U.S. nuclear weapon test Ivy Mike, the first test of a thermonuclear weapon (hydrogen bomb) in 1952 | Wikimedia Commons License
Part XLI of the “Geopolitics” Series
It appears that President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are negotiating about Ukraine’s future. However, the Ukrainian leadership has not been invited to join the negotiation. It is a bad exercise of geopolitics and even of good manners.
A close analogy is a boxing promoter meeting the defending champion to finalize the bout and all its details, including purses. However, the challenger is not part of the deal; he is just expected to show up on fight night, not knowing how much he will be paid.
Both then-candidate Trump and President Putin or their staff apparently did not bother to digest a column article written on September 29, 2024. It was entitled Can Ukraine Call the Nuclear Bluff of President Putin? It was Part XL of this Geopolitics Series.
The main argument in the September 2024 op-ed piece was this scenario: QUOTE. Can Ukrainians call the bluff of the Kremlin? Why? Because the Ukrainians have the biggest “dirty bomb” in the world. If Russia uses even a single nuclear bomb to destroy any city in Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces can just obliterate Chernobyl with a few cruise missiles or even drones. The shortest distance (in air miles) between Chernobyl and Moscow is 432.83 miles (or 696.57 kilometers). And unfortunately for Russians, air currents travel from west to east. Russia sits east of Chernobyl. Thus, areas west of Chernobyl will suffer the least radioactive fallout. But it will become a global tragedy, as air currents will distribute the deadly radioactive materials in some form, even in raindrops (pun intended). UNQUOTE.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (also spelled Zelensky) has just said that he would give up the presidency if real peace were restored to his country, which was invaded by Kremlin forces three years ago. Obviously, he would not resign if Ukraine was sliced like a baked turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
This column predicts that if the final negotiation becomes a push and then a shove (to use an oft-quoted adage), the bluff will come from the other side (the non-invited party). Perhaps Ukraine would dare the United States and Russia to try to treat it like Japan was forced to suffer in August 1945. But to remember that Japan did not have a “Chernobyl of a dirty bomb.” Will Mr. Putin call a nuclear strike if he thinks that Ukrainians are just bluffing? And risk a huge swath of Russia, smaller parts of Ukraine itself, and adjacent countries ending up radioactive for 5,000 years?
Will the White House and Kremlin soon gamble for a partial “Nuclear Winter”? And end the civilized world?
