The Russian attack on Ukraine is presenting us with a terrible dilemma. We are subject to two impulses that are difficult to reconcile:
1. We feel deep outrage over Russia’s savage and unjustified attack on its innocent and peaceful neighbor. The barbaric, indiscriminate bombing of civilians, children, pregnant women, schools and hospitals. There are no words to describe Putin’s cruelty.
2. We fear that this conflict could escalate into global nuclear Armageddon.
In other words, there is widespread moral agreement, but disagreement about how to respond.
What Can the Civilized World Do?
Generally agreed upon are: Strong expressions of moral outrage, solidarity with the Ukrainian people, the provision of humanitarian assistance, exposure of Russian lies, hospitality and assistance to the millions of victims and refugees, economic and military aid to Ukraine short of direct NATO-Russia confrontation.
The next step is where divergence arises:
The two key elements of risk assessment are (1) the probability of a risk occurring, and (2) the magnitude of the risk. The greater the magnitude, the lower the probability should be. The probability of humanity committing nuclear suicide is such a risk. This is not a gamble we want to take, no matter how low its probability is.
Beating back the Russian war machine would require more than speaking out and providing hospitality to refugees. It would require waging war against Russia, with possible escalation to nuclear World War Three.
There are hawks and doves. Neo-liberals tend to be more hawkish: They are willing to take more risks than the doves. A dovish example is the FiveThirtyEight podcast of an interview of James M. Acton by Galen Duke. Acton is the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “Russia, Ukraine and the Risk of Nuclear War.”https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/russia-ukraine-and-the-risk-of-nuclear-war/
There are hawks and doves. Neo-liberals tend to be more hawkish: They are willing to take more risks than the doves. A dovish example is the FiveThirtyEight podcast of an interview of James M. Acton by Galen Duke. Acton is the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “Russia, Ukraine and the Risk of Nuclear War.”https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/russia-ukraine-and-the-risk-of-nuclear-war/
Acton presents a game-theoretical metaphor: Think of a chess game, where both sides have a button underneath the chess board, which, if pressed, blows up everything including both contestants. The most desirable outcome of a chess game is one where the winner’s victory is not so overwhelming as to lead either side to press the blow-up button.
Few wars end with one side’s complete annihilation (the US Civil War and the Punic Wars were exceptions). Most wars are won by one side in such a way as to allow the losing side to survive and to recover. And a key to this outcome is that it is based on negotiations. Acton’s greatest fear is that we may push Putin into a corner, in such a way as to make him lose everything he aimed for, and becomes totally humiliated. That would make him desperate and more likely to choose the nuclear option. Like Hitler, Putin’s temperament makes such a scenario more likely than if a more balanced individual were at the Russian helm.
Instead, The present war in Ukraine should end like most previous wars - both the winner and the loser should survive and retain at least some modicum of self-respect
The end of Pax Americana; A New, Multipolar and More dangerous World:
The relatively peaceful and prosperous world order which we have enjoyed since 1945 has been called the Pax Americana. This is now coming to an end. Western-style democracy is under attack on all continents. The world is becoming multi-polar. Some nations are rising meteorically - most notably China. Nuclear weapons have proliferated. States that are economically weak and would otherwise not be a menace thereby become major threats to the world. They include North Korea, Pakistan and soon Iran perhaps. Russia, with nearly half the world’s nuclear weapons, engages in unprovoked genocidal war and threatens to go nuclear. It is no longer possible for the US, or for NATO, or for any other assemblage of countries to guarantee world peace.
The New Reality:
We are likely to return to the sort of balance-of-power world order that prevailed from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to World War One in 1914. The world enjoyed relative peace for a century, maintained through international coalitions and alliances.
Today, the US’ power vis-a-vis the rest of the world is declining. This is inevitable. It is not due to our own weakness, but more to the inevitable rise of other countries. The US must adjust to the fact that it can no longer unilaterally determine the fate of the world. It must, like Britain and other former hegemons, co-exist with rivals, while continuing to defend freedom and democracy.
The world’s hot spots are many, and growing: Ukraine is just one of them. How long will it be before China moves to re-take Taiwan? How long before India and Pakistan exchange volleys of nuclear missiles? How long before North Korea
uses its nuclear arsenal? Or Iran, if and when it acquires one?
The US is not only committed to wage war against Russia the moment that country infringes on one inch of NATO territory, including the half dozen micro-states which have joined that alliance since 1991. It is also committed to defend Taiwan against China, plus Korea, Japan, Australia and a multitude of other countries if they are attacked.
If China were to attempt to retake Taiwan and the US were to intercede militarily, that conflict would make the current Ukrainian war look like a picnic. China is already aligning itself with Russia. In 1997, Britain handed over the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China, after many years of negotiations and compromise. Surely this was far preferable to war, was it not?
What we can and must continue to do:
Obviously, presenting a united front by the West is good. The economic, political and military measures taken so far by the West are commendable. There is no moral equivalency between the West and Russia/China. I am not saying that we should not defend ourselves if we are attacked. I am not advocating isolationism. I am angry with Russia and with its dictator. My immediate impulse is to bomb the Kremlin.
However, at the rational level, it is clear that the West’s response must be tempered.
There are those who clamor that this war must be a “wake-up call” for us. What does this even mean? We already have by far the largest military budget in the world. We already have NATO and several other treaties committing us to defend a myriad of other countries. 80% of the world’s aircraft carriers are ours. Since the end of World War Two, America has been at war for about half of the time. There is only one possible way to be more “awake,” and that is to go to war again, a much bigger war.
America and Europe cannot go down the road of all-out military confrontation with a combination of several gigantic nuclear powers. We cannot pretend to be the protectors of every struggling and vulnerable democracy or minority on the planet. We do not have the power and the resources to do that. Hopefully, we have the ability and the wisdom to deter powerful, dictatorial nuclear countries from overrunning or destroying the free world.
To this end, we must understand that yesterday’s solutions no longer apply. Events such as Chamberlain’s “Peace-in-our-Time” appeasement of Hitler in 1938, or the Korean War in 1950 cannot serve as lessons today. Previous situations have no bearing on present conditions.
In the emerging new Cold War, it is essential that one side - our side - retain its sanity. Cooler heads must prevail. We are blessed with such a President. He has ruled out a direct NATO-Russia war and a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He must continue to do so. Our foreign policy must be more prudent than it has been in the past. For example, admitting nine former Soviet countries into NATO was an error - probably irreversible at this point.
Ukraine, Russia and the West must negotiate. Ukraine will be lucky if it survives as an independent nation. it will have to be neutral and forego NATO membership. It will have to give up some territory, such as the Crimea and the Donbas region. The West will have to repeal the economic sanctions imposed on Russia, which will have to accept Ukraine’s independent existence. The Finland model has clearly been the only workable one from the outset of this conflict.
Hopefully, we are headed for a renewed Cold War, not a hot one. This is likely to become a long game, one which Russia will not win. It will become weaker economically, militarily and politically. It will end up losing, as the Soviet Union lost the Cold War. But escalation into nuclear war would make losers of us all.
