Ukraine and Nuclear War: A Brief Essay on Preventing Armageddon

Give Peace a Chance

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has been largely beaten back. Now is the time to negotiate a settlement. Continued escalation means more death, maiming, trauma, dislocation, and destruction. And the ever-increasing likelihood that hostilities will spiral out of control into a nuclear apocalypse. We will never know if negotiations can succeed unless they are tried.

Yes, it’s great to see an underdog like Ukraine kicking the ass of a bully like Russia. But this is not a Hollywood movie. Many thousands of real people are dying. The fate of the world is at stake.

Most people are ill-informed about the history and possible solutions to this conflict. They hear only pro-war cheerleading from a corporate media that profits from sensationalism and functions--wittingly or unwittingly--as the propaganda arm of the military/industrial complex.

Even so-called liberal outlets, like CNN and MSNBC, produce a steady stream of pro-war talking heads — ex-generals, think-tank military experts, and ex-government officials, many of them on the payroll of the defense industry.

Where are the voices of dissent, of peace, of sanity? Where are Noam Chomsky, Media Benjamin, Norm Solomon, Chris Hedges, and Caitlin Johnstone? Oh, that’s right, there’s no money in airing peace-mongers who question authority. And besides, truth speakers make the corporate media extremely nervous. So they are banned.

Early in the war, negotiations brokered by Turkey between Ukraine and Russia were torpedoed by the U.K. and the U.S. because the U.S. wants to consolidate economic, political, and military power in the region by weakening Russia. The same breed of militaristic fools that brought us Vietnam are now playing Russian roulette — with all of our lives!

Joe Biden recently said that the risk of nuclear Armageddon is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This is in response to Putin’s repeated thinly-veiled threats to use nuclear weapons. “We’ve got a guy I know fairly well,” Biden said, referring to Putin. “He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons."

In 1962, we had a hair-raising close call with annihilation. Russia had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba and the United States demanded that they be removed. It turns out we were even closer to the brink than we realized at the time. Classified documents released decades later show that President Kennedy was being pressured by his generals to take aggressive military action that likely would have resulted in the end of the world as we know it.

Fortunately, global catastrophe was averted through negotiations. President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev remained in contact and negotiated an agreement that prevented a nuclear holocaust.

On October 24, 2022, thirty members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Progressive Caucus signed a letter urging Joe Biden to “pursue direct diplomacy” to seek a negotiated settlement to end the war in Ukraine. The letter acknowledged the difficulties involved, then stated:

….if there is a way to end the war while preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America’s responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue to support such a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, reckless pro-war forces in the Democratic Party pressured progresives into retracting the letter the next day.

A negotiated solution is absolutely necessary. The alternative is horrific. As former war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Chris Hedges, states:

I have covered enough wars to know that once you open that Pandora’s box, the many evils that pour out are beyond anyone’s control. War accelerates the whirlwind of industrial killing. The longer any war continues, the closer and closer each side comes to self-annihilation. Unless it is stopped, the proxy war between Russia and the U.S. in Ukraine all but guarantees direct confrontation with Russia and, with it, the very real possibility of nuclear war.

To learn about stopping the bloodshed and preventing Armageddon, go to: Defuse Nuclear War:

https://defusenuclearwar.org/

Or to Code Pink:

https://www.codepink.org/nonoflyzone?recruiter_id=381470

Or watch Medea Benjamin’s 18-minute video about how to end the warin Ukraine. https://youtu.be/TRxcGD41Ol8

Or watch Caitlin Johnstone’s emotionally gripping four-minute video, To Future Generations, If there are Future Generations.

Anti-war movements have stopped other wars and we can stop this one.

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