Branko Marcetic’s antiwar essay asks how a conflict both Russia and NATO say they want to contain could nevertheless expand. His central concern is an escalation spiral: each side interprets its own actions as deterrence and the other’s as a provocation.
- Red lines become moving targets. Marcetic traces how military assistance once judged too risky became routine, warning that previous restraint does not guarantee future restraint.
- Accidents can outrun intentions. The November 2022 missile deaths in Poland, initially blamed on Russia but subsequently attributed to Ukraine, illustrate how faulty information can accelerate a crisis.
- Threat rhetoric has domestic uses. Interviewees argue that some European warnings help justify military spending, even as officials offer conflicting assessments of an imminent attack.
- Ukraine bears the continuing cost. The essay connects the pursuit of military victory to civilian destruction, coercive recruitment, emigration, and long-term damage to livelihoods.
- Diplomacy is not absolution. Marcetic describes Russia’s occupation as illegal and its negotiating demands as inflexible; his case for talks rests on preventing further suffering, not defending those demands.
The useful distinction here is between explaining escalation and excusing aggression. Understanding how adversaries read each other’s signals is necessary precisely because neither good intentions nor confident talk of deterrence protects people from a disastrous miscalculation.
Marcetic’s argument is that an unjust peace must be weighed against the injustice of indefinite war. His interviewees’ forecasts and contested assessments deserve scrutiny, but the underlying question is hard to evade: what political path actually stops the killing?