The Old and the New - Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the first official “war’’ in the full blown digital era. This adds multiple new dimensions to the conflict created by Vladimir Putin. Everyone from the Biden administration to Putin to the European governments to the world market is struggling to adjust to the new reality brought on by the Internet. 

So much of this is new and so much is old. 

The new can be seen in the streets of Kiev, where every Ukrainian - with a phone, camera and the ability to transmit video to any media outlet in the world, not to mention Facebook and Twitter - is now a journalist.  

And the old… 

Putin’s threat of nuclear weapons reminds me, and many others, of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For those who don’t know or remember, here’s a little history. In 1961, the leader of the old Soviet Union - Nikita Krushchev - initiated a deadly game with the U.S. by installing offensive missiles in Cuba. President John Kennedy had no choice but to respond. Krushchev was given a choice, remove the missiles or face nuclear catastrophe. 

I was too young at the time, but the generation above me still remembers hiding under school desks during bomb drills. The bomb shelter signs of that time still exist in many places. We just don’t notice them any more. 

60 years ago, human ego and frailty brought the world close to nuclear war. There were many secret meetings in the White House and the Kremlin to decide the fate of innocent people. Generals wanted to invade. Politicians tried to save face. It was a farce really. Too many men with too many weapons trying to rule the world. 

After much historical examination we now know what really happened in Cuba. Kennedy thought he would be impeached if he didn’t threaten war - a political consideration, not a strategic one. If he allowed nuclear weapons just off the Florida coast, it would have been an unacceptable threat. But he resisted his general’s demands to remove the missiles by bombing and invading Cuba. He chose a middle course, a quarantine of Soviet ships to prevent resupply of arms to Cuba. It worked. Kennedy rose to the occasion. The Soviets agreed to remove their missiles. But only after Kennedy struck a secret deal to remove American missiles from Turkey. 

Today, President Biden is following the Kennedy playbook but doing him one better. Last week when Putin crudely threatened nuclear annihilation if the U.S. stepped into this war, Biden chose NOT to escalate our own nuclear forces. Like Kennedy, Biden is trying to give Putin a way out of the corner, allowing him to save some face. In 1961, Krushchev accepted this olive branch. He would be out of office in three years, replaced by hard-liners.  

The discussions around the nuclear threat are really the same as they were in 1961. The world operates under the doctrine of MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. We promise to destroy you if you try to destroy us. It is - of course - totally nuts and is bound to fail some day. 

For a seminar on the folly of MAD, read my friend Ward Wilson’s work here. 

It’s hard to believe the nuclear discussion has remained the same for so long. It’s even harder to believe that, in the 1980s, it was President Reagan and the Soviet Leader Michael Gorbachev who discussed a total ban on nuclear weapons. 

Last week, the NYTimes quoted Harvard Professor Graham Allison in a story about the nuclear threat brought on by the Ukraine invasion. Allison is the father of post World War II nuclear strategy. But reading the article, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Is there no new thinking on this issue? I thought. Is Graham Allison, now in his 80s, still the best we have on nuclear strategy? Why does the New York Times still quote him? Why aren’t they quoting next generation thinkers who advocate the abolishment of nukes?

Today, while a potentially world-ending war rages in Europe, the nuclear arsenals still exist with no serious discussion from our government on how to abolish them.

That’s the old. Now for the new.

The MAD doctrine was created for Nuclear Warfare, but in recent years it has grown to include a new type of warfare, cyber terror. Nicole Pearlroth, the nation’s best journalist and thinker on cyber warfare, says the U.S. is completely unprepared for cyber attacks. The most famous and damning example of our vulnerability occurred in 2016 when Russians aided the Trump election by showering Facebook and other platforms with false narratives about Hillary Clinton, resulting in Trump’s election. 

On the other hand, according to Pearlroth, the U.S. is very good at offensive cyber war. She says our successful dismantling of the Iranian nuclear program for several months via the use of the so-called student worm virus is a perfect example of U.S. cyber capabilities. 

This offensive power even allows the U.S. the ability to shut down Russia’s electrical grid. This would halt their army and slow the offensive. But we won’t do it. Why? Well, because they can do the same to us. We are two spiders in a bottle, eyeing each other, unwilling to strike. 

And then there is social media. Everyone now has a phone. Ukrainians are broadcasting the scenes of terror and destruction from their homes directly to the internet. These videos are incredibly influential, making their way into the mainstream media, influencing U.S. popular opinion and therefore U.S. policy. 

In the old days, Putin’s attack would take weeks to make its way to CNN and the rest of the media. This lag time would allow the giant banks and companies, especially oil and gas firms, to delay cutting off Russia's economy. 

But now the news is instant. Putin cannot control it. And neither can corporate America. This free flow of information is why everyone from VISA to the Wall Street banks are suddenly cutting business ties with Russia. Tech platforms are kicking off bad actors who would support the Putin invasion, limiting their ability to spread propaganda, despite the Putin wing of the Republican party squawking about free speech. Even historically neutral Switzerland has joined in. 

Tech journalist Kara Swisher says social media - which has done so much harm to our society - might just be a force for good in deterring Putin’s aggression. 

“In just a few days, tech has shown it can make meaningful and tough choices about who can use its platforms and how they can be used and make the world a better place in the bargain — a silver lining amid all this gloom in Ukraine.”

Whether this digital pressure is enough to deter Putin is too early to tell. But at least for once, there is a positive use of social media and the Internet against the bad guys. 

Who knows? In the end, the new Internet may not replace the old tanks, but sometimes, it can come close.