As you age, anniversaries (birthdays, weddings) turn from fun to scary.[1]  In October 1962, the United States discovered that the Soviet Union had begun to place medium-range missiles equipped with nuclear warheads in Cuba.  This marked a dangerous turn in the Cold War.  If the Americans caught you doing it, they were likely to “blow your head clean off.”  The Cuban Missile Crisis followed.  Now, sixty years on, Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin has begun threatening to use nuclear weapons as his war of bad choice against Ukraine goes south. 

            In the view of Walter Russell Mead, Mr. Putin isn’t that hard to understand because he keeps explaining himself.[2]  Putin sees an “Anglo-Saxon” hegemony that has long dominated the rest of the world and which continues to do so today.[3]  Given centuries of unavailing grievances, criticisms, and the use of armed force by everyone from Napoleon to Osama bin Laden, there’s probably something to the idea of Anglo-Saxon hegemony.  Many people around the world, including those within the walls the hegemonic powers, share some version of Putin’s critique.[4]  China’s Zi Jinping may well be among the believers, even if he has a somewhat different plan than does Putin.  In any event, Putin sees Russia as the champion of the vast majority of the world.  He has hoped to turn Russia into the leader of a global coalition that could hold the Anglo-Saxons in check. 

            Part of Putin’s effort at Russian revival has been a sustained effort to reassemble much of the old Soviet Union.  Belarus is a puppet state; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization expresses—among other, competing forces—a Russian determination to build tight links with the Central Asian “stans” that one belonged to Russia; and Putin has repeatedly tried to curtail Ukraine’s independence.  Another part has been his effort to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) through energy policy and meddling in the domestic affairs of European countries. 

            For Putin, the war in Ukraine is going badly, but he could be interpreting the larger context of international relations as tilting in favor of Russia.  Global economic conditions are imposing widespread suffering.  Such suffering often produces political strains, conflict, instability, and second thoughts.[5]  Threatening the use of nuclear weapons could intensify discord in the West.  Still, if Putin was playing a long game then he wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine in the first place. 

            Like Lenin and Hitler, Putin seems to feel a special personal urgency.  He may be “walking with Destiny” toward his vision of the Future, but he has to try to bring it into being in his own lifetime.  Observers might consider the possibility that he is determined to rush events to a conclusion without any regard for the consequences of failure. 

            The issue may not be the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.  It may be the use of the full array against the Anglo-Saxons.  I’d be happy to be wrong. 

[1] For my Mom’s birthday one year, my Dad had a jeweler make a heart-shaped locket surrounded by filigree out of white gold.  Inside was a photograph of their lost daughter.  Still makes me feel very inadequate. 

[2] Walter Russell Mead, “Putin’s Nuclear Threat Is Real,” WSJ, 4 October 2022. 

[3] Although France has joined the resistance to Russian aggression in Ukraine, Putin’s critique of the Anglo-Saxons resembles that of Charles de Gaulle. 

[4] See the litany of carping op-eds in the New York Times and elsewhere upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II. 

[5] To illustrate the availability bias, look at Liz Truss. 

How do Democracy and Authoritarianism compare in addressing long-term and major problems?  Climate change offers itself as one example, crowding to the front, waving its arms, and going “Me, me, call on me!”   

American solipsism might lead people to think that Authoritarianism beats Democracy like a carpet during Spring cleaning.  As one reporter for the New York Times phrased it in July 2022, “the United States’ climate plans collapse[ed] under the opposition of a senator who represents one half of one percent of the population.”[1]  In fact, other democracies have been very aggressive in adopting policies to fight (or just adapt to) climate change. 

On the other side, China has announced “one dramatic climate policy after another.”   In the theory of Innocents Abroad, it can seem that policy is formulated “without the fuss of legislative horse-trading or infighting.”  Really?  China’s government is very much a black box, so it is difficult to tell what goes on inside the government.  The history of the Chinese Communist Party is full of factional disputes over issues of revolutionary theory, but also of substantive policy decisions.[2]  Why would it be different now?  Just because you don’t see the horse-trading or infighting, doesn’t mean that none takes place. 

Another problem arises with the considerable difficulty in implementing those policies.  Beijing doesn’t often lay down the law to provincial leaders.  They seem to have learned their lesson about central planning when carried to an extreme.[3]  Instead, they offer guidance documents or aspirational goals.[4]  Local officials have to figure out what the guidance means and how to achieve the goals, especially when goals conflict. On the one hand, China needs economic growth, so China needs electricity.  On the other hand, Zi Jinping has committed China to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Green technologies aren’t in a position to step in right this instant to power machinery and light cities.  What to do?  No sooner was the ink dry on the Paris Climate Accord than state-owned enterprises and provincial governments forged ahead with the long-standing policy of building coal-fired power plants.[5]  Now Beijing’s pursuit of “zero Covid” have led to years of rolling regional lock-downs that have battered the economy. 

The American climate legislation blocked by “a senator who represents one half of one percent of the population” was President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill (BBB).[6]  That bill included $555 billion for clean energy and climate change provisions.  In August 2022, the “a senator” agreed to a bill that dropped many provisions of BBB, but included $391 billion in spending on energy and climate change.  Leaders of environmental groups lauded the bill as “historic” and “transformative.”

So, if you’re not writing for a 5:00 PM dead-line, maybe democracy still works. 

[1] Max Fisher, “Are Democracies Better or Worse at Handling Big Crises?” NYT, 27 July 2022.  Pedantically, the plan “collapsed” under the opposition from 51 senators representing 44 percent of the population. 

[2] Sure, the losers get sent to a rice paddy until the wheel turns.  I can just see Progressive Democrats slobbering over “Joe Manchin, rice paddy” like Homer Simpson over donuts.    

[3] See, for example, the “Great Leap Forward.”  That caused any number of real crises for China.  Somewhere between 15 and 55 million people died.  Great Leap Forward – Wikipedia 

[4] I once saw a yard sign in Cambridge, MA that read “You can’t hug a child with nuclear arms.” 

[5] Other examples include the failed attempt to reduce steel production and the failed effort to reduce water pollution. 

[6] Lot of Bs there.  At least he’s not Bill Biden.