Fred Kaplan writes:

The war between Russia and Ukraine is swiftly evolving into a war between Russia and NATO. In one respect, this is good: It gives Ukraine a higher chance of repelling Moscow’s invasion and even winning. In another respect, it is risky: The wider the war spreads, and the more Russia seems to be losing, the more compelled Vladimir Putin may feel to lash out with extreme violence.

This shift in the West’s approach to the war was first signaled on Monday, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the United States’ goals in the war were not only to protect Ukraine as a democratic, sovereign country but also to “weaken” Russia as a military power. This has been obvious for some time, but even some U.S. officials were surprised to hear Austin express the fact so explicitly.

A few days later, Austin hosted a meeting of defense officials from 40 nations, as well as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of NATO Air Command, in Germany, to coordinate military assistance to Ukraine. The meeting prompted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to complain, “NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war.”

Back in February, on the day he invaded Ukraine, Putin warned that “whoever tries to hinder us” will face “consequences that you have never faced in your history”—which many took, reasonably, as a threat to use nuclear weapons. Putin later said he would regard direct NATO intervention as a threat to Russia, triggering those same consequences. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Ukraine’s military successes against Russia have transformed calculations in Washington and other Western capitals, leading to a sharp increase in military help for Kyiv as a war that started with Western efforts at damage control has become one that offers a strategic opportunity to constrain Russia’s expansionist ambitions.

The U.S. and its allies are now shipping large volumes of heavy weaponry to Ukraine, including more advanced Western systems to supplement the light weapons and Soviet-era arms that were funneled into Ukraine since before the invasion started.

Those shipments are aimed at supporting Kyiv in the next decisive phase of the war in coming weeks—but also to arm the country in a conflict that could last for months or years.

The war’s outcome is still uncertain but initial Western fears of a rapid Ukrainian military collapse that would leave a successful Russian military in control of the entire country have receded.

After planning for supporting an insurgency, Western governments now see a realistic prospect of Ukrainian success that pushes Russia farther out of Ukrainian territory and deters Moscow from future landgrabs, an outcome that would be a strategic win for the West. [Continue reading…]