TRUMP, PUTIN, AND NUCLEAR WAR

It is a quiet Saturday morning in this Continuing Care Retirement Community, or old people’s home, as I think of it, and a good time to respond to some recent comments.  First, I note with manifest pleasure Jerry Brown’s Trumpesque expression of the blessedness of reading my blog.  All groveling gratefully accepted.  [For those incapable of detecting irony in the absence of emoticons, this was not meant seriously.]

But on to more serious matters.  Anonymous writes as follows:  “I have some disagreements with your view on Trump and Russia that I was wondering if you could address. As you have discussed on here before, Chomsky has argued that the one decent policy to come out of the Trump administration (or sentiment) is Trump's desire to have better relations with Russia. He believes this because, even if Trump's campaign coordinated with the Russians in the 2016 election, such a relationship could avert a nuclear war between the two powers.

My concern with your view is this: even if we assume that Trump himself colluded with the Russian government in 2016 to win the Presidency, and even if Trump himself is under the control of Putin (a worst-case scenario), would this treasonous act not still be somewhat desired so as to avoid the very real threat of a US-Russia war which would result in nuclear catastrophe? Yes, treason is something to be taken seriously even in the formal democracy of the United States, but if this treason resulted in us avoiding a nuclear catastrophe, shouldn't we be at least hesitant to want Trump impeached (assuming that other figures/administrations would simply take the traditional, hostile stance towards Russia)?”

This is a very interesting and rather complex comment and question.  I shall try to address it as clearly as I can. But I should say at the outset that I am hindered by an inability to make really plausible estimates of the probabilities of the various dangers Anonymous refers to.  I cannot speak for Noam, of course, but I am somewhat doubtful that he can do much better in that regard, even though he is more knowledgeable than I.

First of all, if it is true that we now face a very serious threat of an American/Russian nuclear war, and if it is also true that Trump’s stance with regard to Russia materially reduces that threat, then there is a good argument for embracing Trumps’ Russia policy, such as it may be, as a very necessary evil.  A nuclear war would be so terrible that even if the price of avoiding it were the end of the American political system as we know it, or even the end of America’s independence as a nation, that would perhaps be a price worth paying.  I am not sure everyone these days understands just how civilization-endingly terrible a nuclear war would be.  Chomsky, of course, does.

My problem with Chomsky’s point of view, and hence with Anonymous’ question, is that I have serious doubts about the first of the premises and grave doubts, bordering on disbelief, about the second.  Let me take them in turn.

Ever since nuclear weapons were invented, there has been a great risk of accidental or unintended nuclear war and some risk, less I think, that a nuclear armed nation will deliberately initiate a nuclear war.  Short of the nuclear disarmament for which I argued and worked sixty years ago, preventing accidental or unintended nuclear war requires three things:  First, that the weapons systems be stable and well-protected [in hardened silos or on nuclear submarines] so that snap decisions do not have to be made about potential threats under conditions in which mistakes are easily possible;  Second, that each adversary possesses sufficient nuclear weapons to respond with unacceptable force [unacceptable to the opponent] to even a nation-destroying first strike;  and third, that both adversaries [or all, if there are more than two] make their aims and actions unambiguously clear, so that miscalculations, misunderstandings, and battlefield confusion are reduced to an absolute minimum.  These conditions have for the most part been met during the past half century in confrontations between The Soviet Union [afterwards Russia] and America, although there have been several terrifyingly close calls, most notably the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis [in which John F. Kennedy was the principal source of the danger, in my judgment.]  They are, I believe, met today, despite such provocative actions as the placement of weaponry in Eastern Europe by the United States and the annexation of Crimea and attempted annexation of Ukraine by Russia.  [I am not really interested in, and will not discuss, whether any of these actions was, in any sense, “justified.”]  In the absence of irrational or unpredictable actions on the part of the Americans or Russians, I do not think that the danger of nuclear war is greater now than it was five, ten, or fifteen years ago.  [I leave entirely to one side the confrontation between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, which has its own terrors and dangers].

Do I know these judgment to be true?  Good God, no.  How could I?  It is my best guess, and if Chomsky says that I am wrong, well, he may be right, but then again I may be right.

It is the second premise whose dubiousness really seems manifest to me.  Trump clearly has no idea at all what he is doing, either in domestic or in international affairs.  He has nothing remotely akin to a coherent policy, strategy, or point of view regarding Russia, and I see no sign that he will acquire one.  Of one thing I am certain:  characterizing the question as one of “having better relation with Russia” is entirely the wrong way to think about these matters.  International Relations is not relationship counseling.  Avoiding a nuclear war calls not for two men to like one another, or for them to get along, or for them to have “better relations,” and as for the relationship between two countries, all such language drawn from popular talk about interpersonal relationships is utterly irrelevant.  Avoiding a nuclear war between two nations neither of which seeks to have a nuclear war requires clarity, predictability, successful and reliable channels of communication, and rationality.

Putin is, in my utterly amateurish judgment, quite capable of behaving with self-interested rationality on the basis of clear, predictable, reliable channels of communication.  Trump is not, and in my guesstimate is just as likely to react irrationally toward Putin when they are BFFs as when they are sworn enemies.

For what it is worth, I judge that Pence would be more predictable, albeit equally despicable.

For these reasons, I am dubious about Chomsky’s expressed view concerning the relationship between Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia.