WHY UKRAINE CRISIS DID NOT TURN NUCLEAR?
New York, 28 Jumadil Akhir 1435/28 April 2014 (MINA) – An analyst has cited four factors to explain why the ongoing crisis in Ukraine has not turned into a nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO.
In a column in Forbes magazine, Loren Thompson said “poor intelligence, garbled communication, battlefield setbacks and command attenuation” prevented the crisis from going nuclear.
“As the US has stumbled from one military misadventure to another over the last several decades, it has become clear that Washington isn’t very good at interpreting intelligence,” the columnist wrote, according to Press TV report quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
He added that even available information is “filtered by preconceptions and bureaucratic processes so that the wrong conclusions are drawn.”
Thompson said the US “misinterpretation” of signals emitted by Russia could have also sent Washington and Moscow “up the ladder of escalation.”
“If military confrontation between Russia and NATO gave way to conventional conflict, one side or the other would eventually face defeat,” wrote the analyst.
Thompson also said the use of “strategic nuclear weapons” in the US and in Russia is “nearly impossible” as they are “tightly controlled by senior military leaders in Russia and America.”
Tensions between Russia and the West heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and became part of the Russian Federation following a referendum on March 16.
Meanwhile, protests have been a common scene across eastern Ukrainian cities over the past weeks with demonstrators occupying state buildings in several towns and cities.
On April 17, Ukraine’s interim government together with the United States, Russia and the European Union reached an agreement in the Swiss city of Geneva, calling for all sides to ease the ongoing crisis in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine interim authorities in Kiev said on Friday that army units have begun the second phase of an operation to drive out pro-Russia activists from the eastern cities.(T/E01/IR)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
