A CASE FOR WAR AGAINST RUSSIA?
If we let Putin get away with Ukraine, who is going to stop him from taking Moldavia, Lithuania, Georgia, and more? And what’s the use of NATO?
At the beginning of the Cold War in 1947, after WWII, the relationship with the USSR was very much like that of two chess masters pit against each other. Both players using all available brainpower, cunning, and even trickery to defeat his opponent and thus establish himself as the superior of the two, and his opponent as the loser and the inferior player. A win-lose outcome.
However, unlike the chess wizards the consequences for the protagonists of the Cold War, the USSR and the USA, were hugely greater and at times even existential. Thus, the relationship between the free West (NATO) and those imprisoned behind the infamous Iron Curtain (the Warsaw Pact countries) was one of distrust, chicanery, and subterfuge. However, unlike the game of chess challenging the opponent had the potential of triggering an all out nuclear war, one that would inevitably destroy both opponents. A lose-lose outcome, to say the least. Such was the situation in 1947 and such is the situation now, 75 years later.
Has anything really changed? Yes, but not significantly enough. The bottom line continues to be the same and the threat of mutual destruction being the only deterrent, “if you attack me, I’ll do likewise”. It comes down to the deterrence of war with the looming threat of weapons of mass destruction as the Damoclean sword and collateral. Another metaphor that comes to mind is that of the stereotypical duel in a western movie. Both cowboys at a standoff under the midday sun, a bead of sweat hanging from their cocked eyebrows with fear and loathing on their faces and a nervous hand uneasily hanging next to the leather holster, not daring to be the first to draw and pull the trigger. Indeed, despite the disappearance of the Soviet Union, in name and size, and the emergence of a corrupt kleptocracy led by Putin, things have not changed very much. The invasion of Ukraine is the painful evidence and consequence of the ongoing standoff, yet another crisis in the endless Cold War.
Regrettably, this is definitely not the first time that the Cold War unexpectedly turns hot resulting in nuclear standoffs. The most salient of these precarious, if not perilous, moments in history took place in 1962 when a US Air Force’s U2 spy plane took photographs of Russian submarines in the Northern Caribbean on their way to their only Western ally, Cuba. The U2s also spotted Soviet nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles facilities on Castro’s island, only 1825 kilometers (1,134 miles) away from Washington DC, and 140 kilometers (90 miles) from Florida. Consequently, this came to be known as the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis and the last time that the world stood at the verge of an apocalyptic war.
Fortunately, the crisis was defused through negotiations in which the US agreed to remove its nuclear weapons from Turkey (and Italy, but that is disputed) if the Soviet Union, under Nikita Khrushchev, removed all of theirs from Cuba. The deal was successfully brokered, and devastation was avoided at the very last minute. Shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev was deposed by his colleagues in the Kremlin who accused him of incompetence and bringing the world close to nuclear ruin.
One could say that the situation as it stands now in Ukraine is a carbon copy of the Cuban Missile Crisis wherein the new Khrushchev, Vladimir Putin, penetrates a sovereign country, albeit a former Soviet satellite state, and threatens the West with its superior nuclear arsenal should it interfere.
In 1962, WWIII was avoided through heated negotiations between the cautious John Kennedy and the aggressive as well as brash Nikita Khrushchev. To date, negotiations between the principal heads of state, the cautious but resolved Joe Biden and the aggressive modern-day Khrushchev, Putin, have failed. So have all calls for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine by the world community and some members of the UN Security Council. Yet, Putin shows no plans or the intention of yielding one inch.
The question then arises, if we let Putin get away with Ukraine, who is going to stop him from taking Moldavia, Lithuania, Georgia, and more? Has Putin created a case for war against his country? And, perhaps equally significant, if we let Putin imprison Ukraine, what’s the use of NATO?
PS: previously published on March 8 2022
