Just before Christmas in 2021, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas GahrStøre said “Not to create a more worried Christmas” and proceeded to alert Norway to the potential of “war and confrontation” in Europe concerning Ukraine . Over the past decade, Ukraine and Russia hadcontinued to build up armaments and amass troops along the border, where the danger has been reported on widely.
And, in November 2021, the 56th U.S. Artillery Command was reactivated in Mainz-Kastel, Germany, which we reported on at the time, The Specter is Back . Hypersonic, Dark Eagle missiles were planned for the base amidst statements concerning “all options on the table” and about Ukraine joining NATO .
The base was previously known as the Pershing Missile Headquarters during the first Cold War where an upgrade, from older missiles that were designated by Lockheed Martin, a U.S. weapons manufacturer, as “Peace through Strength,” to the new Pershing II intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).
This move created enormous tension between the two superpowers as they both escalated in 1983 with the NATO exercise Able Archer. Information about the Exercise was not provided to Soviet leaders, who, once the Exercise was underway thought that it was a first strike heading towards the Soviet Union; a very ‘real’ perception that nearly led to an existential conflagration in thermonuclear war.
Tensions eventually cooled bringing about the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987. Instead of a zero-sum game, the Zero-Zero Offer at the time meant both sides would “eliminate their intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles,” a major win for all people, though this did not apply to submarine-based weapons.
Since Maidan (Ukraine) in 2014, the U.S. has discussed fighting and winning a nuclear war, along with engaging in rhetoric and scholarship in public, that occasionally increases and retreats creating existential unpredictability, which is extremely dangerous. For example in 2019, the Pentagon published Nuclear Operations, a document that alarmed nuclear weapons experts due to the intent to use nuclear weapons to “create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability” Earlier in the same year, the United States under President Donald Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty and he has been known to be favorable to using nuclear weapons. In early 2017, The Trump Administration dropped the 0.011 kiloton GBU-43 (20,000 pounds), massive ordinance air blast (MOAB) or the mother of all bombs, on Afghanistan.
The MOAB is one of the largest bombs with a cost of $314 million. This is the first time it was used adding to his record-setting use of munitions on Iraq and Syria for the first part of 2017. Currently, the Federation of American Scientists writes, “If Arms Control Collapses, US and Russian Strategic Nuclear Arsenals Could Double In Size” thereby increasing the risk of nuclear confrontation. After suspension of participation in the nuclear arms agreement, New START, Russia is now moving to place intermediate-range (IRBM) nuclear weapons in Belarus. These missiles could also be nuclear armed in the future.
A “strong NATO is good for Europe; it is also good for the United States. The U.S. military presence in Europe helps to protect Europe, but also helps the United States project power to the Middle East, to Africa,” and then project military clout and political clout in dealing with Russia, was articulated by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a public joint meeting to President Trump in 2018. As tensions grew in 2021 and early 2022, with reports of a possible invasion, Russia, claiming to be on the defensive against NATO expansion and neo-Nazi groups in the east, invaded.
War was raging two months after Norwegian Prime Minister had lamented the possibility during the previous holidays. Conventional war is terrifying enough, however, the war went on to rage around two nuclear power installations. Chernobyl, which is infamous, long inoperable but still a catastrophe, and another at Zaporizhzhia, a place which was mostly unknown until fighting made its way to the site. Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant of its kind in Europe. The outcomes of attacks and explosions with dispersion of radioactivity from Chernobyl and/or meltdowns of reactors at Zaporizhzhia on Ukraine and the surrounding European countries would be unspeakable. This scenario was never supposed to happen concerning atoms for peace that inspired the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) where “it must be humanity’s goal to discover the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man [human beings] shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”
Whenever an important and controversial matter arises in society, and war in Eurasia being one of the most serious, there will be an array of perspectives due to various viewpoints in the public sphere, and more so today due to social media. There are some major perspectives in particular that concerned us in the past year. The first is the lackadaisical responses that many, particularly influencers or intellectuals, gave when the tensions were rising in late 2021 and early 2022, especially when credible reports had shown extreme tensions that had been known for nearly a decade and reported upon. Another is the impracticality of an absolute moral position and how firmly and “morally” it is held – military triumphalism risking nuclear war.
The first is a complicity and complacency present, especially, in those with privilege in society or the societal managers, thought leaders, and influencers, from all sectors in business, education, media, entertainment, and so on, who are more responsible than the regular citizen, but are not morally exceptional. While all have some responsibility in society, even in authoritarian countries, the largely unmoved attitude, sometimes complete hand-waiving, and then a rapid change to war-mongering escalation likely reveals their “community” in which they have status.
This behavior coupled with the lack of understanding in the larger population does not lead to the movements that can help to ease tensions and mold the system towards wide deliberation, resolution, and prevention in the first place. Instead, many influencers are hardly complacent in leading others to indulge in the “rage” of revenge travel, fantasies about aliens and space ships, and all with and a particularly bizarre self-infatuation in social media, which is the greatest record of the general complicity of the good citizen.
The responsibility of public deliberation about, and understanding of, the major issues of the day is a public duty. Not only understanding; action must arise from understanding. We argue that such democratic practice of free speech is the central reason for public space. Such sane action has been effective in the past, particularly with nuclear weapons. At one point, the U.S. and Russia had perhaps 60,000-70,000 weapons on each side, whereas, today the numbers on each side are in the thousands. While the weapons today are more powerful, the reduction was an important development in history.
Early-on in the current war, with a hot war at the Chernobyl site, and eventually at the active nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, hardly an eyebrow was raised except by nuclear experts, some thinkers, and coverage in the mainstream media. No mass movements before the war, nor after, even with such a situation that ought to concern all of us. We had even seen responses from influencers such as “No worries, they [the warring sides] aren’t going to go for nuclear war”, and then immediately ignoring the known fact that the war was already around the two nuclear power installations. This threat continues and is escalating. One wonders at the situation – people ‘just busy with their lives’ cannot be an excuse. Those with influence should be alerting society and engaging in current affairs, not dawdling in obfuscation in order to maintain status or in the very public, passive indulgence of their lives. But then, such is a core feature of modern civilization. For the general populace, left without real analytical input from those who could help, demagogues are happy to step in. ㅡTo be continued in part 2
Alexander Krabbe, M.D. is a pulmonary specialist and senior physician at Havelhöhe Community Hospital in Berlin. He is a peace activist engaging with a broad range of citizens in Europe to discuss critical issues in international relations. He was a citizen journalist at OhmyNews International in Seoul from 2004 to 2009 and is currently a research fellow at the Asia Institute (Berlin/Seoul).
Layne Hartsell, MSc., Ph.D. is a research professor at the Asia Institute in Tokyo and Berlin. Former research professor at Sungkyunkwan University and the Advanced Institute for Nanotechnology and Sookmyung Women’s University in South Korea; at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand; and researcher at the University of Virginia College of Medicine. He is also currently serving as a board member at the Korea IT Times.
