In invading Ukraine, Russia acted in a way that few in the West predicted. Intelligence agencies did warn of Russian troop movements on the Ukrainian border in the weeks leading up to the attack, and a general wariness toward Russia has been prevalent among Western leaders for years. But few expected an outright invasion in early 2022, and seemingly little preparation was made for such an eventuality.

It is the macroeconomic course of Western nations, and above all the United States, that has become the root cause of most of the current problems.

During an interview with the BBC in 1959, Bertrand Russell was asked about his efforts campaigning for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Some things, I think, are self-evident, and the desirability of avoiding a nuclear holocaust is one of them. Advocating for the elimination of genocidal weaponry should require very little further justification, but Russell was courteous and responded by saying, “I can’t bear the thought of many hundreds of millions of people dying in agony, only and solely because the rulers of the world are stupid and wicked.”

Blaming foreign actors for the choices your voters make is simply too convenient

We may never know who sabotaged Nordstream 2. But it wasn’t the first, nor likely the last casualty of such fierce geopolitical conflict.

Bill Clinton’s wholesale rejection of his predecessor’s Russia policy laid the groundwork for the current crisis between Russia and the West.

On the 2020 campaign trail, Joe Biden said the U.S. should never be the first to use nuclear weapons. “There is no first use doctrine we should be pushing,” he said. But a new administration review has reiterated the long-term policy that the U.S. will launch nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear attacks. It once again underscores the power of the military-industrial-congressional complex to maintain the status quo, even when it poses civilization-ending dangers.

On October 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would not use nuclear weapons; on the same day, US President Joe Biden said he would.

Jake Sullivan has had confidential discussions with Russian counterparts amid concerns over escalation, nuclear threats

Subsequent efforts to cut arsenals or keep weapons from ‘bad guys’ have inured the public from the real danger: the nukes themselves.