Letter From the Editors
Normally, the coming of winter is a time to slow down and focus on the things that matter most: gathering the family round, roasting some chestnuts and watching Hans Gruber fall from Nakatomi Plaza to the strains of “Ode to Joy” in the movie “Die Hard.” Hopefully the film is the only “tough nut” (Krepky oreshek, as it’s known in Russian). But this year, matters only seem to be speeding up, and the threat of mutual assured destruction is not only MAD, but nuttier than a holiday fruitcake.
This refers, of course, to Russia’s ostentatious first use of a nonnuclear-armed Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile. The root of the word oreshnik suggests that it might refer to any nut tree, but it specifically means the hazel. Scholar Mikhail Mironyuk reminds us of Putin’s announcement of the strike, in which he threatened that “in the event of an escalation of aggression, respond just as decisively and reciprocally” against countries helping Ukraine to strike inside Russia.
Mironyuk does not shy away from the implications of the statement, arguing: “Even a pause along the escalatory ladder is becoming difficult, although everyone understands the costs of a situation that is particularly out of control.” Nevertheless, the threat to the West of expansion is necessary because “their desire to do harm should be prohibitively expensive.”
Military expert Aleksei Leonkov seems to relish the Oreshnik’s capacity to instill fear, writing that “our Western enemies are feverishly taking notes . . . The ‘red lines’ games are over. We will respond very harshly to all provocations. These missiles, if necessary, are capable of reaching both Paris and London.”
However, as Sergei Mikhailov explains, Europeans are not passively waiting for the Oreshnik to pound them into Nutella. Poland plans to lead NATO’s eastern flank by beefing up its security to 5% of GDP and 300,000 personnel. Mikhailov also alludes to Macron’s statement earlier this year that the French nuclear deterrent is “a critical element of defense of the European continent.” !
Back in Ukraine, though, as a different Mikhailov (analyst Kirill) states glibly in an interview, “De facto nothing has really changed.” The war of attrition will continue on the front, and even the most devastating strikes on rear positions are not meant to gain strategic advantage, but to distract enemy resources from tactical operations. This has been equally true for the Ukrainians, Kirill Mikhailov says: “Authorizing the use of HIMARS had some effect but was not decisive. It’s the same here.”
Why bother with an experimental weapon, then? Well, first of all, according to Mikhailov, “The authorization of strikes with long-range Western missiles is the most recent failure of the deterrence strategy. And now Moscow is trying to restore it somehow.” And second, “the new Trump administration may have more impressionable people, [like] Elon Musk, on whom this could work.” Meanwhile, Vedomosti reports that Russia’s likely incoming ambassador to the US is reading up on the Cuban missile crisis.
But Donald Trump is famous for nurturing ideological rivalries on his foreign policy team, as well as for keeping world leaders guessing about his next move. In a Meduza interview, Kurt Volker from the first Trump administration criticizes Biden from the hawkish side. While he is open to a long-term armistice (notably mentioning Germany but not Korea), he dismisses the idea of making outright territorial concessions or delaying NATO membership: “These are all things that I think other people are floating. I don’t think this is coming from Trump. . . . What he cares about is ending the war; just stop the killing, this has to end.”
Tchaikovsky’s holiday hero could dance, but he still broke his jaw on a nut too tough to crack. Boris Johnson has retired, Biden is on his way out, Scholz and Macron have lost their governments. – Will 2025 be the year this war ends? Kiev, Moscow and the whole world are waiting with bated breath to see whether Donald Trump can pull our chestnuts out of the fire.