History is riddled with political egomaniacs that have made idiotic and evil decisions that have led people groups and civilizations to their ruin and extinction. It’s probably a reason pundits quip that the term “politics” is made up of two words: “poly” meaning “many,” and “tics” (ticks) meaning “blood-sucking varmints.”
This past week, superpower politicians are again needlessly ratcheting up fears of nuclear war around the world.
First, Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia since 2012, threatened to use “all forces and means” to defend newly seized territory in Ukraine.
Dr. Pavel Baev, a military researcher who worked for the Soviet defense ministry and now a professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo,said about Putin’s threats and consequential results: “I think it would be prohibitively risky for any commander in chief to give this order because if you give the order and it’s not executed, it backfires.”
As a response, Washington’s Oval Office occupant, Joe Biden, said at a private New York fundraiser on Thursday night, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since [president] Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. … [Putin] is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.” Biden further suggested the threat from Putin is very real exactly “because his military is – you might say – significantly underperforming.”
(For those who might not know, Biden’s reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis was to the 13-day political and military standoff in 1962 when the U.S. discovered that the Soviet Union dispatched nuclear warheads on Communist Cuban soil, just 90-miles from U.S. shores. It boiled the Cold War to its hottest point.)
Biden’s apocalyptic rhetoric definitely didn’t help the U.S. in its position in this global nuclear standoff. In fact, I’d say it further endangered us and others. He needlessly raised anxiety around the world at a private cocktail party! What leader does that?
Is Biden not also adding fuel to the nuclear fire by funding the Ukrainian war to the tune of $54 billion dollars with no known strategy or end in sight? Is he not enabling another Afghanistan-type conflict? Why does the U.S. always need to interfere in others’ foreign wars? Where are the rest of the NATO nations? Is it worth it, Mr. Biden, when you advance the U.S. closer to Armageddon? (There’s wisdom in George Washington’s farewell address of 1796: He “argued for a careful foreign policy of friendly neutrality that would avoid creating implacable enemies or international friendships of dubious value, nor entangle the United States in foreign alliances.”)
Having access to the biggest and best military war machine in the world (the Pentagon), does Biden really have no other option or strategy (militarily or otherwise) than beating Putin on a foreign battlefield that is not our war while the whole world watches? Is there no other diplomatic off ramp to deter and defuse Putin and end this crisis besides more nuclear rhetoric?
Biden again added to the mess last Thursday, saying, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability easily [to use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.” (Again, for those who might not know, the term “Armageddon” comes from the book of Revelation in the Bible and refers to the site or time of a final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil before God’s Day of Judgment.)
I agree with the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, which responded on Friday, “President Biden will never be a great communicator, but his latest riff at a campaign fundraiser on the threat of nuclear Armageddon won’t reassure anyone. He succeeded mainly in demonstrating his own anxiety, which isn’t the right message to send Vladimir Putin or the American people.”
To be sure, Biden’s Armageddon words raised global anxiety all over the world (particularly in Europe), compounded by the additional revelatory news that the feds recently paid $290 million for a drug used to treat radiation sickness in the event of a nuclear emergency.
The Guardian explained, “Any nuclear use in Ukraine would be likely to involve non-strategic, or tactical, weapons with shorter-range delivery systems, and which are usually (but not necessarily) less powerful than strategic arms, though on average they are many times more powerful that the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs.
“The U.S. only has one kind of tactical weapon, the B61 gravity bomb, of which there are about a hundred in Europe and a similar number in the U.S., according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
“FAS estimates Russia has 2,000 tactical weapons, in very many shapes and sizes for use on land, sea and air. The weapons are not deployed on missiles or aircraft, but kept in bunkers in storage sites dotted around Russia. There are 12 national storage sites, known in Russian military parlance as ‘Object S,’ one of which is in Belgorod, right on the Ukrainian border.”
As the Guardian concluded, “According to Eric Schlosser, the author of a book about the nuclear establishment, ‘Command and Control [Nuclear Weapons and the Illusion of Safety],’ the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) conducted another war game in 2019 focused on Russian nuclear use in Ukraine. That war game appears to have been updated, suggesting it is in constant use. The results in 2019 are top secret, but as Schlosser wrote in the Atlantic, one of the participants told him: ‘There were no happy outcomes.'”
Proof that nuclear tensions are rapidly escalating is the expectation that The Doomsday Clock might move even closer to midnight. It was developed in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is a representation of how close humanity is to self-destruction.
The Clock debuted in 1947 at seven minutes to midnight and is reassessed annually in the month of January. Since 2000, it has been at 100 seconds to midnight! How much closer will global politicians bring us to the brink of self-destruction?
Is it a coincidence that, 2000 years ago, Jesus prophesied about the end of the world that His return (second coming) would occur at the brink of human extinction? He foretold, “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive” (Matthew 24:22).
As Christians like America’s founders, my wife, Gena, and I have never put our hope in government but God. We are ultimately comforted in knowing God has our lives and this earth in the palm of His hands, and we hope you believe that, too.
We all need to pray for a reality wake-up call for global politicians that doesn’t include a Doomsday Clock alarm. We need to pray that others around them bring them to their senses, humble themselves and deescalate these crazy nuclear tensions.
Singer superstar Kenny Rogers once wrote in his No. 1 song, “The Gambler”: “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”
Then again, if superpower politicians are ill equipped to handle the most advanced moves and fallout of a global poker game the world has ever seen, it’s probably best for them to just stay away from the poker table completely.
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