Threats to use nuclear weapons are serious when they come from the mouth of a dictator. But nuclear weapons ultimately pose a blowback effect that even the most obdurate of war hawks should consider. No fallout cloud of cesium-134 and cesium-13, strontium-90, and iodine-131 remains local. Winds carry those radioactive isotopes across country borders, even across the planet as the 1986 Chernobyl radiation patterns reveal.
The prevailing wind systems over Moscow are west-southwest, changing between the two directions seasonally. And occasionally, those winds shift to south and even southeast depending upon local Highs and Lows. (Wind directions are designated by source) In 1986 the Ukrainian nuclear disaster’s radiation plume reached Moscow, where soils still retain its radioactive signature. Even a dictator bent on regional domination can’t stop the willy-nilly spread of carcinogenic byproducts of nuclear reactions. Personally, I fear as much for the innocent people of Russia as I fear for the innocent people in the threatened West. No innocent child needs to die from radiation poisoning.
Sweden, now concerned that Moscow’s leader poses a threat to NATO countries, has warned its citizens to make preparations for an attack. Southern Sweden lies west of Moscow, as does northern UK. A nuclear strike on Sweden or the UK is likely to send plumes of radioactive material cascading onto Moscow. That means a strike on Sweden and the UK is a threat to Russians as it is a threat to the Swedes and English. Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin still voices nuclear threats that his media sycophants echo, even to the extent of laughing on pundit shows about nuking NATO countries that, by the way, have their own nuclear weapons.
There’s Just No Talking to Dictators
Russia suffered greatly when Hitler made his ill-considered attempt to attack the Soviets during World War II, but Germany suffered, also, losing hundreds of thousands in battles like the failed attempt to capture Stalingrad. On January 31, 1943, the German General Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet army along with 91,000 men and 24 generals. Seeing tremendous losses of German soldiers with no gains, Paulus had requested permission from Hitler to withdraw his men from Stalingrad, but Hitler refused, insisting that the Sixth Army fight until death. Paulus wasn’t unique among Hitler’s generals in stating opposition to his plans; but most feared saying anything that Hitler might construe as treasonous, and Hitler insisted that troops under Paulus continue fighting—to the death.
I suppose there are Russian military leaders who recognize the needless loss of life (currently about 30,000 Russian dead and wounded per month) in Ukraine but are too afraid of Putin to state their opposition as Paulus did when he asked permission to retreat. In fact, fear of Putin seems to permeate many Russians as YouTube man-on-the-street interviews anecdotally suggest. Interviewees decline to voice a negative opinion lest the police arrest them—or worse. A beyond-coincidental number of Russians have fallen out of open windows to their deaths after voicing their opposition. The latest death occurred when Vladimir Shklyarov, a well-known ballet star, fell from a fifth floor.
The expanding Russian graveyards seem to have no effect on Putin whose soldiers seem to come from territories outside Moscow where indifferent and enthusiastic pundits push for nuclear war. Absorbed as he is by conquest, Putin has invited North Koreans to join the war, where they have become his new supply of canon fodder like the Romanian soldiers who joined Hitler’s battle in Stalingrad.
Is Putin a modern analog of Hitler? Why is it so important to Russia’s leader to sacrifice so many Russians to a cause they probably don’t support, one that can best be described as Slavs killing Slavs? Why does he threaten his own people with potential radiation poisoning?
Is There an Analog of an Analog in Iran’s Leader?
About the only way to stop a dictator is to convince him that losses are untenable and that prudence lies in cessation of hostilities—for his own good. That’s a tough row to hoe. Dictators are entrenched in their offices, and raising one’s head above the trench is hazardous as many Central and South American politicians have discovered to their detriment. Thus, dictators surround themselves with a loyal cohortes praetoriae, or Praetorian Guards. Vladimir Putin and Ali Hosseini Khamenei probably don’t have to worry about suffering the fate of Caligula who was killed by his protective force in 41 BC. Modern tech makes secret plotting hazardous for would be assassins. It’s the same tech that makes everyday Russians afraid to speak their minds and that make chances for coups in both countries negligible. Russians and Iranians seem to have no option for a peace-loving leader. In Russia in particular, no internal pressure will change the way political winds blow. But in Iran, a different and external pressure might effect a change.
