The US and NATO are involved in a very tense situation with Russia. After Russia decided to carry out an unprovoked invasion of a smaller neighbor, NATO has prioritized ensuring Ukraine has the material means to continue to fight for its independence. This decision by NATO has upped the cost for Russia in terms of money, equipment, and dead and crippled Russians. One of the side effects of Russia’s war of choice spinning out of control is that Putin is making something of a hobby of threatening to use nuclear weapons (Putin’s Spokesman Won’t Rule out Using Nukes if Russia’s Existence Is Threatened; NATO Warns China About ‘Blatant Lies,’ Tells Russia to Knock off the ‘Nuclear Saber-Rattling’; Opinion: US and NATO Should Demand Russia Dismantle Tactical Nuke Arsenal in Order to Lift Sanctions). Given Putin’s megalomania and recent erratic behavior, it is only good business for the US defense to have regular contacts with their opposite numbers to ensure that unforeseen events don’t cascade into a nuclear exchange. Indeed, in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a hotline, the so-called “red phone,” was established between Washington and Moscow to prevent miscalculations leading to war.

That system seems to have been deliberately abandoned by the Russians,

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have tried to set up phone calls with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov but the Russians “have so far declined to engage,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby in a statement Wednesday.

The attempted calls by Austin and Milley, which have not previously been reported, come as Russia conducts operations near the borders of NATO members Poland and Romania while the United States and its European allies conduct air-policing operations over the Baltic Sea and pour weapons and equipment into Ukraine by ground transport.

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It remains unclear why Russia’s top generals have refused to hold calls with their U.S. counterparts.

“I suspect that the problem lies with the Russian insistence that this is a ‘special military operation’ and unwillingness to admit the real nature of the war,” said Angela Stent, a Russia scholar at Georgetown University who served as a senior intelligence officer in the Bush administration.

The generals may also be waiting on Putin’s approval to make the calls, given the high stakes of the conflict, and he may not be signing off, Charap said.

The refusal of the Russians to maintain liaison with the United States as this war perks along is bizarre and unprofessional. Russia has been carrying out strikes closer and closer to the Polish border. They are conducting troop maneuvers near the borders of Poland and Romania. It isn’t hard to see how a local incident could mushroom into something much more significant.

What, we may ask, could be the reason. One reason posited in the article is that the Russian military may have been forbidden to take calls because Putin is in a snit. There is another and equally probable reason. The Russian counterparts to Austin and White Rage Boy are Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. These men have not been seen in public since about March 11 (Correlation or Causation? The Ukraine Invasion Has Stalled and Putin’s Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff Have Vanished). So we could very well be in a situation where the top defense and military leadership is in a state of flux and on one wants to take it upon themselves to answer a call from Austin or Milley because a) it would confirm a change in leadership that Putin probably won’t be in the mood to see in the Western press and b) you might make the wrong decision by picking up that phone and end up in a gulag.

No matter the reason, the lack of direct communications increases the risk of Russia’s war with Ukraine spreading, which is something that is not needed right now.