Ukraine Crisis
Putin Really Could Nuke Us
Americans must come to terms with the reality of a nuclear holocaust
The American media is significantly underplaying the probability of the conflict in Ukraine eventually escalating to nuclear war. I wouldn’t yet call it a likelihood, but it is a possibility — a very real one.
The supposition that nuclear disaster is a far fetched nightmare scenario is based largely on three assumptions:
- Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective in invading Ukraine is to retake control of the former Soviet republic, possibly as the next step in a gradual re-assemblage of the former Soviet Union under his totalitarian rule.
- Putin, like Soviet leaders before him, doesn’t actually want a nuclear conflict. He wants power, the conventional wisdom goes, not mass destruction. What’s the use of being emperor if you’re presiding over a fiefdom in ruins?
- Putin has options. Should his Ukraine incursion prove too costly, either financially or militarily, there are myriad escape hatches through which Putin could either withdraw his troops or negotiate a deal with NATO.
I reject all three assumptions. Here’s why.
It’s not about the former Soviet republic
To me, it appears Putin’s actions since his return to power suggest a goal far bigger than simply reconstituting the Eastern Bloc. His objectives appear ideological, existential even, with his eye trained squarely on the West.
Election meddling. Propaganda peddling. The stoking of racism and xenophobia to exacerbate internal divisions in the most prominent and powerful western democracies. Virtually every move Putin has made over the last decade appears aimed at undoing western democracy and its institutions.
Even his “arrest” of American WNBA star Brittney Griner appears meticulously calculated. It’s no coincidence the first high-profile American hostage since the start of the Ukraine conflict is Black, female, and gay. Putin knows that as time passes, members of the Black and LGBTQ communities will likely grow impatient and will pressure a largely constrained Biden administration to act more aggressively on Griner’s behalf, sowing division among Democratic constituencies in the US.
What if the global outcry against his invasion of Ukraine results in a recommitment to the ideals of democracy across the West? What if Putin suddenly finds himself confronted with a truncated timeframe, drastically reducing his odds of seeing an ideological destruction of the West come to fruition? Would he engineer a pretense to resort to physical destruction, which could be executed in minutes?
This brings us to the fallacy of the assumption that Putin wants to avoid a nuclear showdown.
Putin is no longer a rational actor
UK tabloid The Sun began reporting in November 2020 that Putin had undergone emergency surgery for cancer earlier in February of that year, and was also showing symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease. The story briefly made the rounds on social media before fading quickly.
The Kremlin denied the claims, and they were never reported by US news outlets of record. As you may recall, another big story was dominating American news cycles in November 2020.
Yet, there’s no denying that ever since then, Putin appears to have been operating with a heightened sense of urgency. The cartoonishly long table at which he sits, seemingly miles removed from even his closest lieutenants, may indicate a man consumed by paranoia, as most experts insist. It could also reflect a man dangerously immune-compromised for whom any virus or infection could prove fatal.
If Putin’s time is limited, reassembling the old Soviet Union could be a desperate legacy play from a vain man grappling with mortality. Or it could be a ruse to goad the West into a confrontation that would give him the excuse to go out in a blaze of glory, unleashing upon the Western Hemisphere the full array of nuclear missiles he has spent the better part of two decades accumulating.
As it stands, Russia’s nuclear arsenal is the sole legacy of Putin’s 16-year reign. Thanks to Putin’s kleptocracy, Russia has no money, no industry, rudimentary infrastructure, little in the way of scientific innovation, and little prospect for a more prosperous future. What they do have is the world’s largest reserve of nuclear weapons; greater than that of the US, despite less than half the population and barely a fraction of the wealth.
What good is amassing all the toys if you don’t ever get to play with them?
Moreover, Putin is almost certainly a malignant narcissist, if not a full-blown psychopath. Like most malignant narcissists, Putin probably struggles to imagine a world without him in it. Unlike them, he actually has the means to take the entire world down with him. A terminal Putin baiting the US into a nuclear free-for-all could very well be the despot’s equivalent of suicide by cop.
Putin is now the rat
In an anthology of interviews published in 2000, Putin shared an instructive story from his childhood years. According to Putin, he and his friends used to chase rats around his Leningrad apartment complex with sticks for fun. You know, the stuff completely normal, non-psychotic children do to pass the time. One day, the tables turned:
“Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove it into a corner. It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me. I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was chasing me. It jumped across the landing and down the stairs. Luckily, I was a little faster and I managed to slam the door on its nose.”
Never back an opponent into a corner was the lesson Putin purportedly took from the scare. However, the lesson has apparently dulled with time. Putin did exactly what he swore he’d never do again.
He backed the people of Ukraine into a corner, and rather than succumb to his stick they hurled themselves at his woefully ill-prepared army with the fury of a thousand seas. Reportedly, as the conflict drags on, morale is plummeting among Russian soldiers, many of whom were led to believe they were being sent on a peacekeeping mission.
Additionally, the incursion is rapidly losing its already tenuous support among Russian citizens, particularly the younger and more educated ones not beholden to state media for information. As Russians, grown accustomed to the comforts provided by the West, find themselves faced with a world of worthless currency, limited technology, and a scarcity of basic goods and medical supplies, many have taken to the streets in protest.
Yet, Putin can’t afford to withdraw from Ukraine. A strongman is only as powerful as his mythology. A tail-between-the-legs retreat on the heels of humiliation at the hands of an underarmed and undertrained fighting force would expose Putin as both weak and incompetent. He’d be effectively neutered at home and on the national stage.
Putin is not the stick-wielding boy in this scenario. There’s no door for him to slam. He’s now the rat in the corner. His variation of throwing himself at his assailant could be to unleash the nukes.
Once nuclear weapons are deployed, things will likely escalate quickly. Even if Putin were to limit his initial targets to Europe, the moment a NATO country is attacked, the US will be compelled to respond. As soon as Russia’s detection systems register missiles coming its way, Putin will almost certainly unload on the US with all he has.
To a narcissistic tyrant like Putin, having no world at all is likely far preferable to one where he goes down in history as an abject failure.
What now?
Perhaps the reason the media and political leaders have been so conspicuously silent about the prospects of nuclear holocaust is that there’s really nothing the average citizen can do to prevent or survive one. Still, our proclivity to hide from hard truths is one of the primary reasons America is in its current state.
We’d all do well to prepare ourselves mentally for the news that Russia has nuked Ukraine, which could well signal that we’re days, hours, or perhaps minutes (should Putin simply decide to go scorched earth all at once) from our own nuclear demise.
Bury petty grievances with family and friends, savor the fresh air and the warm sun, and eat that extra slice of pizza.
Revel in the moment, until moments are no more.
