NATO's message after the announcement of the shipment of tanks to Ukraine 1:31
(CNN) --
The West's decision to finally send tanks to Ukraine has caused some to ask the uncomfortable question: Does this mean that NATO is now in direct conflict with Russia?
This narrative, which is strongly pushed by the Kremlin, no doubt helps Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies deflect from the fact that Russia was the one that launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine and illegally occupied parts of a sovereign state.
Also, perhaps more to Putin's convenience, it offers NATO allies pause for thought before deciding exactly how much military assistance they should give Ukraine.
First things first: the consensus among experts is that no NATO member is anywhere near what could be considered to be at war with Russia, according to any internationally accepted legal definition.
Therefore, the idea that the alliance is at war with Russia is not true.
"A war would require attacks carried out by US or NATO forces, in uniform, attacking from NATO territory against Russian forces, Russian territory or the Russian population," explains William Alberque of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. .
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British armored tanks prepare to move into the Tapa Army Camp in Estonia on January 19, 2023.
“Any Ukraine fighting, with any conventional weapons, against any Russian force, is not a US/NATO war in Ukraine, no matter how much Russia wants to claim that it is,” he adds.
Alberque points to the Charter of the United Nations, which establishes that nothing "shall impair the inherent right to individual or collective legitimate defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security".
Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has used its veto to block condemnation of its actions in Ukraine.
US-owned M1A2 Abrams tanks are seen in Grafenwoehr, Germany.
The Kremlin has certainly tried to exploit certain gray areas inherent in any modern warfare to incorrectly claim that NATO is the main aggressor in the Ukraine conflict.
Those gray areas could include the use of Western intelligence to carry out attacks against Russian targets.
They could also include the US launching the war on terror and invoking NATO Article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, in which the US was attacked by terrorists rather than a nation state.
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has claimed that the West is trying to "destroy" Russia.
Anatoly Antonov, Russia's ambassador to the United States, has said that the US government is pressuring Ukraine to "carry out terrorist attacks in Russia."
Of course, whatever scant merit there may be to these dubious claims, they pale in comparison to the documented brutality and illegal actions of Russian forces in Ukraine since Putin ordered the invasion.
But the fact that they exist and are taken seriously by analysts and commentators outside of Russia, including in Washington, plays in the Kremlin's favor in more ways than one.
John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine and senior director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, explains that promoting the idea that this is a NATO-Russia war helps explain to Putin's internal audience why the invasion has not succeeded as quickly as Russia had hoped.
“Because the Russian military has been a huge failure in Ukraine, it is useful to explain this as a war with NATO rather than against Ukraine.
This also helps justify any steps Putin may take next, and Russia has been very keen to play with the idea that this could mean a nuclear move," Herbst told CNN.
Herbst believes that Russia's information war against the West has been more successful than its military campaign, in that it has caused credible and rational people in Washington to dissuade themselves from further military support for Ukraine by exaggerating the idea that Putin use nuclear weapons, which would also be disastrous for Russia.
“I can't tell you how many experts have said that we really can't provide Ukraine with certain weapons because Putin will use his nuclear arsenal.
What we have seen in the last six months is Russian experts contacting their colleagues in the West to say that Putin really could do it.
Unfortunately, Washington and Berlin, especially, have allowed themselves to be deterred many times by this threat, ”he says.
The reason Putin watchers believe there is little chance of Russia escalating to the point of provoking NATO to respond with force is that Moscow knows it could not survive the confrontation.
Two Leopard 2 A7V main battle tanks before an event on September 15, 2021 in Bad Frankenhausen, Germany.
“One of the few goals that the Russian and American leaders share at the moment is that they want to avoid direct conflict between the two powers,” says Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London.
“Russia knows that a conventional confrontation with NATO would end very quickly for them.
However, it makes sense to build on the idea that you are willing to take that risk, if it means getting more concessions from the West,” she adds.
Multiple European officials and NATO sources agreed with the analysis that Putin was unlikely to move towards nuclear escalation, although the possibility had to be taken seriously and avoided.
The question is, avoided at what cost?
It is very likely that Ukraine will continue to demand more weapons and more support from its allies the longer the war drags on.
Each time it does so, each NATO member will have to weigh whether or not it is worth the risk, or whether the delays are doing the Kremlin a favor.
Women stand next to damaged houses as workers try to repair power cables following Russian missile attacks on January 26, 2023 in Hlevakha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Credit: Roman Pilipey/Getty Images
Herbst believes that Russia's invasion of Ukraine served as a stark reminder of what it's like to deal with an aggressive Kremlin, and that Western officials had temporarily forgotten about the Soviet Union's Cold War tactics.
"The hesitations of the West have occurred because we have had peace between the great powers for most of the last 30 years," he says.
“We are currently in the process of discovering things that we knew at the height of the Cold War.
And the only reason we're seeing this now is because one of the great powers decided that she doesn't like the existing world order."
As the war progresses, the West and NATO are being forced to learn hard lessons in real time.
But every time Russia warns of an escalation, Western capitals must keep the following fact in mind: Russia is the aggressor in this conflict, and the West is far from at war with Russia.
And no matter what noises Kremlin officials make about Western attempts to destroy Russia, only one sovereign state has invaded another sovereign state and illegally claimed parts of its territory by force.
War in UkraineNATOWar Tanks