In recent weeks, a bevy of thought leaders on the political fringe have come out strongly against the war in Ukraine, arguing that the Biden administration and NATO have put us on the path to nuclear conflict. At the beginning of October, Tucker Carlson was lampooned for declaring that the war had entered a new phase, "one in which the United States is directly at war with the largest nuclear power in the world."
Not long after that, former Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard resigned from the Democratic party, warning that Joe Biden was "Pushing us to the brink of a nuclear holocaust." Joining her was Elon Musk, the new proprietor of Twitter, who continued to sound the alarm on Eastern Europe, arguing that unless Ukraine and the West make concessions to Russia, we are hurtling to the precipice of a nuclear clash that will mean "civilization is over." J.D. Vance — bestselling author, incoming Republican senator and proponent of racist conspiracy theories — came under fire again in recent weeks for suggesting that endless escalation toward nuclear conflict with Russia was not in the United States' best interest.
Closer to the normie mainstream (if such a thing exists in the Republican Party anymore), Kevin McCarthy has suggested that there will be no more "blank checks" to Ukraine if the Republicans take back the House (which remains uncertain as this article is published).
Not surprisingly, the predictable fault lines are swiftly coming into focus: centrist foreign policy hawks accuse Musk and company of carrying water for Vladimir Putin. Just as predictably, the Trump-adjacent right has taken to accusing "neocons" and the "woke left" of trying to turn us all into a glowing pile of radioactive cinders.
As one of those "woke leftists" the Trumpists like to complain about, I am generally not in the habit of agreeing with folks like Carlson or McCarthy on quite literally anything. However, as an academic whose research specializes in human extinction — and who is very concerned that the prospect of nuclear war over Ukraine is not being taken nearly seriously enough — I am forced to admit that the conservative lunatics are right. The current administration and popular media outlets have endorsed a course of action in Ukraine that is pushing the world inexorably toward a catastrophe that could not only spell the demise of modern civilization, but could quite possibly put us on the road toward human extinction.
As an academic who specializes in human extinction, I am concerned that the prospect of nuclear war is not being taken seriously. The Biden administration and the media are pushing the world inexorably toward catastrophe.
After all, these folks may be crazy, but there is something even crazier than Elon Musk naming his first child after his favorite airplane: global thermonuclear war! Despite initially promising that American troops would not enter Ukraine because doing so would risk World War III, Biden has quietly backtracked on that guarantee: Last week it was confirmed that the U.S. military has put boots on the ground to track weapons shipments in the country. That news came alongside the revelation that U.S. intelligence has confirmed that Russian generals have discussed the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. You might reasonably wonder what will happen if Russia does the unthinkable, or if a U.S. service member is killed by Russian forces. The answer is unclear, but it is clear that Biden's inner circle has grown increasingly comfortable with advocating risky, direct conventional strikes against Russia in the event of a nuclear attack on Ukraine — a country that, we should remember, is not a member of NATO and to which the U.S. has no formal responsibilities.
The administration is able to pursue this reckless foreign policy, in no small part, because the mainstream media has orchestrated a near-flawless PR campaign on Ukraine's behalf, casting the conflict as a tale of noble David versus monstrous Goliath. I myself am guilty of contributing to this perception, framing Ukraine as a tragic protagonist in a Slate column earlier this year.
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The problem is, while all that makes for a good story, it plays fast and loose with the truth — a truth that seemingly only right-wing weirdos, who are always more than willing to be impolite or politically incorrect, seemed to have grasped. In response to the recognition that the U.S. is stumbling toward the nuclear cataclysm, Tucker Carlson has been characteristically blunt: "Why do I care what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?" he asks.
Carlson is both a jerk and a conspiratorial loon, and his phrasing of the question betrays a total lack of basic human sympathy for the people of Ukraine. Yet, however asshole-ish his wording might be, he identifies an uncomfortable line of inquiry we all need to face: Is saving Ukraine, even in the ghastly event that Russia uses nuclear weapons against its people, worth risking the future of our planet? In my view, the answer is clearly and overwhelmingly no.
Those who argue in favor of steadfast military support for Ukraine — up to and including direct military action in the event of a Russian nuclear attack — generally make one of two cases. Some argue that once Putin has broken the nuclear taboo, the only way to stop him (or another despot) from doing it again is by punishing Russia with devastating conventional or nuclear weapons to show him how serious his violation was. It should be clear to any rational person that this line of thinking is, if I may, batshit fucking insane. (I am not yet a parent, but I do know that if you find your child huffing glue, you do not illustrate the dangers of glue huffing by seizing the bag and taking a big old huff of glue yourself).
The second argument that foreign policy hawks make to support the United States' risky Ukraine strategy is to claim that, although we are not bound by treaty to support Ukraine, we are ethically bound to support a fellow democracy against tyranny. Although less batshit crazy than the first argument, this line of thinking likewise rests on a questionable premise: that Ukraine is in fact a democracy.
Some argue that if Putin breaks the nuclear taboo, Russia must face a devastating attack as punishment. This line of thinking is, if I may, bats**t f**king insane.
