Opinion: War on a Whim (redux)

The first piece I ever wrote for The Mouth, in the early days of 2020, was a somewhat incoherent response to the perceived possibility of WWIII. Then-president Donald Trump had ordered the assassination of the Iranian military offical Qasem Soleimani, tensions had risen, and the internet thought we were headed for doomsday. Luckily, that didn’t happen. But the situation, with the benefit of hindsight, presents a chilling indication of just how weak our nation’s safety systems have become. By 2020, enough military power had trickled into the executive branch that without Congress even hearing a whisper of what was coming, the extrajudicial execution of a foreign military official could occur at the impulse of the president. War on a whim.

A similar situation is playing out today, at a far larger scale. It’s worth examining. As a preventative measure against the use of nuclear weapons in the Cold War, much of North America and Europe joined in an alliance known as the North American Treaty Organization, or NATO. All members were unified in an agreement that an attack on one was an attack on all, thereby expanding the reach of mutually-assured destruction. In response, the Soviet Union and its puppet states in eastern Europe formed the Warsaw Pact. Once the Soviet Union collapsed toward the end of the 20th century, the countries that used to be in the Warsaw Pact or part of Russian territory went their own ways. Soviet Russia, meanwhile, reorganized itself into the Russia of today. Oligarchs came to power, a constitutional crisis occurred, and a new president emerged: Vladimir Putin, who has effectively run the country from his elevation to the presidency in 1999 to today.

Unlike the Warsaw Pact, NATO still exists today, and continues to operate on its foundational promise of mutual defense. But without its counterpart in the Warsaw Pact, NATO’s eastward expansion has only been hindered by time. Or at least, that was the case until the candidates for new members came to include nations on Russia’s doorstep. Ukraine is the centerpiece of this situation. In recent days, Russia has moved troops onto its border with Ukraine, following its 2014 military invasion and annexation of the Ukrainian province of Crimea. Russia’s leaders, on some level, surely doubt themselves. Previous Russian leaders accomplished more than they ever have, and yet the Soviet Union still collapsed. How can they ever hope to match prior accomplishments, let alone come up with new, successful solutions? And so Russia lashes out, like a caged, starved dog once accustomed to five-course meals, hungry for a morsel of food. It has to move quickly toward conflict and expansion, because it cannot take a fight with a NATO-backed Ukraine. Even the sanctions that are likely to come if it invades Ukraine could starve Russia.

But what does any of this have to do with leaders with extreme power, or ‘war on a whim?’ Well, everything. In a 2007 meeting with Germany’s then-Chancellor, Angela Merkel, Putin brought out his large black lab to meet Merkel, who has a phobia of dogs. Merkel froze, but did not flinch. Later on, Merkel assessed Putin’s actions. “I understand why he has to do this—to prove he’s a man. He’s afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing. No successful politics or economy. All they have is this.” Putin has absolute power in Russia. Military action, at the end of the day, is all up to him. And Putin, deep down, is insecure. If you’ve ever seen his shirtless photoshoots, riding horses in the Russian wilderness, now you know why they exist. Putin has absolute power, and yet is weak, and knows it. His country cannot do what it could just a few decades ago, and so he lashes out at opportune moments and intimidates leaders with dogs because he himself is intimidated. It is all he can do.

What makes Russia’s military actions worrying isn’t just the desperation with which they’re formulated, but the ease. Putin’s interests point him toward military courses of action, and his dictatorial power makes aggression relatively easy. One of the goals of democracy is to avoid a situation like this, where absolute power ends up in the hands of one person, and their personal eccentricities become systemic eccentricities. The intended design of our system embodies this. After a ‘bad breakup’ with monarchy and centralized power, our first draft founding document, the Articles of Confederation, gave Congress the authority to declare peace and war, but left combat up to state militias. Our second draft, the Constitution, gave military power to the newly added position of the presidency, but still left Congress to declare war. With this separation of powers, a ‘starved dog’ president would have no ability to go to war without a Congressional majority voting in favor.

Of course, intended design and current reality are worlds apart. The last time Congress voted on whether to declare war was in 1942. It doesn’t take a keen-eyed observer to point out that we’ve gone to war since then. Today, Congress’ role in the war declaration process has been relegated to an optional good luck handshake. Whether a president can take military action when Congress is staunchly opposed has yet to be tested. This is why I’ve brought the Ukraine situation to your attention. It’s very unlikely that a major war will actually occur because of whatever happens in Ukraine, but the real concern is the next war. The repercussions of Russia’s starved dog politics are a warning. Our system is close to, if not already at, a point where ‘war on a whim’ is possible. We’re steady on a course to an iceberg, and if nothing changes, we will collide. All it would take is one person’s decision. No one person should ever have that kind of power. If anyone ever truly does, our system has failed.