For the first time in a long time, I stayed up most of the night. worrying about nuclear war. It was odd to slip back into that fear like an old coat, a little tight in the shoulders because I’m a bit broader in the beam than I was 30+ years ago, but it still fits, because of course it does.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the invasion of Ukraine was underway yesterday, he leveled a threat against the wider world that left nothing to the imagination: “To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All pertinent decisions have been made. I hope you hear me.”
Meanwhile, Joe Biden shot back that he would “hold Russia accountable.” The details of the plans behind that statement remain murky.
Russia has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons on Earth, with more than 6 000. The US owns approximately 5,600 nuclear arms. As it was years ago, nuclear weapons have the power to destroy all life on Earth many, many more times than they did years ago.
Ukraine, however, has zero. They were left with 3,000 weapons of mass destruction after the fall Soviet Union. But they gave up their arsenal in 1994 for various protection orders from the United States, Great Britain, and the Russian Federation. Watching the images of Kyiv on the news, taking in the panicked traffic, the civilian casualties and the occasional hollow “BOOM” in the background, one must wonder how Ukraine feels about that 1994 agreement and the now-hollow “protections” it was offered. Russian forces are attacking Ukraine from three directions simultaneously, and it is becoming ever-clearer that the US and NATO’s militarism-driven responses — military threats and economic warfare — are not preventing Russia’s advances.
“As Russian forces advanced on Ukraine by land, sea and air, more than 40 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded in fighting on Thursday morning, said Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky,” reports The New York Times. “At least 18 military officials were killed in an attack outside the Black Sea port city of Odessa, where amphibious commandos from the Russian Navy came ashore, according to Sergey Nazarov, an aide to Odessa’s mayor.”
It’s been a strange, almost surreal experience to watch all this unfold. For the last 31 years, it has usually been my country putting hundreds of thousands of troops in harm’s way with dubious intentions in mind. It’s so odd to see another nation do it in broad daylight. completely manufactured evidence, too. (Of course, Russia has also taken some of these actions in the past three decades, but the U.S.’s actions have dominated my own radar.) Putin’s latest maneuvers strike pretty close to home. Perhaps Putin will release a “comedy” video of him looking for Ukraine’s reason to exist under his desk. It’s been done, Vlad.
The outcome is clear, but it’s the nukes that keeps me focused. The cruel geometry of nuclear brinksmanship says that Putin’s decision to rattle his nuclear sword makes nuclear war more likely, just as the Soviet placement of ballistic missiles in Cuba 50 years ago this October (history rhymes again!) This made nuclear war even more likely. It is, in Cold War parlance, a hugely destabilizing move. The situation is getting worse due to the escalating rhetoric from the U.S. as well as NATO’s actions.
There are more than 12 active nuclear power stations in Ukraine, which could be under attack if the attack escalates. The Russian invasion has also broachedThe highly radioactive Chernobyl exclusion zone, scene of the infamous reactor catastrophe, “touching off a battle that risked damaging the cement-encased nuclear reactor that melted down in 1986,” reports the Times. “‘National Guard troops responsible for protecting the storage unit for dangerous radioactive waste are putting up fierce resistance,’ said Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister. Should an artillery shell hit the storage unit, Mr. Herashchenko said, ‘radioactive dust could cover the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and the countries of the European Union.’”
It is difficult to know where to start. This conflict has put mass deployment of disinformationCenter stage, testing the knowledge of even the most seasoned news watchers. There are wheels within wheels within wheelsHere, the U.S. has not been a passive observer of Ukrainian politics. the last couple of decades.
Both sides have argued for the moral high ground by propaganda-happy advocates. Anne Applebaum is one example. The Atlantic describing Ukraine as every inch the American war we should be fighting immediately: “In the centuries-long struggle between autocracy and democracy, between dictatorship and freedom, Ukraine is now the front line — and our front line too.”
It is almost possible to hear the author humming. The Battle Hymn of the Republic as she penned those lines, but for the fact that “pluralist oligarchy” — what Ukraine actually is instead of a democracy — doesn’t rhyme very well with anything.
Nevertheless, many U.S. citizens are right. unsure of what tack to take. For example, Republicans were virulently anti-Soviet/anti-Russia 25 years before I was born, yet with the party and its media megaphones under the fetid sway of a strongman-loving ideologueDonald Trump is all of a sudden forgiving. some of them,Putin is the hero.
The war is still not over. These raggedy-ass tea leaf aren’t good enough for brewing or prognosticating. All I know is that I was eight years old when nuclear war was first introduced to me. The knowledge scared me for my entire life and introduced me the fearful feeling that accompanied every day of my experience with the Cold War, until the fall of Berlin Wall at my 18th Birthday. Like many others, after those intense days, I let the fact that the nuclear threat was still a threat fade from my consciousness. This was beyond foolish: The weapons remained, the threat never went away, and now it’s back in the spotlight — just in time for my daughter to turn eight years old.
We’ve been doing the plague year 1919 since 2020. Since Putin began rolling the tanks, the specter of 1914 has been looming and the U.S. responded with escalation. Now, this morning, it’s 1962, with a U.S. president in his second year and a nuclear threat dropping out of the clear blue sky. I fear that this will take more than 13 working days to resolve. I am afraid of many things. Again.
