really depend on what happens when Trump takes
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over, and the questions will surround in terms of the degree of support that he's willing to
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maintain to the Ukrainians, and whether or not, as some observers have suggested, his claims of
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ending the war in a day is basically forcing the Ukrainians to accept Russian terms.
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I mean, once again, without knowing what is actually happening as opposed to what people
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think is happening, it's incredibly difficult. It could go either way or even worse. It could
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just simply continue to exist as this grinding war that sees a slow weapon escalation. And of
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course, the joker in the deck is, at what point do the Chinese feel that they can in fact start
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uh following some of this usage of military force to reclaim territories that they believe um that
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they um are associated with and that of course means taiwan because a war in the asia pacific
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region involving the americans and of course changes the calculation as well so we are just
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i mean the crystal ball that i have tells me we're just in an increasingly dangerous environment
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with such degrees of uncertainty that things can really get worse really quickly i was hoping you
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were going to give us something hopeful rob maybe that's maybe that's not available just now we'll
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have you back to talk about this again as the situation matures but for now i just want to
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thank you on behalf of western standard viewers for for coming on and sharing the sharing the kind
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of information you would be sharing with government if they were to ask you rob thanks very much
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thank you angel of the center for military and strategic studies in calgary and for the western