If a householder
builds a tall wall around his garden, and tops it with an electrified razor
wire fence, some might think him to be quite mad, but it might reasonably be
considered to be a deterrent against anyone trying to enter his land. It’s
still a deterrent if he lurks behind the wall with a loaded shotgun and puts
stickers on the outside of the wall warning potential trespassers of the fact. If
he then builds a tower just inside the wall and stands on top of it waving his
shotgun in the direction of anyone passing by, he would remove all question as
to his sanity, but has he also crossed the line between deterrent and threat? The
difference between a deterrent and a threat is sometimes, like beauty, in the
eye of the beholder.
Relationships
between states are more complex than that, but the basic point – that whether an
action is considered to be a deterrent or a threat depends on one’s point of
view – is substantially the same. If Russia moves
troops closer to the borders of NATO countries, is that a threat to invade
those countries or a deterrent to a perceived threat to invade Russia? If the
US moves nuclear
weapons to the UK so that it can strike Russia sooner and with less warning
than by using ICBMs based in the US, I don’t doubt that the US would intend it
to be a deterrent. But I couldn’t blame Russia for seeing it as a threat. To the
extent that people contemplating fighting a nuclear war haven’t already, like
the guy with the shotgun on top of his tower, removed all doubt as to their rationality,
there is a point in the game of deterrent/counter-deterrent (or
threat/counter-threat) where it becomes almost rational to strike first, on the
principle of ‘use it or lose it’. The question we ought to be asking ourselves
is whether those taking decisions, allegedly on our behalf, are bringing that
point closer or pushing it further away. Claiming that ‘he started it’ is a kindergarten
level argument; the issue is not about who started the spiral towards war, but
about how we stop it. There is nothing unpatriotic, and it isn’t being a stooge
for Putin, to try and understand that he might just possibly interpret things in
a different way. And whether that interpretation is right or wrong is
irrelevant – understanding it is a part of the key to any attempt at mutual
de-escalation.
There does seem to
be a marked increase recently in the number of people telling us that we must
prepare for war, although their motives may be mixed. I suspect some merely
want to reintroduce conscription in the belief that it will restore ‘traditional’
values, including imposing a sense of ‘British’ patriotism which they think has
got lost. Others probably think that ramping up armament production will be
good for jobs, and that a wartime economy would be good for capitalism in
general. Some, though, are entirely sincere – they really do want to fight an
all-out war against Russia, and all pretence that a war between two capitalist
economies would somehow be about ideology has long since been shattered. Paranoia
even leads some to think about the Republic
of Ireland as a potential enemy (almost a case of ‘if they’re not with us,
they’re against us’), and even to talk about the need for England to bomb
an independent Scotland to prevent the Russians from using its airbases.
That wasn’t only about trying to head off independence – some people really do
think that way.
I can’t immediately
recall any time in human history where huge armies have been built, possessing
enormous quantities of the latest and most potent methods of destruction,
without them subsequently being used. And I’m not currently particularly
confident that we’re on the verge of achieving that for the first time.
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