Putin’s Irrational Move & World War III

The Russia-Ukraine war has wreaked havoc, but now, it seems to be going in altogether a different direction, where it could involve the entire world. The threat of nuclear war is already there, but we might be looking at the beginning of World War III, who knows? Things have gone south after the alleged Russian missile hit Poland—which is a NATO member state—and killed two people. The incident rang alarm bells, compelling NATO to jump in and assess the emerging situation and act accordingly, however, what NATO did only angered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who is already at odds with the military alliance for not speeding up the process of becoming its member.

NATO has termed that it was the Ukrainian missile that hit Poland, negating the involvement of Russia; the same was rubbished by Zeleneskyy who said that Russians did it and not Ukraine. Whatever the reality, the point here to note is that NATO is not in the mood to lock horns with Russia even though it knows and has publicly admitted that underestimating Russia will be a gross mistake and that its strength and troop presence remains the same despite its withdrawal from Kherson.

It is quite clear that NATO is doing everything to stay out and avoid any confrontation with Russia even though it is helping the Ukrainian army with the necessary logistic and weaponry assistance. The military alliance of 30 member states knows everything but is pretending to know nothing when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war. What also raises eyebrows is its delay in approving the membership of Ukraine, because that is going to be the final start of the war. It needs to be noted here that apart from other factors, the NATO presence was the reason Russia carried out the first offensive on Ukraine because it does not want its influence, and wants to push it towards Europe.

If NATO continues to lay back, avoid direct contact and indirectly help Ukraine, the same will end up causing further destruction in Ukraine and the end of the ongoing war since February this year would be elusive. We are closer to another World War III than people are ready to admit. At the same time, NATO needs to accept that Russia could make an irrational move anytime, leading to war without even requiring NATO to jump in—which it has been trying to avoid—because if Russia goes ahead with its dirty bomb, won’t that automatically result in a world war? NATO can no longer play it safe; it needs to come out of the dilemma of whether to fight it out with Russia or not; whether to clear Ukraine’s NATO membership or not, because it cannot let Russia have it the way it wants the war to play out. Russia cannot be trusted at all and the world cannot be pushed to face another war, not now, not in the future; not at any cost.