There's Nobody at the Wheel

The U.S. is an autonomous vehicle cruising into World War 3

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C) and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink (R) walk on the quay as he prepares to depart the train station in Kyiv on September 11, 2024, amid the Russian invasion on Ukraine. Photo by MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The United States and the United Kingdom are, at this very moment, deciding whether to allow Ukraine to fire American and British long-range, precision-guided missiles at targets deep inside of Russia. Or, more likely, they have already decided to allow it, and are now coordinating how to communicate that decision politically and diplomatically.

The war in Ukraine is the geopolitical equivalent of the proverbial frog in boiling water. For the last two-and-a-half years, it has ratcheted steadily upward, but at a pace that has allowed most of the American public to dismiss it as background noise. So gradually have we crept toward a direct military confrontation with Russia that this prolonged global geopolitical crisis feels like some version of normal. But as liberals used to intone during the early days of the Trump administration, “This is not normal.”

The weapons systems in question are American ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles (and their French equivalents, called Scalps). Ukraine already has these weapons, but they’re restricted to firing them at targets within Ukrainian territory and within short distances over the border with Russia.

These short-distance strikes into Russia, though inherently provocative, can be regarded by both sides as defensive in nature, as they target short- and medium-range weapons being fired into Ukraine. However flimsy, this rationale provides Putin with something critical not only for Russia, but for the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world: plausible deniability. Even though the U.S. and its allies are supplying Ukraine weapons, picking its targets, providing it with intelligence, and planning its war-fighting strategies, Putin can still pretend that he is no more at war with America than China, North Korea, and Iran, which are supplying arms, tools, and technology to Russia, are at war with Ukraine. And we can, in turn, pretend to believe that this is what Putin actually thinks.

Allowing American weapons that are remote-controlled by American spacecraft to strike targets all over Russian territory will make this pretense impossible. Before his troops, his allies, his enemies, and the Russian public, it will be plain to everyone that the Emperor wears no clothes. For the sake of his political and geopolitical legitimacy, Putin will be forced to respond. He has already announced this.

Like the Cuban Missile Crisis, this is fast becoming a game of deadly brinksmanship, but with one big difference: the U.S. doesn’t meaningfully have a head of state or a commander-in-chief at the moment. With Biden cognitively incapacitated, we can only assume that major decisions about Ukraine are being made by whichever nameless members of the national security state or the foreign policy blob that happen to prevail over the President at any given moment.

There are those who will respond to what I’m saying by pointing out that this is all Putin’s fault in the first place, and if he just pulls out of Ukraine, this will all be over. Even though I believe that there is crucial historical context that complicates the conventional narrative, I’m happy to grant this point. But it doesn’t matter. It’s like getting into a Mexican standoff with a home invader: you can say all you want that he started it by breaking into your house, but it doesn’t make it any less likely that if you can’t find a way to resolve it, you’ll be the one who ends up with a bullet in your head.

Which brings me to what I regard as the bottom line: this war has nothing to do with us. Or, rather, it shouldn’t have anything to do with us. Granted, in the abstract, Americans, along with the rest of humanity, have an interest in deterring flagrant violations of the sovereignty of weaker states by more powerful ones. But, setting aside that the U.S. has long been one of the world’s great perpetrators of this crime, this is a concern of diplomats, not ordinary Americans. One could argue that regular people have a vital interest in upholding this principle because it’s how we maintain peace in the world, but then the fundamental interest is peace, not the maintenance of the “rules-based international order.” And the biggest threat to peace is going to war.

We’re in a very bad situation, but the worst part of it is that most of us are barely cognizant of it. There is no anti-war movement, and Ukraine is a secondary if not a tertiary issue in the presidential election. On the American side, decisions are being made and events are unfolding based on momentum alone. We’re driving directly into a storm on cruise control with a blindfold on.