Will Putin Order A Nuclear First Strike?

      I lived in South Africa from 1990 to the end of 1994. I lived through a tumultuous time in South African history. It was the time when South Africa transitioned from a white minority government controlled by white people of Dutch ancestry (Afrikaaners) to a black majority government. The Afrikaaners controlled an awesome military machine that included six Hiroshima-type nuclear warheads. The average white South African of Dutch ancestry kept firearms in large quantities in their homes. There was the idea that the Afrikaaner mindset was:

      "Either I will have everything that I want, or I will have nothing!"

       In other words, people were bracing for a horrible civil war like Syria is still experiencing. The true nightmare scenario was that the Afrikaaner government would use its six nuclear warheads if defeat appeared imminent.

    Amid all the fear, stress, and grim foreboding, an obscure female journalist wrote an Op-Ed in the Johannesburg Star. She urged calm. She pointed out that the average white Afrikaaner lived a life of comfort and affluence. They would not give up their comfortable life to "go into the bush and wage war."

     I read this article 30 years ago. This humble woman got it right. There was a peaceful transition to majority rule.

      Now we are facing another fearful moment. Russia has made serious threats of employing nuclear weapons because of the war in Ukraine. Very affluent people in Europe, the US, Canada, and I suspect, Russia are building bomb shelters on their properties. Iodine pills and Geiger counters are selling in large quantities. In the White House and Pentagon, large numbers of specialists are engaging in contingency planning in case Putin launches nuclear weapons.

    At this dark moment, another humble journalist has stepped up to bring calm to a frightened and paranoid world. Arkady Ostrovsky is a name you have not heard. He is the Moscow correspondent for The Economist Magazine. I have been fortunate to have spent many hours in Zoom meetings with Arkady. He dresses and looks like a humble and modest man. If you encountered him in a restaurant or tavern, you would pay scant attention to him. You would assume that he was a low-level bureaucrat or supervisor in some small company.

    Arkady is a man of awesome intellect. He has a social network inside Russia without equal. The wealthy and powerful as well as those in strategic positions of power "whisper in his ear." Arkady has interviewed Putin many times. He has spent a lot of time with him in social settings.

    When the war started in Ukraine, he was spirited out of Russia and now works out of an undisclosed London office. He made a point to discuss the possibility of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and Europe. He dismissed this possibility. He calmly pointed out that the Russian military officers delegated to care for and fire nuclear weapons would refuse to carry out launch orders coming from Putin. He said that after this refusal to carry out his orders, Putin would be removed from office.