Putin’s Nuclear Threats and the Danger of Authoritarians with Nuclear Powers
Putin has now put his nuclear forces on alert, although there is no evidence of any threats to Russia or Russian forces in Ukraine from NATO or nuclear powers. Putin’s first threat was telling other powers to not interfere or else face destruction like the world has never seen. By the way, Russia and Russians would be completely destroyed by a nuclear holocaust, even by the radioactive clouds that will drift over Russia.
Russia was in a great position with Europe highly dependent on its oil and natural gas, and with extreme price rises on top of that. And then, Putin took the mines and industries of Donbas and the sea port and off shore oil rights of southern Ukraine. The wheat and corn crops of Ukraine would add next to nothing to the Russian pocketbooks. Independent of Putin’s current questionable propaganda and threats, his invasion of Ukraine is already an act that proves that he is irrational.
The purpose of this essay is that we must realize that authoritarian rulers are becoming megalomaniacs, and none of them should have sole control of nuclear weapons. When would-be-King of America, Donald Trump, had a great fall in losing a fair and accurate election, he sent all of his horses and all of his men to try absolutely everything to install him as King. He apparently spent every day plotting and raving about how could he lose the election. Fortunately, General MIlley stepped in and said that nobody should launch any nuclear weapons under the direction of Trump without clearing it with him. In our laws, nobody can declare war without Congress. There have to be more preventative steps and oversight in all nuclear countries to stop the whims of megalomaniacs.
Now we have: the man-who-would-be King Trump in America, still trying to fix elections at the state and community levels and blocking Federal safeguards; the man-who-would-be-Czar Vlad the Terrible in Russia, who already has fixed all elections; the man-who-would-be-Emperor Xi in China, installed for life, and doubling his nuclear arsenal over the next decade; the man-who-would-be-Sultan Erdogan in Turkey (non-nuclear); the man-who-would-be-Raj Modi in India; the man-who-would-be-a-god Kim Jung In of North Korea; and the man-who-is-equivalent to Shah of Iran, Ayattolah Khamenei.
It is a shame that we think that nuclear weapons are a stabilizing influence. We now see with Czar Vlad the Terrible that they are not in the “right hands”. We have to progress more toward highly reducing nuclear arsenals, and putting them under strict government controls.
