When I was in elementary school in the 1950s, I was periodically required to “duck and cover” by huddling under my desk in case the Soviet Union dropped an atomic bomb on my town. If I didn’t survive, I was also issued a dog tag with my name and address to help my parents identify my body. (I remember thinking that if the bomb dropped my parents wouldn’t be around to identify me anyway.) The whole thing was terrifying. Years later, when I had my own children, I learned that the only means by which America prevents a far worse nuclear attack — featuring much more powerful bombs capable of reaching anywhere in the United States — is through “mutually assured destruction,” the morbid reality that if Russia launches an attack on us it would be annihilated, as would we.
No more duck and cover.
Which gets me to today’s Office Hours discussion. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is escalating. The United States and our allies have already imposed severe economic sanctions, but a dictator can withstand the consequences of sanctions for quite some time (Exhibit A: Kim Jong-un). The most severe sanctions would be on Russia’s oil and gas exports, but imposing them would cause oil and gas prices to soar in the United States at a time when Americans are already facing near record inflation. Should we be willing to make this sacrifice?
And what happens if Putin takes over Ukraine, establishes a puppet government there, and then amasses Russian troops along the borders of NATO members Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania? By treaty, we are obligated to defend these nations. But are we willing to risk full-scale war? And what does war possibly mean between two nations armed with the most nuclear warheads in the world?
None of this is pleasant to think about, but we have no choice. Hence this week’s Office Hours question: As a practical matter, what should we be prepared to sacrifice to stop Putin’s aggression? (Please comment below. I’ll weigh in mid-day with some thoughts of my own.)
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My two cents. Putin is escalating his attack on Ukraine, now reportedly using vacuum bombs on civilians, which are barred by the Geneva Convention. A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in real time before our eyes.
Russian gas and oil now come soaked in blood. I do not believe it any longer morally justifiable for the West to purchase them. I agree with Ken and Keith on this.
To be sure, cutting off Russian gas and oil will result in substantially higher energy prices in the US and Europe, at a time when inflation is already soaring. Although we are not prepared to sacrifice the lives of Americans, we should be willing to sacrifice our pocketbooks. This is the minimum we should be willing to endure. (We should protect lower-income Americans from the worst economic consequences by enlarging subsidies for heating oil and gas at the pump, for example).
One ancillary benefit could be speeding up our conversion to renewable energy. Germany – which is highly dependent on Russian natural gas – has committed itself to 100 percent renewables by 2030, just 8 years from now. We must do the same. It is no longer “green energy” versus Big Oil and Big Coal. American security has now converged with the necessity of slowing and reversing climate change.
But what if Putin amasses tanks and troops along the borders of a NATO country? I think our best hope at the moment is that fierce financial pressure — including a ban on Russian oil and gas exports — convinces Russian oligarchs and generals that Putin must be deposed.
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