There’s no parallel between Ukraine’s and Israel’s ability to degrade the power of the enemy. Russian military might is in practical terms in endless supply in a country with millions of young people to sacrifice in a neighboring land. But Iran isn’t next to Israel, and it is not comparable in military might as Israel’s recent attacks reveal. Iran lost key defensive military systems, making it vulnerable to any future attack Israelis decide to perpetrate. Is the supreme leader paying attention? There’s a chance he’s either not paying attention to his degraded defense systems or not being told the truth by loyal and fearful followers. Even Iran’s foolish proxies have been hit hard. This week Israelis raided an underground missile factory on the Syrian-Lebanese border, and previous attacks by Israelis have struck Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Will the Iranian leader, who tossed his lot in with the now severely stressed Russian military suddenly realize that things aren’t going his way? Certainly, the Russians don’t have many defense systems to spare at this time.
Add into the Mix an Incompetent American President
Like Neville Chamberlain, Obama and Biden sought appeasement over action and deterence, and Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan added fuel to the fires of aggression burning in both Putin and Khamenei. Recently, Biden has, in okaying missile attacks on Russia, come late to the party of deterrence. If Ukraine had those missiles before the invasion, say back in the Obama years, Putin might have hesitated to invade. Similarly, had Biden imposed sanctions on Khamenei’s Iran and not freed up billions they could use for weapons, the Imam wouldn’t have been able to fund Hezbollah and the Houthis. So, now both Russia and Iran pose greater threats to world stability. Putin used a medium range ballistic missile, and Iran has said it will speed up its nuclear program.
The Winds of Change
The newly reelected President has a problem not of his making to solve. Did Biden throw fuel on the Ukrainian fire to thwart Trump from ending a conflict that could blow over every nation in a world war? Is Biden’s legacy going to be WWIII?
Should Putin and Khamenei pay attention to meteorological science? Winds are only sometimes predictable. Yes there are prevailing wind systems, but locally, differences in atmospheric pressure can generate storms with unpredictable tracks. Just as winds are caused by pressure differences, so pressures not foreseen in international politics, like Trump’s election, could mean a wind shift. As differences in atmospheric pressure lessen, gales become breezes.
History tells of many breezes turned into gales, but it also tells of gales turned to breezes. Both gales and breezes are short-lived phenomena, indicating that pressure differences between one area and another are common but variable. And there is another condition, the calm that is another short-lived phenomenon, one seen over both land and sea when no local pressure differences occur.
Can the Trump Administration achieve a world calm in spite of the pressures imposed by the past four years of incompetence? Hard to predict. No doubt predicting physical phenomena is easier than predicting human phenomena. The relative calm before Biden took office did not take long to disrupt. It might take considerably longer than four years to quiet the winds generated in the last four years.
But if the Trump Administration can quash the pressure Putin feels to bomb neighboring NATO countries, the people of Moscow won’t have to fear radioactive fallout in western winds.
The prevailing wind systems over Moscow are west-southwest, changing between the two directions seasonally. And occasionally, those winds shift to south and even southeast depending upon local Highs and Lows. (Wind directions are designated by source) In 1986 the Ukrainian nuclear disaster’s radiation plume reached Moscow, where soils still retain its radioactive signature. Even a dictator bent on regional domination can’t stop the willy-nilly spread of carcinogenic byproducts of nuclear reactions. Personally, I fear as much for the innocent people of Russia as I fear for the innocent people in the threatened West. No innocent child needs to die from radiation poisoning.
Sweden, now concerned that Moscow’s leader poses a threat to NATO countries, has warned its citizens to make preparations for an attack. Southern Sweden lies west of Moscow, as does northern UK. A nuclear strike on Sweden or the UK is likely to send plumes of radioactive material cascading onto Moscow. That means a strike on Sweden and the UK is a threat to Russians as it is a threat to the Swedes and English. Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin still voices nuclear threats that his media sycophants echo, even to the extent of laughing on pundit shows about nuking NATO countries that, by the way, have their own nuclear weapons.
There’s Just No Talking to Dictators
Russia suffered greatly when Hitler made his ill-considered attempt to attack the Soviets during World War II, but Germany suffered, also, losing hundreds of thousands in battles like the failed attempt to capture Stalingrad. On January 31, 1943, the German General Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet army along with 91,000 men and 24 generals. Seeing tremendous losses of German soldiers with no gains, Paulus had requested permission from Hitler to withdraw his men from Stalingrad, but Hitler refused, insisting that the Sixth Army fight until death. Paulus wasn’t unique among Hitler’s generals in stating opposition to his plans; but most feared saying anything that Hitler might construe as treasonous, and Hitler insisted that troops under Paulus continue fighting—to the death.
I suppose there are Russian military leaders who recognize the needless loss of life (currently about 30,000 Russian dead and wounded per month) in Ukraine but are too afraid of Putin to state their opposition as Paulus did when he asked permission to retreat. In fact, fear of Putin seems to permeate many Russians as YouTube man-on-the-street interviews anecdotally suggest. Interviewees decline to voice a negative opinion lest the police arrest them—or worse. A beyond-coincidental number of Russians have fallen out of open windows to their deaths after voicing their opposition. The latest death occurred when Vladimir Shklyarov, a well-known ballet star, fell from a fifth floor.
