A scenario in which the United States physically intervenes in the Ukraine crisis would prove very risky on all sides.
Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, Russia’s military forces, supported by countries like Belarus, have destroyed thousands of buildings and displaced many more thousands, even millions of citizens, according to a report by Reuters.
At first glance, crises such as this should never happen. However, the United States’ intervention could cause what is happening in Ukraine to spread throughout Europe and displace many more citizens.
Ukraine is not a part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), so whatever conflict Russia engages in the country of Ukraine, should stay there, unless Putin decides to invade a NATO member afterward.
However, if the United States engages in conflict, Russia would likely attempt to retaliate because it shares a maritime border with the U.S. across the Diomede Islands of the Bering Strait.
If Russia strikes the U.S., all other NATO countries would be unwillingly dragged into a war with Russia because of Article 5, a policy which states that an attack on one member of the Organization is an attack against the rest of the countries a part of NATO.
If every country in NATO went to war with Russia, it would cause further displacement, especially in Europe, and force many people to leave their homes and some to be drafted.
The amount of Ukrainian people that have been displaced as of Thursday is at least two million and counting, which is approximately four-and-a-half percent of the total population, not counting people that have been killed in the conflict.
The population of all European NATO countries combined is approximately 576 million, according to countryeconomy.com. This means that, if the U.S. and Russia were to directly engage in conflict, a population of almost 600 million would be facing refugee and resource crises.
Additionally, the combined level of nuclear warheads possessed between NATO and Russia lies at just over 12 thousand with an additional 350 owned by China, who is a close ally of Russia, according to articles on Nationalworld, Swiss Info, and Wikipedia.
Rather than intervening directly, the U.S. and even the rest of the world can help Ukraine by sanctioning Russian oligarchs and keeping borders open to the rest of the world.
