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JUNE 2, 2022
Meyerson on TAP
The Guns of June
Not the ones in our grade schools. The ones in Ukraine.
This week, our government announced it would provide Ukraine with new
weapons: the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. These
satellite-guided rockets can be fired from the back of a truck and can
be propelled as far as 45 miles. At the same time, our government also
made clear that it is not providing Ukraine with a similar weapons
system in which the rockets can be propelled as far as 185 miles.
In other words, we're boosting Ukraine's capacity to retaliate
against the hard rain of long-range artillery Russia has loosed as it
pushes forward in Eastern Ukraine. We are not enabling Ukraine, however,
to retaliate against the really long-range artillery barrages that
Russia is launching from its own territory.
And we've put a corresponding condition on Ukraine's use of HIMARS:
No firing onto Russian soil.
Clearly, it's time to resurrect a word that has almost disappeared
from usage since the Cold War began to wind down: "brinkmanship," which
Webster (at least, my Webster) defines as "the practice of pushing a
dangerous situation to the limit of safety before stopping." Webster (at
least, my Webster) fails to note that the term came into use only when
it referred to standoffs between nuclear powers.
Which is why the word needs to be exhumed today. The balance that
President Biden is striking between arming Ukraine to resist and repel
the Russian invasion, but not arming Ukraine so that its counterattacks
could reach into Russia itself, which might just compel Putin to use
tactical nuclear weapons, which might in turn compel-well, let's not
go there-is brinkmanship
**par excellence**.
The problem with brinkmanship is that it requires everyone on both sides
to play by its rules. That's hard enough to ensure in peacetime; in
times of actual war, it's harder still. Precisely calibrated military
actions are few and far between. (See: "surgical strikes.")
That said, I think Biden has so far gotten the balance between what I
view as the necessary defense of Ukraine and the risk of plunging the
planet into far more catastrophic conflict just right. But as he knows
all too well, he's on a tightrope. So are we all.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter
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