Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is the stress test of an epoch for Earth’s democracies

One year ago, I hailed the Biden Administration’s renew­al and exten­sion of the New START treaty with the Russ­ian Federation’s Vladimir Putin. This treaty was the back­bone of diplo­mat­ic efforts under­tak­en thir­ty-five years ago to pro­tect our nation and the world against a new strate­gic nuclear arms race. The New START treaty exten­sion locked in crit­i­cal strate­gic nuclear weapons force reduc­tions achieved with its ini­tial sign­ing between U.S. Pres­i­dent Clin­ton and Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Yeltsin in 1994, dur­ing the ear­li­est days of the post-Cold War era.

In that piece, I wrote:

But we should nev­er take our future secu­ri­ty for grant­ed when thou­sands of nuclear war­heads are deployed right here in Wash­ing­ton State and are top tar­gets of Russ­ian strate­gic nuclear forces… Extend­ing New START ensures we will have ver­i­fi­able lim­its on the main­stay of Russ­ian nuclear weapons that can reach the U.S. home­land for the next five years… The Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion has the capac­i­ty to deploy many more than 1,550 war­heads on its mod­ern­ized ICBMs and SLBMs, as well as heavy bombers, but is con­strained from doing so by New START.

Each morn­ing since the inva­sion began, I have thought about all of the lives and dreams that have been shat­tered by this vile act of aggression.

Thir­ty years ago, the Russ­ian Repub­lic and Ukrain­ian Repub­lic joined with the oth­er thir­teen republics of the Union of Sovi­et Social­ist Republics (USSR) and for­mal­ly dis­man­tled the Sovi­et Union. Fif­teen republics became inde­pen­dent nations and called them­selves a “Com­mon­wealth of Inde­pen­dent States (CIS).”

In April 1992, I pre­pared a brief­ing for U.S. Gov­ern­ment offi­cials and senior exec­u­tives at my com­pa­ny on “Coop­er­a­tive Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Pro­grams with the CIS: Why and How They Need to Work.”

In June and July 1992, I trav­eled to Moscow, Rus­sia, for the first time. For the next sev­en years, I would make more than six­ty trips to Moscow and oth­er Russ­ian cities, work­ing to build ties with the for­mer Sovi­et states so that we would nev­er again return to an era where nuclear war threat­ened to destroy the world.

Dur­ing the 1980s, I was a defense intel­li­gence ana­lyst respon­si­ble for assess­ing Sovi­et nuclear threats to the Unit­ed States and NATO allies.

In Decem­ber 1991, the world changed with the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union. Just months lat­er, there I was, fly­ing into Rus­sia and prepar­ing to work on behalf of the U.S. Gov­ern­ment imple­ment­ing coop­er­a­tive threat reduc­tion programs:

• Man­ag­ing teams of U.S.-Russian sci­en­tists and engi­neers to destroy nuclear weapons as required under the Inter­me­di­ate Nuclear Forces (INF) and Strate­gic Arms Reduc­tion Treaties (START);
• Build­ing seis­mic mon­i­tor­ing sta­tions in Siberia and north­ern Ukraine to mon­i­tor com­pli­ance with the Com­pre­hen­sive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty; and
• Cre­at­ing rela­tion­ships with Russ­ian and Ukrain­ian col­leagues to put our coun­tries’ col­lec­tive futures on a new path beyond the Cold War.

Eurasi­a’s next thir­ty years will be shaped by how democ­ra­cies con­tend with Vladimir Putin’s con­tin­ued reign and his plans to make Ukraine a pup­pet state.

Last month, Vladimir Putin launched an unpro­voked, large-scale attack on Ukrain­ian fam­i­lies, destroy­ing lives and com­mu­ni­ties with deep per­son­al and cul­tur­al ties to fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, among Euro­pean nations, and in the Unit­ed States and Israel. Putin’s inva­sion is also leav­ing Europe and the world more exposed to the risk of a nuclear cat­a­stro­phe.

Dur­ing the past eigh­teen years, Putin has peri­od­i­cal­ly unleashed his fury on Ukraini­ans in the Crimea, against Geor­gians, and on Rus­sians who have opposed his dic­ta­to­r­i­al rule.

But with this inva­sion of Ukraine, Putin’s New World Dis­or­der is now ful­ly exposed.

The demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelen­skyy, is at cen­ter stage. Pres­i­dent Zelen­skyy has held his nation and peo­ple togeth­er by stay­ing in Kyiv, com­mu­ni­cat­ing with his peo­ple every day, and exhort­ing the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty to send assis­tance to his people.

His lead­er­ship is defy­ing Putin’s ambitions.

By deploy­ing every ele­ment of lead­er­ship, pow­er, and diplo­ma­cy, Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent has allowed his peo­ple, the Euro­pean Union, NATO mem­bers, and the Unit­ed States to con­sid­er the sce­nario – how­ev­er unlike­ly – that nev­er crossed Putin’s mind: That Ukraine may deny Putin his vic­to­ry.

Demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ments and our notions of secu­ri­ty, sta­bil­i­ty, and diplo­ma­cy in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry now must endure a stress test of unknown length. But a col­lec­tive, con­cert­ed strat­e­gy to stran­gle Russia’s econ­o­my and force Russ­ian elites and aris­to­crats to stay house-bound in Rus­sia just might cre­ate a reverse stress test.

An aligned Euro­pean Union, Orga­ni­za­tion of Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe, NATO, and Unit­ed Nations, with every orga­ni­za­tion using their respec­tive levers of diplo­mat­ic, eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal, social, and mil­i­tary influ­ence and actions.

This is the very sce­nario Putin dismissed.

Putin’s war assumed that four key lead­ers were too weak and too dis­tract­ed at home to mount a col­lec­tive response to his inva­sion of Ukraine:

• Joe Biden was mired in low approval rat­ings and con­tend­ing with the U.S. mass media’s con­stant “sky is falling” mantra about inflation;
• British Prime Min­is­ter Boris Johnson’s polling num­bers were low­er than Biden’s and calls for his res­ig­na­tion kept surfacing.
• Olaf Sholz, the new Ger­man Chan­cel­lor, had bare­ly formed a gov­ern­ing coali­tion and led a nation that depends on Rus­sia sup­ply­ing forty per­cent of its oil and gas.
• And then there was Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy: the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed leader and for­mer come­di­an who had spurned Putin and still man­aged to win a con­test­ed pres­i­den­tial election.

The peo­ple of Ukraine – and yes, the peo­ple of Rus­sia – will won­der for the rest of their lives what made Putin attack anoth­er Slav­ic nation.

Try­ing to pre­dict Putin’s next move is impossible.

What is pos­si­ble? Prepar­ing our col­lec­tive next moves. Help­ing Ukraini­ans know that they are not fight­ing alone, and that their peo­ple now flee­ing to Euro­pean nations and Amer­i­can cities will be kept safe for the duration.

Remind­ing each oth­er that diplo­mat­ic efforts must per­sist if we are to reduce the risks of esca­la­tion. And in the midst of this ter­ri­ble moment, we must hold onto the essen­tial and unique pow­er of demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ments: we have the pow­er of the peo­ple stand­ing with us.

Putin does not.

It is the pow­er of the Ukrain­ian peo­ple that gives their Pres­i­dent the courage to call on the rest of the world to come to the aid of his nation, as he did again this morn­ing when he spoke to an extra­or­di­nary gath­er­ing of Con­gress.

We all must find the sta­mi­na to stand up for Ukraine for as long as it takes.

And if Putin decides to bend and nego­ti­ate a with­draw­al of is forces, then we must use our pow­er to ensure that the Russ­ian peo­ple do not break.

This is our stress test of a life­time. Let’s fig­ure out how to sur­vive it together.

Edi­tor’s Note: Gael Tar­leton is an NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cilmem­ber who served on NPI’s Board of Direc­tors for over ten years. She served the peo­ple of King Coun­ty and Wash­ing­ton State as a port com­mis­sion­er and state rep­re­sen­ta­tive from 2008–2021. She now works for May­or Bruce Har­rell as Inter­im Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Rela­tions Direc­tor. The views expressed here are her own, and not those of the City of Seat­tle. Gael ded­i­cates this arti­cle to Bill, Vik­tor, Andrei, Valeriy, Oles, and two gen­er­als, all Ukraini­ans and Ukrain­ian emi­gres who worked with her in Rus­sia and Ukraine in the 1990s. She hopes they and their fam­i­lies are safe.