GAVEL GAMUT
By Jim Redwine
www.jamesmredwine.com
(Week of 30 September 2024)
MUTUAL MAYHEM
The BBC reports Russia has threatened to respond with nuclear weapons against any country that attacks Russia with conventional weapons if that country is supported by a country with nuclear weapon capacity. In other words, if Ukraine sends missiles supplied by America, Great Britain or France into the heart of Russia, Russia may counter-attack with nuclear arms. This would be a change from the “no first nuclear strike” policy as adhered to by most nuclear-powered countries.
Russia is warning Ukraine and its main sponsor, the United States, that the nearly three-year long war between Ukraine and Russia is nearing a critical mass. Russia is not amused by what it expected to be a cakewalk turning into a catastrophe thanks to our massive military and diplomatic support. Russia’s message is clear; however, its threat may be more of the clanging brass variety since “mutually assured destruction” is not just a talking point. The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost eighty years ago by atomic bombs still brings pause to most rational people. Especially since nuclear weapons can produce far greater destruction and result in much greater radioactive fallout that might last for many years over a wider area than atomic bombs.
Of course, if a country believed its best hope to survive an attack was nuclear retaliation, even if it meant its own possible extinction, nuclear war might be its Faustian Choice. History is replete with irrational decisions made by people who have chanced almost certain self-destruction if they can wreak “revenge” on those who would destroy them. The United States should acknowledge the possibility that Russia, or other countries such as Israel or Iran or North Korea, might see mutual, or even the whole earth, destruction preferable to just its own if it feels such a threat.
Our world appears to be on the cusp of expanded wars in several regions and America is deeply involved in at least two, Ukraine versus Russia and Israel versus Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and Iran. Russia says the nuclear option is a possibility and Israel appears ready to take that same path. The United States is not immune from collateral belligerent fallout if nuclear war is stumbled into by other countries.
World War I began with one assassination and World War II began gradually over several years of small incursions by one country, Hitler’s Germany. World War III is not an impossibility for America no matter how strong and virtuous we see ourselves. We think our international entanglements are well-founded and in the world’s best interests. Of course, Russia, Iran, China, Taiwan, Israel and several other contestants think the same thing. Countries are made up of people and people usually see themselves as more sinned against than sinning. It may be past time for us to look inward before our outward actions bring the opposite from what we have convinced ourselves we are championing.
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