European governments, which just some years ago sneered at Donald Trump for insisting that they penny up on their NATO defense spending obligations, are now advising their citizens to stock up on bottled water, canned food, and flashlight batteries, locate their nearest bomb shelter, and otherwise prepare for a Russian missile barrage. The Danish government assures its people that they only need to remain sheltered for two days if Copenhagen gets hit by a small nuke while Sweden shelves the fight on climate change to take down offshore windmill farms that may interfere with radar interception of inbound missiles. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last Friday that the world is headed for “global conflict” and a member of NATO’s military committee has advised European businesses to prepare for a “wartime scenario.” The Paris newspaper Le Monde reported on Monday that French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are meeting to discuss sending troops to Ukraine following statements by French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, on the BBC that “the West cannot place red lines in its support for Ukraine. Every square kilometer gained by Russia in Ukraine brings the Russian army one square kilometer closer to Europe.” The Europeans are starting to panic over a possible collapse of Ukraine’s front lines following consistent Russian gains along the central front in Donbas in recent weeks. But it was lame-duck President Joe Biden’s stumbling decision to allow Ukraine to fire American ATACM missiles into Russia in support of Ukrainian forces clinging onto a pocket of the Russian border territory in Kursk that got the nuclear scare going. (READ MORE: Is Biden Trying to Start World War III Before Trump Takes Office?) As predicted some months back by The American Spectator, Ukraine’s increasingly precarious battlefield position would necessitate intensified strikes against Russian rear areas and logistics to blunt Russian advances. British defense chief, Admiral Tony Radakin, said then that it would become a “feature” of the war. (READ MORE: Russia Is Pounding Eastern Ukraine’s Industrial Heartland) Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s expansion of ground operations into Russia last August with the invasion of Kursk now means that tactical strikes against Russian command centers, airfields, ammunition depots, and logistical facilities (like those hit over recent days by ATACMS and British Storm Shadows) are now hitting inside Russia to protect Ukraine’s best NATO equipped units from possible destruction. Ukraine has been hitting targets deep inside Russia with its own swarm of domestically produced drones for some time. But bigger payloads armed with cluster and bunker-busting munitions are now required to disrupt a force of over 50,000 Russians and North Koreans gathering to annihilate some 20,000 Ukrainians resisting in Kursk. (READ MORE: North Korea Is in the Fight) Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that Ukraine cannot operate Storm Shadows or ATACMS without U.S. and British “guidance and navigational support.” His assertion seems confirmed by a conversation between German air force officials that was intercepted and leaked to the media last March in which they mention that British service personnel are in Ukraine fitting Storm Shadow systems onto Ukraine’s inherited fleet of Russian-built Su-24 bombers. Russia responded to the Western missile strikes last week with a newly developed 3,000-mile range Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) carrying multiple warheads that flattened an industrial complex in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. It came with a warning from Putin: “An attack from a non-nuclear state if backed by a nuclear power will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.” NATO and Ukrainian defense officials are meeting to discuss protection against Russia’s new Oreshnik IRBM that travels at ultrasonic Mach 10 speeds and which Putin has ordered to be “mass produced.” The Patriot, National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAM), and other Western air defense systems supplied to Ukraine can’t intercept it and Zelensky now wants American high-altitude THAAD anti-ballistic missiles. The Biden administration has asked Congress for an additional $24 billion in assistance for Ukraine and there is even talk of sending tactical nukes. International relations professor, Maurice Pearton, who taught classes when I attended the University of London had a theory on the dynamics of client-state relations that is highly relevant to the current situation: “While it’s generally thought that the providing state controls the client state, the exact opposite situation often develops in which the client state manipulates its patron.” Zelensky’s invasion of Kursk has pulled the U.S. and Europe into an ever-closer confrontation with Russia, over the objections of his top military commanders. “Perhaps our leaders have some big secret plan, otherwise I don’t understand why our best brigades are in Kursk region, while our ‘defense’ in Ukraine is falling apart,” said Gen. Dymitro Marchenko, former commander of Ukraine’s 28th mechanized brigade, who recently resigned from the army over differences with Zelensky. Former armed forces chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhny, recently dispatched as ambassador to London, also objected to the Kursk operation according to Politico and various Ukrainian media outlets, as did the commander of a unit deployed in the region, Gen. Emil Ishkulov, who has also been dismissed. Zelensky needs a reality check; the Europeans seemingly do as well. NATO should be telling Zelensky in no uncertain terms, and publicly if necessary, to pull out of Kursk. It can offer to cover the withdrawal so that what remains of the 47th Mechanized Brigade and other crack units can be more usefully deployed for a dynamic defense of Donbas and other key points of Ukraine’s interior as suggested by the generals Zelensky fired. Key parts of eastern Ukraine are salvageable. The strategic ridge fortress of Chasiv Yar, blocking a direct Russian advance on the industrial center of Kramatorsk, is holding out. The latest Russian flanking maneuver to penetrate its defenses across a dividing canal has collapsed in recent days. Western personnel may be required to operate the more complex weapons systems needed to save what’s left of Ukraine and this can be done through military services companies, an option discussed by Macron and Starmer, according to Le Monde. But it should be made crystal clear that the U.S. is not going to risk a nuclear war over Kursk. And, if the Europeans want to keep feeding Zelensky’s vain obsession of somehow trading some bombed-out square kilometers of trench lines in Kursk — if that much remains of his foothold by the time peace negotiations get started — for Crimea, they can do so on their own cognizance. It’s the Europeans who fueled Putin’s war machine by making their economies dependent on his gas, while President Donald Trump was advising against it. They could hardly come up with artillery shells for Ukraine when U.S. military aid funding was stuck in Congress. If they now choose to let Zelensky lead them by the nose into a reenactment of the Charge of the Light Brigade, while terrifying their populations with the nuclear specter, the U.S. should opt out. Washington can stress to Paris and London that NATO’s Article 5 is triggered to defend members from attack but not to attack Russia. The gallant Ukrainian army has a critical role to play in the future defense of Europe as outlined in Zelensky’s “victory plan,” but not if it gets destroyed in Kursk. Negotiating an acceptable deal with Putin is best accomplished from defensible positions, not from surrounded bunkers on an empty plain. READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: North Korea Is in the Fight Swallowing Eastern Ukraine Piecemeal Has Latin America Become a Base for Iran’s Terrorism? The post Kursk Is Not Worth a Nuclear War appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.