Kyiv is once again under threat from Russian missiles as Vladimir Putin claims to be seeking out Ukrainian "decision-making centers" to target following the use of new US and European arms on Russian territory.
It follows weeks of the war ramping up in rhetoric and fighting, as the long winter descends along the relatively stagnant eastern front.
Despite the difficulty of fighting in the conditions, both sides are attempting to reshape the war's momentum.
One of the primary reasons: the re-election of one-time US president Donald Trump and how that influences the future of the war.
Speaking to 360info's Leave it To The Experts, Professor James Der Derian, the Director of the Centre for International Security Studies at The University of Sydney, believes Trump's election heralds a new phase in the ongoing war for Ukrainian territory.
"I think it's the beginning of the end of the war," Professor Der Derian said.
"Both sides realize the gameplan is going to change with the regime change in the United States. Trump does need a win immediately. He's billed this as one of his strong suits, personal transactional foreign policy."
Trump campaigned heavily on his claim that he would end the war in Ukraine in "one day".
However, as opposed to preparing for peace, Trump's election win has triggered an enormous uptick in fighting as Ukraine's use of US and European weaponry for the first time is being met with new and experimental weapons from the Russian military. The uptick can be explained in part by both sides pushing for momentum on the battlefield, giving them the imperative to frame any peace deal that might be tabled with Trump's return to the White House.
Putin, for his part, is attempting to play to Trump's ego via the press, calling him a "real man" after surviving his assassination attempt on the campaign trail. On Trump's approach to the war in Ukraine, the Russian leader said"
"As far as I can imagine, the newly elected president is an intelligent and already quite experienced person. I think he will find a solution," Putin said.
According to Der Derian, the Trump card opens the conflict to more risky maneuvres, with the use of nuclear weapons once again on the table.
"I think this is going to be why we're going to see a compressed amount of violence in a short spell between now and January and each side trying to regain some territory, and possibly, negate the potential gains of being in North Korea into the conflict.
"I'm more concerned now than I was perhaps at any moment. The last time it looked like Russia was on its heels and they threatened to use tactical nuclear warheads, the US issued a very, very strong stern warning about that use."
Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, retired Australian major general Mick Ryan claims that Putin's use of nuclear rhetoric has an audience of one: US President Joe Biden.
"By rattling the nuclear saber, Putin has deterred the US from providing enough weapons to provide a decisive edge to Ukraine's military, and he has ensured NATO has not escalated the conflict," Ryan wrote.
However, one of the primary reasons our political leaders appear to fail in tempering the nuclear threat is their inability to learn from history.
The calculated nuclear threat, the isolationist reflex of the United States and the willingness of European leaders to placate authoritarians in the quest for a compromised peace, echo the lessons of the 20th century, where few have learned from of the Cold War or the two World Wars that preceded it.
At the start of the year, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the timekeepers of the Doomsday Clock, recorded the world at 90 seconds to midnight, claiming that "ominous trends continue to point the world toward global catastrophe."
The crossover experiences from other precarious nuclear moments, such as the 1983 Able Archer scare or the Cuban Missile Crisis, are all too familiar to today's leaders, with some concerned we could sleepwalk into a nuclear war.
Already, Scandinavian nations have asked their citizens to prepare food and water supplies to prepare for the potential of war or another "unexpected crisis".
According to Der Derian, "History is our most important laboratory here for understanding how people stumble into war."
As technology advances, the next age of weaponry will likely develop with artificial intelligence and potentially quantum computing at its core.
Der Derian believes we must establish the guardrails for these weapons to ensure the way the war in Ukraine ends does not establish the foundation of the next one.
"One of the problems of the first two quantum revolutions is we weren't really ready for the geopolitical implications," he said.
"Einstein famously said, ‘atomic weapons changed everything except our ways of thinking.' So when I talk about quantum, I'm talking about not just simply the technological disruptions, the geopolitical implications, but how our ways of thinking have to change."
"My greatest fear is that if you put all these missiles on the borders, you have faster delivery systems, you have quicker response times…
"[US President Ronald] Reagan was complaining about having maybe six minutes to make a decision back in the 80's. Now we're lucky for 30 seconds, so that's the sobering question that we have to face.
(This article was originally published under Creative Commons by 360info)
