Bombs
I went to Denison University to study history and political science from 1974 to 1978. The Vietnam War was just ending, but the larger Cold War was at its height. The world was poised on the brink between the nuclear weapons of the United States and the Soviet Union, weapons that could destroy the world several times over. “Moscow in flames, bombs on the way, film at eleven,” was a dark joke with way too much truth to it.
While I learned a lot about the American Constitutional system and the functions of American government, my favorite courses were about what led us to the current crisis of our time. I took “War and Revolution in the Twentieth Century”, “Modern European History”, World Political Geography”, and “History of the Modern Middle East”. But my favorite course was “Problems in American National Security Policy”. The title was too long to explain – so the “shortcut” name for the course was “Bombs 360”.
Cold War
The “Cold” of the Cold War was really more of a goal: that neither the US or the USSR would use nuclear weapons to resolve their conflict. Atomic weapons were used once, against Japan in the actions that ended World War II. The damage done by those two bombs was comparable to the conventional fire bombings of Tokyo, Japan (90,000 killed) or Dresden, Germany (25,000 killed). But Hiroshima (90,000 to 140,000 killed) and Nagasaki (60,000 to 80,000 killed) were qualitatively different. The Tokyo and Dresden attacks took hundreds of bombers and thousands of airmen to cause the devastation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki each required just one plane, with a crew of twelve, and one bomb.
The power of nuclear bombs seemed virtually limitless. By the time I was studying the subject in 1975, the B-52 bombers that took off from nearby Lockbourne Airbase (now Rickenbacker) had four nuclear weapons, each three hundred times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan. Twenty megaton bombs were “standard”, well over a thousand times those first atom bombs. The Soviets even tested a sixty megaton device.
Attack and Counter
Learning about foreign policy in the shadow of nuclear holocaust was all about maneuvering just short of the nuclear threshold. Whatever the Soviet Union and it’s “allies” or the United States and its coalitions did, it couldn’t be an action that would “force” the nuclear hand of the other. The United States tried to develop the “Star Wars” anti-nuclear missile project. It didn’t work out (thirty-five years later we’re still trying to stop “a missile with a missile”) but if it had, then the Soviet Union might be forced into a “first strike” with nuclear weapons. The would either use them before they were blocked, or lose their functionality entirely.
But both the US and the USSR played a worldwide game of conventional, non-nuclear military threats, attacks and feints. The US was involved in the War in Vietnam. The USSR was supplying the North Vietnamese military and fighting the Americans with Soviet pilots flying some North Vietnamese fighters. The USSR invaded Afghanistan. The US supplied the Mujahedeen (Afghan fighters) and ultimately drove the Soviets out. (And yes, some of those Afghans later fought just as hard to throw the US out as well).
Iron Curtain
But the essential flashpoint of the Cold War wasn’t in Southeast Asia, nor even in Central America (Cuba, Nicaragua). Those were the points of harassment, but not the real point of conflict. That was the border between Soviet controlled Eastern Europe and the free nations of the NATO alliance. That’s where the tanks were poised, the fighting planes were circling, and the thousands of American and Soviet troops stared across the barbed wire and walls. Churchill aptly named “the line” the Iron Curtain.
The American, British, French and German troops stood poised to defend. The Soviet tank corps stood ready to roll. World War III often was in the hands of junior officers, who might make the wrong move, and create a crisis that could engulf the world. It was in this era – from 1948 to 1989 — that both the Soviets and the United States and NATO, learned to do “the dance” of Cold War diplomacy.
Reagan
I was never a supporter of Ronald Reagan as President, but there is one issue where he proved to be successful. The Reagan Administration determined that the United States, with a GDP (gross domestic product) of $3 trillion, could outspend the Soviet Union with $1.2 trillion GDP. So we began to build missiles and planes, tanks and aircraft carriers, advanced submarines and possible space weapons. The Soviets might not want to compete economically, but they had little choice but to try to stay “in the game”. After eight years, the financial pressure wrecked the Soviet economy, and caused the fall of the Communist government.
When the Union fell, the Eastern European countries under Soviet control gained independence: Poland, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia), Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, East Germany, and Albania. Several other European states, integrated in the Union itself, broke away to be independent: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine set up their own governments.
So endeth the history lesson.
Putin
The modern day President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, grew up in the Soviet Union as an up-and-coming member of the KGB, the Soviet spy organization. When the Soviet Union fell, Putin “morphed” into a successful politician, using his Intelligence skills and making deals with oligarchs who got rich on the Soviet collapse to gain the Presidency. He has been leading Russia since 1999 (though he installed a “puppet” President in his stead for four years). His goal is to regain the power of the Russian Empire – the Soviet Union.
There are over 100,000 Russian troops on three sides of Ukraine. They are poised to strike, to return Ukraine to the Rodina, the traditional Russian homeland. While there are 170,000 soldiers in the Ukrainian Army, the Russians out-power them in weaponry, technology, and perhaps most importantly, supplies. But make no mistake, an all-out invasion of Ukraine by Russia wouldn’t just be video of tanks streaming towards Kyiv. There would be a fight, an ugly fight, that wouldn’t end when the Russians inevitably took nominal control. The Ukrainians are already prepared for an insurgency after a Russian takeover.
Putin’s Dream
So if Putin is determined to have Ukraine, he will have it. But it will have a cost, not just in Ukraine itself, but in the NATO reaction throughout Europe. Russia is facing huge economic sanctions that could detach them from the world economy. And NATO is making it clear: while Ukraine is not a part of NATO, many of the other former Soviet states are, and NATO will defend them from attack. Need a demonstration of that resolve? 3000 additional US Troops are shipping to Eastern Europe now. They are a “trip-wire”: attack them and “all bets are off”.
Vladimir Putin is a skilled negotiator. It may be that he is simply playing out a “bluff”, that, with the right incentives, can be called off. And the Biden Administration and NATO are giving him both some incentives to back down, and punishments if he chooses not to. In the end, it comes down to whether Putin is “just” looking for an edge, or is determined to fulfill his dream of rebuilding the Russian Empire.
The Cost
But Putin is also aware of why the Soviet Union failed. Russia’s 2021 GDP was $1.7 Trillion. The European Union GDP was $17 Trillion. And the US 2021 GDP, was $23 Trillion (because you want to know: China 2021 GDP $18 Trillion). So while Putin may have more tanks and planes than Ukraine, he is in no position to “win” an economic war with NATO and the US.
It’s not really about what Putin wants – it’s about the resolve of the US and NATO to protect those Eastern European states. And it’s probably not a “blood” issue – it’s an issue of treasure. Will NATO allies will spend enough of their treasure to “buy” the poker game that Putin is playing?
And that’s an old “Cold War” maneuver. Thanks for the solution, Mr. Reagan.
