“War,” once the theceedides wrote“Is a violent teacher.” But it teaches in strange and terrible ways. It exposes confusion, punish pride and protects the victims without justice. The Greeks knew this. This Shakespeare pretended. And this we are in danger of forgetting once again.
Is NATO-Russia War On the possibility of Ukraine? Not today But is it still possible? Most are ready to accept more than Western leaders.
And if the war comes, it will not come with pomp or strategy. It will not be declared. It will be revealed at once, like all the great tragedies, slowly, then at once. It emerges from misunderstanding, flow and such political theater that disrupts itself as a conscience.
We should start what the tragedies knew. Malevolent Taught that the kings of the kings lead to the collapse of cities. Euripides Warned that the democracy, when the passion and nervousness are swept away, can be careless like the oppressors. Thusindids Cronic the disintegration of norms and restraint in prolonged war time.
Shakespeare showed us a fatal convergence of pride, misunderstanding and political paralysis. In “Choriolanus“The warrior cannot adjust to the world of speech and compromise.”King Lear“Wrong love and grain decisions tore a kingdom.”Macbeth“The ambition overtakes the decision and fulfills luck waste.
All these patterns now bother our world.
Vladimir Putin does not want an open war with NATO. Despite the rhetoric, their purpose remains limited – regional consolidation in eastern Ukraine, political domination in Kiev and erosion of western will. Despite the recent advances, their army has decreased and its elite structures have gone. The number of Russian casualties is staggering more than one lakh and counting. The device is being replaced with imports from North Korea, Iran and China. Putin is not preparing to fight NATO – he is struggling to maintain pressure on Ukraine.
NATO is doing what the Western alliance always perform – to be too neutral, to be very low. We divide Ukraine, train our soldiers, share intelligence information, approve long distance attacks and now flirt openly with deployment of military trainers. France has said that quiet part was loud. F-16s are coming. British supports Ukrainian attacks within Russia and American satellites. After a long and domestic delay, the US has resumed assistance. But there is no strategy – just speed.
It is not a choice but by gravity.
Like Macbeth, NATO is “yet Stepadd” that seems more difficult than going back. We committed to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine, then to ensure its existence. Now, by increment, we have played a role, which is not the role of a militant, but is no longer a beneficiary. And yet, we tell ourselves, keep the line.
But history – especially tragic history – otherwise warns.
In 2022, a Ukrainian air defense missile landed in Poland, killing two civilians. In 2024, Russian drones crossed Romanian airspace. In March 2025, a missile strike near LVIV killed a Polish aid worker. All these were considered as events – explained, managed, defined. But what they were, really, rehearsal.
One day, something will go wrong. A NATO logistics node is hit, a drone crosses a border or a Russian jet falls down near a monitoring platform. And then we are no longer doing theory. Article five of the NATO Treaty will be triggered or applied in the language that demands a reaction. And then the tragic gears will be fully engaged.
This moment makes the moment uniquely dangerous, it is not just a fog of war – it is a fog of politics.
President Trump sees NATO as a bad deal. He has said that America cannot defend those allies who are reduced by their defense spending goals. He has also said, in so many words, that he can let Russia do this.
The preventive depends on reliability, and right now, American reliability is crack.
This does not mean that there will be war. But this means that Putin can begin to believe that he has space to test. He will not do it with tanks, but with subtler tools – cyber operations, dental drone strikes, and sabotage expeditions, all calibrated to slip just below the threshold of NATO’s response. If the alliance flutters, the structure begins to separate. And if it overracts, we are in the grip of growth.
Here is the place where Theceidide speaks the most clearly. In his account of the Peloponesian war, which was not just power – it was more dangerous than misunderstanding, fear and belief that it was more dangerous than retreat. Certainly, the tragic irony is that the war he demanded to avoid the war was made indispensable by his own actions.
“Strong what they can do,” as he said. “Weak victims should do what they should do.” But in war, even strong can suffer from their own confusion. We are not Athens, but neither do we have immunity to the illusions that ruin it.
There are still ways. The first is that we now have: a piece, tied struggle. Ukraine bleeds; Advance in Russia inches; NATO gives weapons and advice, anytime close to the line. But keeps the line. This is the path of inertia – not peace, not war, but something cold and warm at once.
The second is diplomatic resolution. This would mean that a division of Ukraine and the West would be required to give up its rhetoric of the total Ukrainian victory and start talking about balance and realism. This would mean that all mistakes cannot be corrected. The ancestors said it “Sophrosin” – The knowledge born from restraint. But this kind of restraint is in low supply.
The third is fracture. Under Trump, NATO can only form an alliance in the name. NATO can remain, but it may wither. This invites the test – and the test invites failure.
And the fourth growth is – a tragedy, a war that no one wants, but perhaps no one stops, because it was planned, but because it became indispensable only after the final misconception. As hemlet says, “If it is now, ‘Tis is not to come; if it is not to come, it will happen now … readiness is everything.” But readiness is not foresight. And even Hemlet could not stop what happened.
This is the true lesson of the tragedy – not a warning, but a warning.
The tragedy teaches that the greatness without knowledge is destroyed, that power is wasted without restraint. These are not options for delay, disguise and moral theater strategy. NATO and Russia cannot be given for war. But they are now in the tragic position of the actors in a play, which is unwritten, but whose arc is becoming familiar.
Therefore, we should oppose the imagination of control. We should think sadly – not as an excuse for paralysis, but as a summons for vigilance. Shakespeare, Theceedides and Greek tragedies left us a mirror. In this, we look at our ambition and fear – and the cost of not knowing ourselves until the final task.
The NATO-Russia war is still avoidable. But the moment of choice is not infinite. And the stage is being set.
Andrew Latham St. Paul is a professor of international relations at McLester College at Minan, a senior companion of the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, and a non-resident partner in defense priorities at Washington, DC.
