The moment that Putin responded to the West's support for the Ukraine because of Russia's invasion by putting his nuclear forces on high alert, he implied that he would use nuclear weapons on anyone who would help the Ukraine too much. And with that implied threat, Putin was not just threatening other nations from interfering with his goal, he made us all, which is everyone in the whole world, hostages.
The definition of a hostage is below (click here for the source)
someone who is taken as a prisoner by an enemy in order to force the other people involved to do what the enemy wants
It is true that we have not been physically taken prisoner and held against our will. But in this age of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles, one doesn't have to be taken prisoner to qualify as a hostage or be used as a shield by those who are trying to avoid resistance and/or escape the just consequences of their actions. Putin has implied that he will use nuclear weapons if the West tries too hard to rescue the Ukraine. And we know that if he does use nuclear weapons, there will be a response with nuclear weapons. And then where that ends, nobody knows. But once the use of nuclear weapons have been used on a nuclear power, even if what is first used is a low-yield tactical weapon, the risk for a full scale nuclear war has sharply and dramatically increased.
So all of us might be killed if the world does too much to help the Ukraine fend off Russia's invasion. But nobody knows just what that too much is. Is Putin bluffing? We don't know. But if he isn't bluffing, then we have an extremely tough balance to meet. For if he isn't bluffing, then questions must be raised about his mental health and state of mind. He does seem to be returning Russia back to the days of Stalin when calling Russians who oppose the war, 'traitors.' And when we combine that with the Ukrainian civilian targets and nuclear power plants having already been hit, one wonders about Putin's ability to exercise self-restraint in the face of an effective resistance to his invasion.
Putin's actions and rhetoric helps make it seem that we have just entered an age where there is a marked loss in people's ability to exercise self-restraint. We certainly saw the loss in people's self-restraint during the whole Trump Presidency. And a large part of that was the lack of adequate self-restraint exercised by Trump himself. The willingness of people to eagerly embrace conspiracy theories regarding Covid and the vaccines also demonstrated a decrease in the exercise of self-restraint by people. But there has been even a sharper global increase in the lack of self-restraint ever since the world has been emerging from the pandemic. And the loss of self-restraint is just what we don't need in this nuclear age.
And so we need to consider Putin's possible mental state and his using the world as a hostage in responding to his invasion. That we should support the Ukraine fend off the revolution and put sanctions on Russia that would persuade its influencers to get Putin to relent. But perhaps our strategic response to him should include a hostage negotiation perspective.
Finally, as Putin embarks on a path so many have tread before him with his invasion of the Ukraine, he will, if he hasn't already, come to a fork in the road where he must choose between military defeat or moral suicide. And in a nuclear age, his choosing of the latter option could take the whole world down with him.
