'Further steps are needed, including ending the sole authority for a U.S. president, or any executive of a nuclear weapons state, to decide to launch nuclear weapons.'
On Monday, the Pentagon announced the US will soon begin training the Ukrainian military in using howitzer artillery in an unnamed country. Presumably this will be in a NATO member state. If Russian intelligence found out where, might it attack to stop the howitzers from being deployed against Russian forces in Ukraine? Almost assuredly not, as that would trigger a wider war, invoking NATO's self-defense provision, which would be catastrophic for Russia.
But do we really know where Russia's"red lines" are? Russian President Vladimir Putin may soon be desperate, or at least under serious pressure. The war isn't going as easily as he thought it would, tens of thousands of Russians have been jailed for protesting his abomination, and maybe some in his inner circle might think it time to usher him out of the Kremlin, to a foreign country that would take him and his money.
For now, confidence may be relatively high Russia will not risk a wider war with NATO and the US. However, Putin made a thinly veiled nuclear threat early on in the conflict, and a French official reciprocated. And Russia's nuclear policies include possible first-strike use of short range, tactical nuclear weapons.
Again, the focus should be to end this awful war immediately. Officials of the US, UN, Ukraine, Russia, China or whomever might contribute to diplomatic negotiations to save lives need to make this their top priority. Every day this war continues is a pointless tragedy, especially as the likely outcome is already known—Ukraine will not join NATO , Russia will likely keep Crimea, and some form of independence will be formalized for the two self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas region.
Further steps are needed, including ending the sole authority for a US president, or any executive of a nuclear weapons state, to decide to launch nuclear weapons. Harvard Professor Elaine Scarry'sThermonuclear Monarchy:Choosing Between Democracy and Doom, makes the simple but compelling case that allowing one person to initiate a nuclear war that could end most if not all life on Earth makes a mockery of whatever notions of democracy we think we have attained.
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