Dr. Strangelove
If you are surprised by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine then you haven’t been paying attention. It’s what Putin does. For example, Putin attacked my own village in Southern England with a binary nerve agent known as Novichok in a failed effort to murder former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal.
It was a case of bringing a crane to lift a pebble. He could have achieved exactly the same thing cheaply and — here’s the point — with a far greater chance of anonymous success using conventional weapons and means. Instead he took an enormously stupid risk that very nearly caused a war and exposed him as the murderer. Why?
I cannot think of any reason other than Putin wanted to get caught. He loves being evil and he loves being known as the source of evil. The worst part is there doesn’t appear to be any practical limit to how far he’s willing to go in his pursuit of that perception. He also knows his weak protestations of innocence are only believed by fools, that no one but an idiot would think he’s in Ukraine as a peacekeeping exercise. It’s what you might call overreach sprinkled with implausible deniability.
In short it’s Richard Nixon’s “Madman Theory” turned on its head. Nixon made crazy talk about “dropping the big one” on Hanoi, with the inevitable effect that the Vietcong and, more importantly, the Soviets came to believe he just might be crazy enough to do it. Putin does the crazy stuff up front and shocks the world into silence.
I wish I had good news to bring you, brothers and sisters, but I don’t. Those of us old enough to remember the 70s and 80s, or were alive when Kennedy and Kruschev faced off over Cuba, recall the sum of all our fears: the madman with nukes. The Dr. Strangelove scenario. What do we do when the inevitable happens, when a narcissist and thrill-seeking psychopath gets his hands on nuclear weapons? Are we about to find out? Perhaps.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expresses bitterness that he is left to fight off Putin’s considerable forces on his own. What he may or may not be willing to admit is his allies are afraid to intervene. France, Germany and the United Kingdom appear to understand what Zelenskyy does not, and are unwilling to gamble their continued existence on rescuing Ukraine. It may be why no one in NATO has ever seriously contemplated admitting Ukraine as a member. Had we done so we would be treaty-bound to come to Zelenskyy’s military defense.
Instead, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and other NATO allies rely on sanctions, hoping that Putin isn’t crazy enough to lob nukes our way for doing so. Russian oligarchs are hanging on for dear life, like first class ticket holders on a passenger plane with a suicidal pilot. I can’t help but wonder how many of them wish that Vladimir Putin would just drop dead. Probably all.
Putin is only 69 and in notoriously good health. Our only saving grace right now is his hope to restore Russia to his idea of the “glory days” of Stalin’s Soviet Union. He’ll have to avoid nuclear combat to realize that dream.
A video of a tank flying what appears to be the Soviet Union flag while reportedly driving along the Dnieper river has been shared on social media. Putin’s idea? Perhaps not, but I doubt he’d discourage it. Whatever happens next, no one can deny it, we live in interesting times. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.