What’s happened during the last thirty years is that Americans stopped worrying about the bomb. They used to duck under school desks, they used to build and hide in shelters, they used to worry about every frown on the face of Russian leaders, but then it stopped.
Did it happen when Khruschev backed off from Cuba and Kennedy asked him to act as if it wasn’t the deal about Turkey nukes, but Russia’s backing off from US resolve? Did it happen as the result of Soviet Collapse? Of Russian failure to respond to Serbia bombing?
Whatever has caused it, the fear of nuclear Armageddon is gone. We are afraid of Trump and Netanyahu, of vaccines and viruses, of chemtrails and migrants, of inflation and housing shortages, but not of a little mushroom cloud growing somewhere on the horizon.
This misplaced fears are surprising, coming from the nation, which actually 1. Used nukes to bomb civilians. 2. Has endless amount of school shootings, which most frequently happened when someone, tired of bullying, takes up a gun and shoots right and left.
What’s there not to understand? Bear-bating is banned, bullying in schools is addressed by the army of psychologists, but bullying of the country with largest nuclear arsenal in the world is fine.
What the hell these psychologists are doing? Can’t they explain to the army of idiots, with which Biden has surrounded himself, to all those Blinkens and Sullivans, that bullying can lead to explosion of violence.
And yet, all we hear from talking heads representing US foreign policy, is that Russia is bluffing. They warn and threaten — no, it is just a bluff. They talk about red lines – -no, Russia fails to observe red lines. They even start destructive wars – no, it is not a big deal, with a few financial packages, we can beat them into submission. Really?
Now, Macron wants to send NATO army into the conflict, now Stoltenberg pushes for destructive weapons to hit Russian cities, now Ukrainians — with the help of NATO weapons, have attacked and destroyed some of Russia’s nuclear installations. The ones that supposed to monitor the possibility of NATO attack.
Again, that makes Russians very nervous and angry, but the standard explanation is the same: nuclear sabre rattling, nuclear blackmail and so on.
When a bullied kid brings a gun into the class, he might back off, or he might shoot into the air as a warning, or he might show the gun to a bully, but the existence of a school is not in doubt. Not so with nukes. There can’t be a warning, can there? If the war starts, it will be the end of it. Is it such a minor thing then, as to be dismissed as some sort of impossible scenario?
Putin conducts nuclear exercises, Putin warns the densely populated areas in Europe, Putin talks about going to heaven as the result of nuclear confrontation — what else does one need?
Knowing Russians, I am extremely certain that they would respond. Sooner or later, but they would. If pushed to the wall, they would hit the NATO country (they might start with some small islands in Atlantic, known as perfidious Albion), but before that, it could be a non-NATO place. That would be a one possible warning before ultimate explosion.
So all these dismissals, mockery and taunting will backfire. As in many other situations – -it will backfire against innocent civilians, first, and then against the whole world.
So is the idiotic over-confidence of Blinken and Co, are such a valuable asset, that we should jeopardize the lives of thousands if not millions, just to let the clown peddle his overconfidence, while playing Neil Young’s songs in Kiev?
And by the way. This stupid over-confidence it fully shared by social media. They highlight the slightest violence anywhere in the world, but try to say that Russians are not joking, this info would be placed somewhere at the bottom of the feed. Bullying is infectious, destructive, and self-destructive. We are just about to learn, how destructive it can be.
Vladimir Golstein is an Associate Professor of Languages at Brown University.