Planning The Aftermath, Rand Corporation Evokes A Nuclear Clash Between Russia, China And The United States

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Written by Piero Messina

Nothing good from the Western Front. All ties with Russia are severed and the relationship with China will also have to be reconsidered. The crisis between Ukraine and Russia also leads to negative projections in the Asian quadrant. In the event of a further worsening of tensions with Russia and China, the United States should then adopt a strategy linked to the superiority of nuclear weapons. The United States, therefore, should be able to assume a military posture that allows it to launch a preventive attack to destroy a large part of the infrastructure of Russia and China, reducing to the maximum the possibility of any retaliation, thus limiting the damage on the territory as much as possible. national. In Washington there are already those who are looking to the post-war future in Ukraine. The scenario we have just described – defined as the “Hardline Approach” – is one of the options that Rand Corporation outlines for the imminent future.

Rand Corporation is one of the most influential think tanks in the Atlantic sphere. Founded in 1946 with financial support from the US Department of Defense, it currently employs more than 1,500 researchers at locations in Santa Monica, Washington and Pittsburgh. Since 1992 it has been active in Europe through its subsidiary RAND Europe. Among its main successes, the RAND Corporation includes the application of game theory for deciding different options, methodologies for anticipating possible future developments through the simulation of geostrategic scenarios.

The Report published by Rand Corporation is entitled “Planning for the Aftermath” and was created by Samuel Charap (professor at the University of Oxford and expert on Russia and Eurasia) and Miranda Priebe (Director, Center for Analysis of U.S. Grand Strategy and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University).

Samuel Charap, Miranda Priebe

The researchers’ premise reflects the competitive spirit with which the United States intends to confront Russia and the multipolar world from now on. There are two main elements, maintaining high military control of Western Europe and tightening sanctions against Russia:

“post-war US policy towards Russia could have significant long-term effects on US interests in Europe and beyond. Washington may ultimately decide to maintain many elements of its wartime policy, such as high force levels in Europe and sanctions against Russia.”

Furthermore, Rand researchers are forced to admit that the geopolitical dynamics of recent years have created a now indissoluble bond between Russia and China:

“Closer Russia-China ties may be irreversible. Before the war, Beijing and Moscow’s ties were driven by a shared concern about U.S. power and foreign policy; relations have deepened further during the war. In the postwar setting, a hardline U.S. policy toward Russia could create more incentives for greater Russia-China cooperation. A moderately less hardline approach, such as the one we consider, would avoid creating such additional incentives; but it would be unlikely to alter the underlying suspicions of the United States that sustain the relationship”.

Returning to the analysis of the post-war evolution in Ukraine, first of all, researchers from the Rand Corporation outline two scenario forecasts on how the dispute could end. The first vision predicts an outcome of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that is not favorable to the West. In fact, that’s exactly what’s happening. The context outlined by Rand envisages “a long war of attrition that continues at least for a long time to come.” During this period, China decides to provide Russia with the lethal military support it has so far avoided providing, including significant quantities of ammunition and advanced weapons systems. With these additional capabilities and more time to deal with problems plaguing its force, the Russian military makes some territorial gains within Ukraine, controlling most – but not all – of the five regions it claims to have annexed. In response to Beijing’s aid to Moscow, the United States and its allies impose limited sanctions on China, aimed at companies involved in the supply of weapons. When the Russian military offensive seems definitively over, with the Ukrainian army no longer able to counterattack effectively, a stalemate will arrive. Kiev and Moscow will begin talks and eventually a tenuous ceasefire could be reached, an agreement to end the fighting without sophisticated de-escalation mechanisms, leaving the risk of recurrence of the conflict intact.

It is a scenario that evokes the Balkanization of the conflict. According to the Rand Corporation Report, the scenario just described would cause a total destruction of the economy of what remains of Ukraine, reduced to a Zombie State, absolutely dependent on economic support from the West. Relations between the United States, Russia and China would thus be one step away from total collapse.

The second scenario imagined by Rand Corporation researchers predicts outcomes more favorable to the West on the Ukrainian battlefield. Relations between the West and China remain substantially unchanged, while the relationship with Russia remains tense, with sanctions that are gradually being reduced due to a progressive greater integration of Moscow with the Western world. To date, however, this hypothesis appears truly distant from what reality tells us day by day.

According to researchers at Rand Corporation, “even if Russia does not intend to attack, NATO needs forces and associates plan to face the possibility of a conflict with Moscow.” The United States and the Soviet Union, and later, Russia, have a long history of managing and controlling the risks of nuclear escalation. However, according to Rand, “the current war has shattered bilateral relations and narrowed the space for future legally binding treaties.” In short, we have to live with the risk of a nuclear conflict in the near future. From Rand’s analysis, a suggestion comes to American foreign policy, avoid an hardline approach towards Russia:

”our assessment of the conflict risk associated with the hardline strategy stems from two core assumptions about Russian behavior: that Moscow is deterred from an opportunistic attack on NATO but will respond assertively to a U.S. hardline strategy rather than accept it without contestation. These assertive responses could increase the risk of U.S.-Russia conflict through other pathways than opportunistic aggression. We assess that the hardline policy strategy produces little additional benefit in the futures because NATO, the United States, and its allies already have a strong deterrent against an opportunistic Russian attack. This judgment rests on the assumption that Russia’s risk tolerance—particularly its willingness to risk a war with the United States and its NATO allies—will be relatively similar to what it is as of this writing. In other words, Russia is not inclined to undertake an opportunistic war of aggression against the United States or its allies. Indeed, even at the time of this writing, when Russia has a clear motive to attack NATO to stem the flow of weapons to Ukraine, it has refrained from doing so”.

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