“If the Russians Love Their Children”: The Single Most Important Lesson from the War on Ukraine

“We share the same biology, regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too” — “Russians” by Sting, 1985

By Robert Knox

For all the analysis that we are reading and hearing about why Putin thought his armies would roll over a weaker, neighboring country, we all know there is only one reason why he could be certain that forces mightier than Russia — the United States, and NATO — would allow him to invade and attempt to absorb the county of Ukraine.

That same factor explains why this country hesitates and has so far refused to fly American aircraft to a bordering, but so far militarily uninvolved nation, Poland. Why we have even refused to other NATO member nations fly them to Ukraine for that country’s use in defending its cities from aerial bombing. And, most consequentially for Ukraine’s civilian population, why America and NATO have failed to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to defend it against Russia’s war on civilians.

We know the one-word answer to all of these questions: Nukes.

And while he may possess other despicable terror tactics in his bagel-bag of war-criminal tricks — chemical or biological weapons — the one that enables him to hold to his invasion dreams, despite obvious setbacks on the ground, is that same simple calculus: nuclear weapons. He’s got ’em, and nobody on Planet Earth wants him to use them.

That gives Putin has the power to begin a third world war, a nuclear war, and bring untold devastation to human civilization.

Can there be any more important foreign policy goal for this country — or any other — than to get those weapons out of the hands out of his hands? And out of the grip any dictator who may follow him in his autocratically-inclined nation?

Given the existence of those weapons, Putin can still believe he is playing a strong hand. In Ukraine now, and wherever else the dictator’s imperial longings can cast his hungry eyes.

What’s remarkable about this assertion of power by the Russian dictator is that, if we consider other measures of national strength Russia is not an impressively powerful country.

Let’s look at Russia’s place in the world outside of the nuclear calculus. When we examine the strengths of the world’s most powerful nations, what do we find?

Only in the measure of geographical size — all those underpopulated acres of tundra and waste — is Russia number one. In all other categories of strength and influence, it’s far behind its competitors. Population is the most obvious. India and China have by far the most people; ten times as many as Russia. After those still growing behemoths, come (in ranking order) the US, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, and Bangladesh before we get to Russia, with its estimated 146 million people.

In a contest with any of these countries Russia would begin with a population disadvantage. Indonesia with 278 million people trounces Russia. Bangladesh has more people. The US population is an estimated 334 million. In a face-off with Russia, the US would begin with an advantage of almost 200 million more people.

Of course, population is hardly the only important comparison point. National wealth, economic strength — spending power — underlies military strength. The current estimated gross domestic product (GDP) for the US is $19.485 trillion. Ten countries have more wealth before we reach Russia, in 11th place at $1.578 trillion. This country has 13 times as much wealth as Russia. Following the US in GDP, is China at $19. 4 trillion; then Japan ($4.8); then Germany at 3.6. The come India, the UK, France, Brazil, Italy, and Canada.

A commonly cited comparison point is that Russia has an economy about the size of Texas’s economy. California’s dwarfs it.

Only when it comes military spending is Russia among the leaders, though even in this measurement, US spending is a whole order of magnitude greater. Here are the figures for the countries that spend the highest amounts on their military:

The United States, $778 billion

China, $252 billion [estimated]

India, $72.9 billion

Russia, $61.7 billion

United Kingdom, $59.2 billion

Saudi Arabia, $57.5 billion [estimated]

Germany, $52.8 billion

France, $52.7 billion

It’s interesting to note that European countries, Ukraine’s closer neighbors in this line-up, spend almost as much individually arming themselves as Russia does. The UK spend only $2 billion less than Russia; Germany and France are close behind.

Finally, when it comes to one category, the only category perhaps that matters when we consider the risk of a war of human annihilation do we find Russia at the top. According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/nuclear-weapons-by-country (“Which Countries Have Nuclear Weapons?”) listing, here are the figures.

Russia — 6,257 (1,458 active, 3039 available, 1,760 retired)

United States — 5,550 (1,389 active, 2,361 available, 1,800 retired)

China — 350 available (actively expanding nuclear arsenal)

France — 290 available

United Kingdom — 225 available

Pakistan — 165 available

India — 156 available

Israel — 90 available

North Korea — 40–50 available (estimated)

This list is hardly a qualitative analysis of the destructive potential of each country’s various weapons of mass destruction, but the general conclusion is clear. When it comes to challenging Russia’s barefaced aggression against Ukraine, its European neighbors hesitate to get involved for the same reason we do. Fear of escalation into a nuclear war.

Only one conclusion seems possible. Wars of conquest, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, can be discouraged successfully by alliances such as NATO, but only if the aggressor does not possess the threat of nuclear annihilation.

What all these measures of relative national strength tell us — a screaming truth these days when Russian bombs and missiles are flattening Ukraine’s cities — is that only the world’s failure to achieve a treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons allows the aggression that we are seeing this month in Ukraine to take place.

The particular failure that haunts us now took place in the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the “end of the Cold War,” when a paired down Russia, severed from the captive Soviet Republics, such Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltics, emerged from the rubble of that collapse. Instead of pushing for an international ban of the use of nuclear weapons — no doubt complicated by the possession of these weapons by a range of counties with uneasy if not hostile relations to immediate neighbors — America’s response to the Soviet collapse was to send a phalanx of free-range capitalist theorists to teach Russia how to rearrange its economy in laissez-faire style.

In consequence, daily life in Russia spiraled downward, as its government ran out of money. And as often happens when a society has a legitimate fear for its future, a dictator emerged.

It may be impossible to ban war, or all the sources of conflict and aggression, but it seems clear that the single dominating priority of this, or any, nation in our international relationships should be total nuclear disarmament.