Back when I was a kid in Iowa, my brother-in-law built a bomb shelter in his backyard. It was the height of the Cold War, and people were scared, though looking back, I doubt that the Russians would have wasted an atomic bomb on Iowa. But fear was real, and it was a dangerous time.
Today just might be worse, more dangerous for several reasons, especially since people here and abroad have long been accustomed to a world peace that, however fragile and broken by regional wars, has held together forever in their memory. Today’s protagonists are less deliberate and less cautious relative to those of the Cold War and they have not experienced the horrors of World War II.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump just might bomb us into a worldwide conflict and provoke the use of nuclear weapons for the first time since Hiroshima. This is not hyperbole but a reasonable appraisal given their egos and unhinged behavior. Putin, a former KGB agent, is still fighting the Cold War and trying to resurrect the Soviet Union if not the old Russian Empire. He is a cold-blooded killer who is presently being encouraged by Russian super-hawks to win at any cost, in Ukraine and in contests with the West. He is unpredictable and has brandished the nuclear threat repeatedly in the past. The threat could become reality if Ukraine continues to humiliate him and threatens to win the war.
Donald Trump, a New York real estate magnate, is out of his league engaging in diplomacy and foreign relations. He is driven by his outsized ego, a sense of insecurity, a need for personal aggrandizement and his addiction to money and wealth. He cares not a whit about the United States or European allies or world peace unless he personally benefits. Further, he is embarrassingly ignorant of history or other cultures, a deficiency that shows in his bumbling diplomacy and failure in waging war. Adding to these weaknesses is Trump’s refusal to take counsel from professional military and diplomatic staff in favor of employing friends and sycophants to carry out his decisions.
Both Putin and Trump face untenable situations, Putin in Ukraine and Trump with Iran. In both cases these are self-inflicted problems brought about by underestimating their potential adversaries and overestimating Russian and American power. Humiliation and threat of defeat might lead Putin and/or Trump to take chances to salvage their reputations and ambitions and plunge the world into a larger, more lethal conflict. That is certainly the case with Putin in Ukraine. Trump might continue to stumble along impulsively and drive Europe and the Middle East over the precipice of peace into a world war.