Nuclear war and the moral dilemma of Ukraine

The alarm bell rattled its warning, and Miss Foss, my first-grade teacher, lined us up and herded us into the long, dark basement hallway of Mohawk Elementary School. It was the mid-1960’s, and all of us, kindergartners through sixth-graders, were hustled down the stairs and taught to huddle quietly together against the wall for the “air raid” drill. No one explained at the time whom the enemy might be who could potentially attack us.

Years later, as a 19-year-old teenager, I was an enlisted Army soldier stationed on the border between West and East Germany. My training made it clear the potential enemy was the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries. We studied their vehicles, aircraft, uniforms and tactics, and watched across the border for any signs of impending attack. It was 1981, Ronald Reagan was the US President, and Leonid Brezhnev was in charge of the enemy.

In the early eighties, the Cold War was in full force, and the possibility of nuclear Armageddon was clear to those of us who were stationed on freedom’s frontier. Deterrence was key, and both sides knew that care must be taken so that no mistakes or misunderstandings could accidentally lead to the end of humanity on Earth. Popular culture also recognized the danger a nuclear war posed to humanity. European anti-nuclear activists protested against the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons on NATO soil. The movie, “When the Wind Blows,” (still available on Amazon Prime), portrayed in a dark cartoon what would happen to a kindly, retired British couple as they tried to survive a nuclear exchange between “the powers that be.” These memories stay with you.

Those of us who were in our twenties in the Eighties are now in our sixties in the Twenties, and we are watching with horror as the Russian war on Ukraine unfolds. Now, young (and old) Ukrainians are huddling in basements as sirens sound and bombs actually fall. The unprovoked and immoral invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable, and I am convinced that Russia will ultimately pay the price as its economy time-travels back to 1917. However, it is quite concerning to those of us who grew up with the specter of nuclear annihilation to see how casually the idea of a potential World War III is being discussed in the news media. Today’s popular culture has little context or historical memory of the horror of nuclear warfare.

Ukraine has requested that NATO provide a “No-Fly Zone.” NATO has declined to do so because it would lead to direct war between NATO and Russia. A no-fly zone is not a strictly defensive measure. It requires establishing air superiority or air supremacy to enforce. This in turn requires defeating not just Russian aircraft, but also all enemy short-range air defense (SHORAD), air defense artillery, radars and missile systems on the ground, both inside the no-fly zone and within range of the zone, including on Russian and Belarusian territory. To establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine would require direct combat operations between NATO and Russia. Once combat begins, the escalation to nuclear war would be extremely difficult to avoid.

Putin has gambled that the West still has enough of us left who understand the horrific danger of a nuclear exchange, and he has threatened first-use to deter interference with his illegal invasion. However, there are also many folks today who have had little exposure to the fear of nuclear war. To them, “duck and cover” and air-raid drills are just quaint and silly exercises in the distant past. They are less deterred. It is easier for them to say that we must intervene to stop the senseless killing.

I hear them, but I am concerned that we are witnessing the real-world example of the classic moral dilemma where a trolley is going down the track, and if you do nothing, the 44 million innocent civilians of Ukraine are at risk of being run over; if you intervene and pull the track switch, the trolley will divert to a different track and potentially sacrifice the 7.9 billion people of Earth. There is no easy choice in this dilemma, and we must be thoughtful in our response, as we are once again hostage to the unimaginable consequences of a nuclear exchange.

NATO and the EU’s current answer is to apply economic sanctions, supply defensive weapons and provide humanitarian aid to the people of Ukraine. Our goal is to assist them in their fight against the invading Russian force, but this is not fully satisfying. There is a strong sense of injustice as innocent Ukrainians are killed and displaced from their homes. Their lives do matter. However, our help has to be limited by the realization that Vladimir Putin is ruthless, and he will do anything to maintain power, including the first-use of nuclear weapons. His years of work in the KGB and decades as the dictator of Russia have shaped a bully without a conscience or any moral compass. Therefore, we must be careful dealing with him while he still has nuclear weapons at his command. We cannot project or mirror-image our Western concept of a “rational actor” onto him, as it does not apply.

I am not for appeasement. Russia is now a rogue state like North Korea, and they must be contained by the rest of the civilized world. The failure of Western democracies to act when Russia seized Crimea in 2014 probably contributed to Putin’s calculation that he could also get away with an invasion of Ukraine. This time, however, we have taken strong action with our Allies and partners, and the current economic sanctions are unprecedented in their magnitude. Now we need to allow those sanctions to take effect and break the Russian economy. I fully acknowledge that patience is difficult while Ukrainians continue to fight, suffer and die. You may say it is easy to be an armchair strategist when you are not in harm’s way. But all of us will be in harm’s way if there is a global thermonuclear exchange.

Realistically, it will take months before the people of Russia will feel the pain caused by their dictator’s actions. Over the last century, the Russian people have been no stranger to suffering caused by their government, and once again, their access to truth and reality are severely limited by Putin’s lies, disinformation and State propaganda. There is little hope that their suffering will cause them to rise up and displace Mr. Putin. That said, they are not the target audience for the sanctions.

The target audience of the sanctions is the Russian military leaders, the internal security organization (formerly the KGB), and the corrupt, billionaire oligarchs. These powerful Russian individuals will soon see what Putin has done to their country. With no economy, there can be no military power, and all of these targeted individuals will feel a steep loss of their personal power. We must hope that they will decide their only option is to retire Putin from his position to save the security of their Motherland. It has happened before — google “Nikita Khrushchev.”

Only without Putin can we move forward in finding a way to peacefully coexist. Ukraine’s sovereignty must be restored over all of its territory, the refugees must be allowed to return to their homeland, and Russia must pay reparations to rebuild the buildings, infrastructure and lives it has destroyed in Ukraine. Russia must also pledge to stay within its own borders, instead of trying to restore the lost empire of the Soviet Union. Only then could a post-Putin Russia eventually be allowed back into the community of nations.

Yet, today, Putin remains in power. He is driving the metaphorical trolley. We must remain steadfast and united against his totalitarian, kleptocratic dictatorship, while supporting Ukraine, until Russia is forced to cease fire, withdraw their military forces and seek diplomatic terms of peace. Mr. Putin must be forced to realize that his gamble has failed, and to understand that he will be tried as a war criminal. The dilemma is figuring out how we can reach this goal without blowing up the world.