Four years after warning that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was accelerating toward a potential nuclear confrontation in his 2022 piece We Are on a Path to Nuclear War,
analyst Jeremy Shapiro says the underlying trajectory remains unchanged. In a retrospective assessment published by War on the Rocks, Shapiro examines why a nuclear exchange has not yet occurred and what conditions might trigger one as the grinding war enters its fourth year.
According to Shapiro, a simple war of attrition is insufficient on its own to prompt nuclear use. Instead, escalation to nuclear weapons will require one side to feel that it is losing and that a military defeat will have catastrophic consequences for their regime and the personal safety of its leadership.
Such a threshold nearly approached in the fall of 2022 before Russia successfully rallied its forces to turn the tide.
The Impact of Frozen Front Lines
While all sides have escalated considerably in various ways over the past few years, Russia has not been brought back to the brink of defeat and therefore has not seriously reconsidered deploying nuclear weapons. At the same time, the warring parties have failed to move closer toward any ceasefire, settlement, or compromise, leaving the front lines moving at a glacial pace in what has evolved into a near-frozen conflict.
Conditions for Future Nuclear Risk
Shapiro notes that he feels more at ease regarding the immediate possibility of nuclear escalation than he did in late 2022 due to the current slow pace of the front lines. However, he cautions that the fundamental danger persists. If Western and Ukrainian plans to roll back Russian forces in Crimea and eastern Ukraine ever come to fruition, the conflict would once again bring the international community to the brink of a nuclear exchange.