Back at the start of the invasion, Carlson was castigated for making precisely this claim. "Ukraine is not a democracy … in American terms, you would call Ukraine a tyranny," he opined. When the Washington Post publshed an article fact-checking Carlson's assertion, it declined to provide the standard "Pinocchio" rating, tacitly admitting that the usually-fibbing Fox anchor was somewhere in the vicinity of the truth.
Indeed, although the Post bent over backward to adopt a pro-Ukraine stance and suggested that what is or is not a democracy is a matter of "opinion," they did not refute his statement. After citing the country's "significant growing pains," the article concluded by asserting that "Ukraine has many aspects of a democracy." (Hint: if your doctor tells you "I have many aspects of a medical degree," you would have reason to find a new provider).
Carlson has no problem saying the quiet part out loud on Ukraine because his whole brand is being a provocative shitbird. And 99 percent of the time, what comes out of his mouth are the fever-dream ramblings of a megalomaniacal conspiracist. But on this stopped-clock occasion, Carlson is drawing our attention to the right problem, even if we have every reason to be skeptical of his motivations.
The truth of the matter is that Ukraine is not South Korea. Ukraine is not France. Ukraine is not England or Japan or even Taiwan. Ukraine is a dubiously democratic country that does in fact struggle with antisemitism, far-right nationalism and white supremacy — blocking, as we all seem to have forgotten, Africans from fleeing the country safely at the start of the war. (Indeed, one reason the U.S. has sent military personnel to oversee weapons shipments to Ukraine is concern that they might fall into the hands of extremists.)
Ukraine scores 61/100 on Freedom House's human rights and liberties scale, qualifying as only "partly free." (That's slightly above El Salvador and Indonesia, but below Serbia and Colombia.) The Economist Intelligence Unit's annual Democracy Index classifies Ukraine as a "hybrid regime" — just one step above "authoritarian" and two tiers below "full democracy." Transparency International also rates Ukraine as the second most corrupt country in all of Europe, after only — you guessed it — Russia.
Is Ukraine actually a democracy? It scores 61/100 on the Freedom House scale — slightly below Serbia and Colombia — and ranks as the second most corrupt country in Europe (after Russia, of course).
Ukraine is not a thriving liberal democracy. It is, in many of the ways we cherish, not a democracy at all. And just because it is clearly in the right in this conflict, fighting the good fight against a despot, does not magically transform Kyiv into a shining city on a hill. As conservative nuts like Musk and his friends have correctly divined, our government cares about Ukraine not because it is a true-blue democracy but because it is a chess piece in a quasi-imperialist proxy war between the United States, NATO and Russia. It used to be the case that anti-war progressives were on the front lines of pushing back against America's foreign adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, but in the topsy-turvy political climate of the 2020s, it is the conservative lunatics who seem most concerned about nuclear holocaust.
It undeniably sounds (and perhaps is) grotesque to talk about the comparative democratic "worth" of a nation as its people suffer at the hands of a tyrant. But it is far more grotesque to stumble into a global thermonuclear war because our leaders and media are too polite to ask whether saving Ukraine is worth risking the death of billions. My personal point of view is that it's debatable whether any nation on Earth, however democratic, is worth risking the extinction of the human race — the only confirmed intelligent life in the universe. If your point of view, however, is that such risks are worth it to save a democracy or to prevent future nuclear wars, then your argument rests on shaky foundations.
My heart breaks for everyday Ukrainians whose lives have been upended, and lost, in this brutal conflict. But to date, less than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in eight months of fighting. That figure, while horrifying, is about 30 times less than the number of innocents that were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki over two days in August 1945, the last time (and only time) that nuclear weapons were used in combat. It is also worth remembering that the bombs we dropped on Japan would likely be considered small, "tactical" nuclear weapons by today's standards.
A 2019 simulation found that a full-scale modern nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would kill 34 million people in the first few hours. A subsequent study released this August found that such a war would ultimately kill over 5 billion as the result of nuclear-winter-induced famines.
Yet despite the gravity of the situation, the Democratic Party and much of the left have largely abandoned their anti-war roots. With the notable exception of Noam Chomsky, few prominent liberals or progressives have dared to challenge the status quo on Ukraine. After having the temerity to suggest that nuclear war wouldn't be a good thing, the Congressional Progressive Caucus rescinded a late October letter calling for peace — a staggering act of cowardice and political cynicism.
Many on the left seem to have turned conflict into a zero-sum game, in which you can either stand with Biden and the war effort, or you can join the "Putin wing" of the Republican Party along with the other Russia apologists.
To be clear, the Trumpists are not the only ones who are questioning the war machine in Ukraine. A number of commentators, particularly at this outlet and at the Nation, have been voices for peace in the pro-war wilderness. Such journalism proves that it is possible to believe both that Putin is a malignant psychopath and that diplomacy is preferable to nuclear war. More progressives need to stand up and say so.
The ugly heart of the matter is that we have before us only bad choices. We can push for peace, supporting a negotiated settlement that will allow Russia to achieve at least some of its objectives. That will mean that Putin has been partially successful in his bid to redraw the borders of Europe by force, and that he will have the opportunity to subject the annexed regions of Ukraine to further oppression and brutality. The alternative is that we can keep climbing the ladder of escalation, risking the slow, painful death of billions through radiation sickness and famine against the background of an ash-black sky. These are awful options, but you would have to be morally insane to believe that the latter is preferable to the former.
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