Many-Kettle Winter

 

I.                    Many-Kettle Winter

In 1978 I went with my mother to an Indian arts and history event being held in Tempe, Arizona.  I found what was being sold as a Sioux winter count.  One of the earlier scenes depicted a few lodges around a space with four or five little black kettles with handles floating in air.  Four or five scenes further on there were unhappy Indians lying around with spots on them.  Much further on, toward the last scene, blue-coated soldiers were firing rifles.  I thought the object just a little out of my price range but on the way home started having non-buyer’s remorse.  Mother said if I really wanted to buy it she would make me as small loan, so we turned around and headed back to Tempe.  But as we got back to the river even the old Tempe Bridge was closed.  (The new bridge on the National Interstate and Defense Highway had started to collapse the preceding night.)  The worst surge from heavy rains on the Salt watershed had reached the Valley just behind us.  For the moment the state was split in two, at least as far as ground transportation was concerned.

For me as a collector it might have been just as well.  I was not equipped to judge the authenticity of such an artifact, and it could very well have been a fake.  If so it was a charmingly produced fake.  In retrospect I wonder if the scenes I noticed and have described don’t make it suspiciously Eurocentric.

However, that early depiction of a many-kettle winter is a very striking image.  European trade goods arrived on the Atlantic coast of North America at the beginning of the 17^th century, but the volume of trade picked up significantly after the French and Indian War.  Bartering tribe to tribe, how long before metal knives and cooking vessels made it west of the Great Lakes?  How many more seasons before such an object was less than a treasured rarity? What a certain presage of doom were the domestic conveniences whose sudden abundance impressed the counter-of-winters!  And how impossible for even the most intelligent of Sioux to interpret rightly.

When worlds collide one world is likely to be heavier than the other.

II.                  Heraclitus at Bay

It was a very great sage who observed that War is father of all and king of all.  Economy of expression more than excuses his personification of a sociological phenomenon or rather, an anthropological fact.  He meant that the society that doesn’t win its wars is superseded by the one that does and therefore the requirements of victory in war take precedence over all other social needs. This is a simple fact and will be, so long as there are two or more sovereigns on earth.

Capitalism began to convince itself that war is too bad for business – or what is the same thing, too economically destructive – to be tolerated.  Thinkers were solemnly announcing that technological advances had rendered war unthinkable long before Leo Szilard had his brainstorm.  But in fact it was war that was tolerating capitalism and not vice versa.  Hiroshima gave a huge boost to unthinkability, ushering in an interregnum during which not-quite-war was not quite father or king of all.

III.               Probabilities

I consider it highly likely that:  (1.) If Ukraine continues to beat Russia Putin’s regime is doomed.  (2.) Putin either knows this now or will soon recognize it. (3.) Putin also knows that he must either remain in control or suffer the fate of Gaddafi and Mussolini. (4.) Putin is a cowardly narcissist who would do anything to anyone to avoid that fate. (5.) Russia has thousands of tactical nuclear weapons and plenty of means to deliver them within a range of 600 kilometers or so.  I infer from these propositions that (6.) if Ukraine continues to beat Russia, Putin will order the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainian forces in Ukraine. He will do so with a smirk that says to the world, "What're you gonna do about it?" And the "Make Russia great again" Russians will admire his "strength" all the more.

It is possible that the Russian generals will refuse the order and use it as the occasion for Putin’s arrest and execution.  This is unlikely if only because Putin is much cleverer and more ruthless than his generals.

Perhaps there is a chance they could convince him that the use of tactical nuclear weapons would not be of sufficient military effectiveness to counter the negative effects of the international political backlash, but this too is unlikely.  The hypothesis is that Ukraine is continuing to beat Russia.  Russian generals arguing against employing bigger Russian guns are not likely to be heard.  Besides, Putin tends to believe in the effectiveness of his own propaganda, and his line will be “See what the decadent West has driven us to?”  Tucker Carlson will back him up, even if Donald Trump is too confused to do so.

IV.               The Unthunk-About

The risk of escalation posed by any military response will be enough to deter the Biden Administration, and as usual the U.S. will keep Europe in check.

A global economic panic is predictable, and might be as attractive to Putin as any effects on Ukraine.  His coterie will be tempted to short the S&P 500, and this might provide the best early warning.

For a few days the international chorus of cluck-clucking will be deafening.  There will be talk of stricter sanctions, but the ability and willingness to take part in any greater economic pain will be limited.  There will be a lot of talk about not letting Putin profit from the use of nuclear weapons but it is not clear to me who will make him pay, or how.

Longer term the world will recognize that it has been living in denial for the last three-quarters of a century – which may be remembered as an improbable halcyon period.

V.                 Maybe Not?

The hypothesis of the foregoing discussion was that Ukraine continues to beat Russia.  Given genuine enthusiasm on the part of NATO countries for supplying Ukraine with heavier and more modern weapons (were it unbridled by sub rosa American reticence) this seems likely.  However, Obama-Biden never really had a problem with a great-power “spheres-of-influence” deal.  The problem has been that Putin is far too many for them; also that unlike good old Uncle Joe, he cannot be trusted to keep to a deal.

Washington is still the center of the universe even though 20^th century bipartisanship is truly dead.  The Republicans no longer care about (former or soon-to-be) Captive Nations or repressed Russians but would dearly love to deepen Biden’s embarrassment.  The Administration realizes it must appear to be eager to support Ukrainian resistance but would be delighted if Little Russia were simply swallowed into the earth overnight.

The situation is challenging for those who profess belief in a secret all-powerful world-ruling cabal, which if it existed would surely be clamping down on a conflict that threatens to normalize the use of nuclear weapons.  One need not imagine a round-table of international Jewish financiers, though.  Presumably Putin needs practically nothing to support a victory proclamation по русски.  He ought to jump at Donbas + Crimea + an end to sanctions + some other economic sweeteners – unless he really is crazy.  He may be, however, and even if he’s not the question would remain whether a Biden White House worried about the mid-terms can bring Zelenskyy to heel.

In short even though powerful interests are vitally interested in avoiding it, within months we may see what Putin is capable of when he feels he’s backed into a corner.  I think that easily includes the use of tactical nukes, and that if it does our world will change – and not for the better.