A Third World War?

Let's help those who are holding it back

It would be bad if your city burned down.  This is a reasonable fear to have.  What to do, then, if your neighbor’s house is on fire?  Surely not blame the fire department for the fire and organize a protest in front of the station to trap the firetrucks inside.  That's no longer fear, but self-destructive panic.  Hysteria makes the city burn down.

It would be bad if there were a third world war.  That is a reasonable fear to have.  By resisting Russia, Ukrainians are making every scenario for such a catastrophe less likely.  On the scale of our world, the Ukrainians are the firemen.  They are keeping the rest of us safe.  It makes no sense to blame them for Russia's invasion, nor to hinder them from doing their job.  That's no longer fear, but self-destructive panic.  Hysteria makes the third world war more likely.

Let's consider, soberly, three familiar scenarios for a third world war: (1) escalation from a conventional war in Europe; (2) escalation from a conventional war in the Pacific; and (3) the spread of nuclear weapons.  In all three cases, Ukrainian resistance makes the rest of us safer.  The Ukrainians are containing the ongoing war in Europe to their own country; they are deterring the war in the Pacific; and they are preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.  These scenarios for a third world war have not played out because Ukrainians take risks.

1.  Europe.  The traditional scenario for a third world war since the 1940s has been a great-power conflict in Europe, resulting from an invasion led from Moscow.  That invasion has taken place.  Thanks to Ukraine, the ongoing war has been restricted to one country, their own.  Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation in 2014, and then on a far larger scale in 2022.  Despite the predictions of almost everyone, Ukraine has resisted Russia's full-scale invasion, thereby keeping the largest war since 1945 contained on its own territory.  This is such a stupendous accomplishment that we tend to overlook it.  This comes at an unimaginable cost for Ukrainians.  Ukraine does depend on weapons supplies from its allies.  Should we cease these, because of our own fears or for some other reason, Ukraine can lose, and the war will very likely expand. 

2. The Pacific.  In the twenty-first century, the main scenario for a a third world war has been a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which provokes an American response.  That invasion has not taken place and likely will not, so long as Ukraine resists and is able to resist.  Whereas the Ukrainians are containing a war in Europe, they are deterring a war in the Pacific.  So long as China sees a successful coalition and meaningful Ukrainian resistance, they are unlikely to undertake a risky offensive in the Pacific.  As Taiwan's leaders keep trying to tell us, a Ukrainian victory is the best way to prevent war in Asia.  As the people most directly at risk, their firm and consistent request to Americans is to arm Ukraine.

3.  Nuclear proliferation. Nuclear war becomes much more likely when more countries have nuclear weapons.  Ukrainian resistance prevents this.  Russia has been blackmailing Ukraine with nuclear war since February 2022.  If the Ukrainians had yielded to this nuclear blackmail and not resisted, then the world would now be covered with nuclear weapons.  The lesson would have been that every country that does not have them must build them in order to resist threats such as Russia's.  But Ukraine did resist.  If we cease to support Ukraine, we not only kill the people who have been making us safe, we create a world in which nuclear weapons spread and nuclear war is much more likely.

The Ukrainians are containing, deterring, and preventing, in the imperfect world that we must live in. The risks are real, but when soberly assessed, without hysteria, we see that supporting Ukraine is the best way to keep them down.

Hysteria leads to the worship of the Big Strong Man and the dream of some easy answer.  The people who spread hysteria about the third world war tend to believe in Big Strong Putin and Big Strong Trump. 

Big Strong Putin talks about nuclear war, therefore we must panic and force the Ukrainians to surrender.  Putin has been talking about nuclear war non-stop for almost three years.  The Russians themselves do not take this seriously.  (One way to tell is that exactly zero Russians have brought back their children back from London, Paris, and New York).  The Kremlin knows that there are American hysterics who will be vulnerable to nuclear rhetoric, and so they keep trying.  But believing in Big Strong Putin is what makes him powerful.  And giving in to Big Strong Putin makes a third world war more likely.

Big Strong Trump spread the fantasy that he could end the Russo-Ukrainian war twenty-four hours after being elected.  This was nonsense, as we have seen.  Trump does not have the power to get the Russians to stop invading, nor does he have the power to get the Ukrainians to stop resisting.  The Russians hope to maneuver Trump into cutting off weapons to Ukraine, which would make the war easier for them, though it would not end it.  To do this, they try to engineer American hysteria about a third world war.  If Trump does cut off weapons deliveries to Ukraine, that would make Ukrainian defeat more likely, which makes a third world war more likely.

The Russo-Ukrainian war is not a television show or a podcast.  It cannot be ended by fake masculinity or real hysteria.  It cannot be ended by listening to the propaganda of those who started it, nor to the promises who promise magical peace.  One side will win and another side will lose.  The Ukrainians have taken a titanically difficult situation and made it as easy as possible for us.  By resisting they have improved our national security in every possible way.  The cost to them on the battlefield, in proportion of lives lost to population, has been about the same as the cost to Americans of both world wars taken together.  And of course to those lives lost on the battlefield must be added tens of thousands of civilians deaths and millions of refugees from Russian occupation. We should appreciate this. 

Precisely because Ukrainians have made matters easy for us, we can take their sacrifice and their suffering for granted.  Ukrainian resistance creates the world in which we can listen to our own fears rather than attend to strategic realities.  Their courage enables us to choose cowardice.  But imposing our hysteria on the courageous people who make us safe is the most dangerous thing we can do.  Nobody in their right mind wants a third world war.  So let's not bring it about by abandoning the people who are holding it back.