Don't have stupid foreign policy

For an alarming moment reading the Friday editorial in Havre Daily News on Montana politicians bashing the president during the Ukraine crisis, I imagined the United States already at war with Russia. It is true that in times of war American politicians are expected to follow the leader, whether in the case of WWII (with rare exceptions like Montana’s Jeanette Rankin), or our more recent crusade to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Once we are in the fight, a political leader who makes pronouncements along the lines of, Ukraine is a “core interest of Russia,” but not of the United States, must be corrected, but we are not yet at war with Russia, and it would be best to keep it that way.  

While I see no reason to defend any of the political figures mentioned, I do not think those slow to join the war party are the danger. That an empire invades a fledgling democracy is reason for outrage. That the empire in question controls more than enough nuclear weapons to annihilate the population of several worlds, and is ruled by an autocrat who hurls wild accusations, and wilder threats to use those weapons is reason for thought. Our real danger is hot action before cool thought. Already, a member of the House who has achieved some prominence, Rep. Kinzinger, has suggested a “no fly zone” to intercept Russian aircraft entering Ukrainian airspace, a move certain to result in direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian forces. We can be sure Rep. Kinzinger is not the only eager warrior in our government. Many voices have called for isolating Russia’s Putin and treating him as a pariah. Many have also concluded that Mr. Putin is increasingly paranoid. It is right to confront an armed bully. But if the bully is both nuts and capable of pressing a button to annihilate all the world’s kindergartens, threats may not be the best approach.

For 80 years, it has been axiomatic that war between nuclear armed superpowers is unthinkable. Unthinkable, yes, but nuclear war is not at all unimaginable, not at any time since Hiroshima. No, a direct confrontation between nuclear states, particularly the United States and Russia, has been unthinkable because people in the business of planning wars haven’t been able to think of a way to make that war work without bringing both participants to an end. The result of that impasse has been that, while each of those powers has supplied weapons to the other’s adversaries in wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and elsewhere, neither has directly confronted the other, and no superpower has initiated war in Europe where the NATO alliance places nuclear weapons at the disposal of numerous clients.

Until now. Now Putin’s reckless aggression has launched the planet into an unknown space. Some say we have entered the most dangerous period since the Cuban missile crisis 60 years ago, but this may be an underestimate. When Russia placed nuclear weapons in Cuba, the key champions were Nikita Krushchev, a boisterous and reasonable sort, and young John Kennedy. When Kennedy challenged Krushchev, European leaders did not feel compelled, as some have already done in the case of today’s Ukraine war, to remind the world that they too had nuclear weapons. 

For the United States, now is a time to prioritize humanitarian aid to the people of Ukraine, to assure safe haven for refugees fleeing this war, and to do everything in its power to support a negotiated ceasefire. But until someone finds a way to compel nuclear states to fight each other with one arm tied behind their backs, or to eliminate those weapons, the most important thing for the United States to do is to follow the foreign policy dictum of one of our former presidents to, “Don’t do stupid (expletive).”

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Will Rawn of Havre is a retired Montana State Univesrity-Northern professor.