It can be said that World War II effectively ended after the United States of America dropped two atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; forcing Emperor Hirohito’s Land of the Rising Sun to unconditionally surrender in 1945.
Since then, only twice has there been serious apprehension as to the likely deployment of such horrendous mass killer. The first was during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962; while the other is the current one where President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation has threatened to unleash his country’s nuclear might should the need arise in its ongoing ‘special military operation’ in neighbouring Ukraine.
Recall that the two superpowers to emerge from the last world war – the United States and the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – had, in the years immediately after the war, become arch-enemies seriously engaged in a protracted political, ideological and military rivalry known as the Cold War.
This mutual suspicion had meant that each tried to counter or undermine whatever the other did. And as such, none allowed the other to occupy any territory or even fraternise with any of the countries around it. So intense was their subterranean conflict that they once came to the brink of nuclear war in 1962.
Not long after Fidel Castro overthrew US-backed President Fulgencio Batista during the Cuban Revolution in 1959, he began to fraternise with the Soviets and even at some point invite Moscow to secretly mount medium-range missiles in his country; ostensibly positioning such within striking distance of major US cities.
President John F. Kennedy, when presented with intelligence pictures of some Soviet missiles dutifully positioned in nearby Cuba, was said to have been visibly upset. What to do? He was reported as announcing an immediate ‘quarantine’ of Castro’s country while also threatening to stop all ships conveying Soviet missiles; even if it required the use of military force. To demonstrate this, American nuclear forces were placed on alert.
According to later accounts, what the world did not know at the time was that Kennedy had clandestinely reached out to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev with a proposal that would have the US dismantle its nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey (close to the Soviet Republics) in return for a takedown of the Cuban missiles.
Khrushchev accepted the proposal and acted as agreed. But it was the same America that came out to brag before the entire world saying, ‘We were eyeball to eyeball, and they blinked’. Hence, Kennedy was hailed by Americans and their allies as having outsmarted the Soviets who unfortunately punished their premier by replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev in 1964.
The events playing out in Ukraine since 12 days ago can best be described as a mismanaged reverse of the 1962 Cuban imbroglio. After the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1989, former member-countries that had once stood against the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) started looking toward becoming members of the Western alliance. Two years later, the Soviet Union was unbundled with Russia, the most powerful of the disintegrating republics, retaining the former bloc’s permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.
So, to allow Ukraine which is contiguous with Russia into NATO, the European Union or any organisation dominated by Western democracies poses the same type of threat which the US never tolerated in the Cuban case.
In my opinion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine should have backed down at the time Russia expressed her displeasure with the idea of Ukraine’s NATO and EU memberships. Honestly, he should not have dared Putin because none of the other Security Council permanent members – US, Great Britain, France and China – would permit the threat of a nuclear stockpile in its backyard.
Or is Zelenskyy so naïve to think that NATO and the EU would rush to his defence even as Ukraine is yet to complete the membership processes of both bodies? Remember how the West watched while Grozny in Chechnya and the Syrian city of Aleppo were literally pulverised by this same man.
Putin will very likely employ plausible deniability to stall any peace talk that would not seek Zelenskyy’s resignation as to enable him install a trusted ally in Kyiv. Though difficult to predict, but nothing so far seems to suggest an intention to annex the natural gas-rich country. If for nothing else, I think he would prefer that Ukraine keeps serving as a buffer for Russia against any NATO hostility.
To many people, the Russian strongman may appear like the devil’s incarnate who has inflicted so much brutality on his neighbours. But the truth is that no modern US president can seriously claim the high moral ground in this regard. For example, in 1983, America under Ronald Reagan invaded the West Indies Island of Grenada to ‘protect US citizens there and to prevent the island’s use as a base for Soviet and Cuban aggression in the Western Hemisphere’.
Also in 2003, President George W. Bush reportedly ordered a unilateral invasion of Iraq to dethrone Saddam Hussein on the unsubstantiated claim that the Middle East country possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Truth be told, Putin should even be praised for tolerating the NATO memberships of Estonia and Latvia (two of Russia’s contiguous small neighbours).
French President, Emmanuel Macron, who recently returned from a conference with his Russian counterpart, has warned the world of a gloomy outlook as pertains to the Ukraine war. This is made even more disturbing with Putin’s reported rejection of any declaration of a No-Fly zone in the embattled Eastern European nation.
Like individuals, countries should learn to respect or avoid a stronger neighbour. A strong Western assurance that Ukraine would not join NATO is what Putin said he wants. Why not assure him and save our world?

By: Ibelema Jumbo