Today we’re going to answer an interesting question from Sarah:

Hi, do you think the west will militarily clash with Russia over the Odessa grain blockade?

The Short Answer

The chances of a military clash between the west and Russia are currently low, despite the threats, as it is simply not in the interest of either party to start a military exchange that could spiral out of control, become a nuclear confrontation, and devolve into an unmitigated disaster.

The west would also likely not engage in a conflict with Russia to break the blockade, especially as the diplomatic efforts have yet to be completely exhausted and some limited progress appears to be happening in discussion. There’s also a question of balancing the potential risk of Russian retaliation, potentially nuclear, and the costs of an all-out armed conflict with Putin’s military.

The Longer answer…

While the question focuses on the blockade of Ukrainian ports, I believe it’s more useful to look at the wider question of whether the west and Russia would engage in armed conflict in any circumstance.

The threshold for military engagement between the two states is currently far too high to be met by the ongoing grain blockade, and speaking more widely, by any of the various other probably actions that are available to Putin and western leaders.

What would effectively need to happen in order to trigger a hot conflict between NATO and Russia is that one side makes a grave miscalculation or commits a grave error that would trigger a military engagement.

The most probable trigger for an armed conflict would be the Russian state accidentally striking a NATO member state in some way or form, which became more likely once Putin’s army began to rely almost entirely on less precise soviet-era missiles.

With the Russian state having regularly launched missile strikes across the entirety of Ukraine, all it would take would be one stray missile that was poorly aimed, poorly calibrated, and which missed a target such as Lviv and instead hit a target near the Polish-Ukrainian border.

With the recent attack on the Odessa port, and without taking into consideration the repeatedly illegal actions of the Russian military, Russia has underlined that they are happy to attack targets that are not military, are not strategically meaningful, and that are intended to simply maximise pain of every state standing against the Russian invasion.

There is therefore the possibility that they purposefully choose to or accidentally target a vessel belonging to a NATO member states, and therefore attack a citizen of one of these states and lower the threshold for an outright conflict.

This is something that would very likely trigger a conflict, and an attack on a NATO territory was specifically mentioned early on by American President Joe Biden as a red line, and would therefore be likely to trigger at least a minimal military response that could spiral out of control:

As I made crystal clear, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power. 

- Remarks by President Biden on Russia’s Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine, 24 February 2022

Many people point to the threats made by various Russian politicians, particularly Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who warned the west of the potential for nuclear war as a result of the Ukraine conflict, and claim that this shows that Russia is willing and able to flex their muscles and willing to engage the west militarily.

There’s one caveat to the threat of nuclear attack, however: while Putin may give the order, he is not the one who presses the big red button, and this order would have to be accepted by the military leadership that forms a part of the safeguard from wanton nuclear action.

Should the generals involved in this decision find themselves to be making a choice to turn a majority of Eurasia into a nuclear wasteland, due to the likelihood of western retaliation, they may very well choose to disobey this order, and in a worst-case scenario for Putin and Lavrov, remove them both and replace them.

It’s an incredibly complicated position for the Russian leadership.

Regardless, if we check the comparison in the below chart, Russia has more reasons to be concerned by conflict with NATO than cocky, even from a military point of view:

As you can see above, NATO has a striking advantage in just about every single way aside from in terms of the number of nuclear weapons, and as we’ve seen in its actions within Ukraine, the Russian military suffers from poor equipment, logistical problems, morale issues

With such an imbalance of forces, and with the fact that the Russian military has been fought to a standstill despite its overwhelming force difference when compared with Ukraine, it’s safe to say that Russia is actually engaging in acts of securitization to prevent a bad situation from getting worse and to scare foreign states from engaging in further support for Ukraine.

Russia is aware of its military inferiority with regard to NATO and understands the reality of its situation as it struggles to defeat an increasingly well-equipped and increasingly well-trained Ukrainian military.

The reality is therefore that the Russian state is forced to rely on the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction to protect its interests and is forced to rely on the threat of nuclear attack to prevent the military engagement of the west / NATO, whilst also doing everything possible to avoid a military engagement itself.

But what about the west?

From the western side of things, there is similarly very little to gain from a military engagement with Russia, and despite a military superiority that could defeat Russia, the genuine threat of nuclear retaliation should NATO attempt to not only fight Russia in Ukraine but push the Russian military to their pre-2014 borders, is a constant worry.

It is for this reason that the west has preferred to rely on providing aid in the form of financial and material support, as well as training in tactics, strategies, and high-tech western equipment such as the American M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, British NLAW ATGMs, FGM-148 Javelin, and Starstreak Anti-Aircraft Missiles, and French CAESAR self-propelled howitzers.

However, as highlighted above, it’s been made clear that the west would retaliate in any attack aimed towards it, or even towards the NATO candidate countries Sweden and Finland.

If Russia chose to attack any NATO member state, a conflict would likely start with even Turkey likely to be unable to prevent a conflict, and being placed in a position of support its NATO allies due to NATO Article 5, which states the following:

Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

However, in comparison to Russia, the chances for a western military mistake triggering a military conflict are much lower, with the defensive posture and much higher level of military discipline making this less likely, and making any western military engagement with Russia being most probable as a defensive action.

Conclusion

While Sarah was asking about this in the context of the Odessa Grain blockade, which we all hope will be lifted in the near future, the likelihood of a purposeful military engagement between the west and Russia is low.

With a lack of willingness to engage military on both sides due to the potentially catastrophic result of such an engagement, the most likely cause would either be an accidental military attack by Russia on a NATO member state.

Even if the west / NATO wanted to engage Russia militarily to break the blockade on food products in Ukraine, the threshold for such an engagement would need to be high enough to justify the potential for nuclear retaliation from a beleaguered Russian military.

But if this threshold were reached, or if they felt that a nuclear attack was unlikely, and if the world food situation was veering on catastrophe, the unthinkable decision may be taken by western leaders.

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