The expanding Russian graveyards seem to have no effect on Putin whose soldiers seem to come from territories outside Moscow where indifferent and enthusiastic pundits push for nuclear war. Absorbed as he is by conquest, Putin has invited North Koreans to join the war, where they have become his new supply of canon fodder like the Romanian soldiers who joined Hitler’s battle in Stalingrad.
Is Putin a modern analog of Hitler? Why is it so important to Russia’s leader to sacrifice so many Russians to a cause they probably don’t support, one that can best be described as Slavs killing Slavs? Why does he threaten his own people with potential radiation poisoning?
Is There an Analog of an Analog in Iran’s Leader?
About the only way to stop a dictator is to convince him that losses are untenable and that prudence lies in cessation of hostilities—for his own good. That’s a tough row to hoe. Dictators are entrenched in their offices, and raising one’s head above the trench is hazardous as many Central and South American politicians have discovered to their detriment. Thus, dictators surround themselves with a loyal cohortes praetoriae, or Praetorian Guards. Vladimir Putin and Ali Hosseini Khamenei probably don’t have to worry about suffering the fate of Caligula who was killed by his protective force in 41 BC. Modern tech makes secret plotting hazardous for would be assassins. It’s the same tech that makes everyday Russians afraid to speak their minds and that make chances for coups in both countries negligible. Russians and Iranians seem to have no option for a peace-loving leader. In Russia in particular, no internal pressure will change the way political winds blow. But in Iran, a different and external pressure might effect a change.
There’s no parallel between Ukraine’s and Israel’s ability to degrade the power of the enemy. Russian military might is in practical terms in endless supply in a country with millions of young people to sacrifice in a neighboring land. But Iran isn’t next to Israel, and it is not comparable in military might as Israel’s recent attacks reveal. Iran lost key defensive military systems, making it vulnerable to any future attack Israelis decide to perpetrate. Is the supreme leader paying attention? There’s a chance he’s either not paying attention to his degraded defense systems or not being told the truth by loyal and fearful followers. Even Iran’s foolish proxies have been hit hard. This week Israelis raided an underground missile factory on the Syrian-Lebanese border, and previous attacks by Israelis have struck Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Will the Iranian leader, who tossed his lot in with the now severely stressed Russian military suddenly realize that things aren’t going his way? Certainly, the Russians don’t have many defense systems to spare at this time.
Add into the Mix an Incompetent American President
Like Neville Chamberlain, Obama and Biden sought appeasement over action and deterence, and Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan added fuel to the fires of aggression burning in both Putin and Khamenei. Recently, Biden has, in okaying missile attacks on Russia, come late to the party of deterrence. If Ukraine had those missiles before the invasion, say back in the Obama years, Putin might have hesitated to invade. Similarly, had Biden imposed sanctions on Khamenei’s Iran and not freed up billions they could use for weapons, the Imam wouldn’t have been able to fund Hezbollah and the Houthis. So, now both Russia and Iran pose greater threats to world stability. Putin used a medium range ballistic missile, and Iran has said it will speed up its nuclear program.
The Winds of Change
The newly reelected President has a problem not of his making to solve. Did Biden throw fuel on the Ukrainian fire to thwart Trump from ending a conflict that could blow over every nation in a world war? Is Biden’s legacy going to be WWIII?
Should Putin and Khamenei pay attention to meteorological science? Winds are only sometimes predictable. Yes there are prevailing wind systems, but locally, differences in atmospheric pressure can generate storms with unpredictable tracks. Just as winds are caused by pressure differences, so pressures not foreseen in international politics, like Trump’s election, could mean a wind shift. As differences in atmospheric pressure lessen, gales become breezes.
History tells of many breezes turned into gales, but it also tells of gales turned to breezes. Both gales and breezes are short-lived phenomena, indicating that pressure differences between one area and another are common but variable. And there is another condition, the calm that is another short-lived phenomenon, one seen over both land and sea when no local pressure differences occur.
Can the Trump Administration achieve a world calm in spite of the pressures imposed by the past four years of incompetence? Hard to predict. No doubt predicting physical phenomena is easier than predicting human phenomena. The relative calm before Biden took office did not take long to disrupt. It might take considerably longer than four years to quiet the winds generated in the last four years.
But if the Trump Administration can quash the pressure Putin feels to bomb neighboring NATO countries, the people of Moscow won’t have to fear radioactive fallout in western winds.
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