“The promise of mutually assured destruction had a way of calming even the fiercest hearts.”
Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Author
Audio for this commentary: 
For the sixty years following the Cuban missile crisis, the world has felt relatively secure with the hypothesis of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ (MAD): the assumption that neither side would touch the nuclear button for fear of wholesale annihilation. That, of course, has assumed the sanity of all those who preside over nations with nuclear arms — one of the reasons why the world has worked so hard over these years to prevent nuclear proliferation.
All that has come to an abrupt end, with Putin's threat over the past three weeks; and one must suspect that those who advocate direct NATO involvement in Ukraine do not understand the terminal risk that nuclear weapons represent.
In the face of this combination of insanity and ignorance we must develop new ways of dealing with tyrants, and the imposition of massive economic sanctions is one of the only tools we're left with. However, it brings with it the necessity to re-think trade globalisation: so in this commentary we suggest a new approach to remove huge trade imbalances with totalitarian nuclear-armed nations, so that trading relationships should follow, not lead, moves towards democratic governance.
Canon Alistair MacDonald-Radcliff summarised this dilemma well in an editorial in the Church Times last week:
‘To allow it to be established that merely to hint at such a response [the use of nuclear weapons] can freeze all possibility of Western military intervention is a recipe for progressive erosion of the capacity to resist force by any means other than the merely economic.
‘This will not be lost on China, which might say next, “You must allow us to seize Taiwan or else” — or, indeed, any other state that has or may soon have nuclear weapons. What would stop Iran, when it has such weapons, from declaring that all shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz must seek its approval, or that unless Lebanon be rendered a client state it could use such a weapon?
‘All this turns, first, on any move away from the doctrine that froze all possibility of military conflict in Europe during the Cold War: the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction”, which made any use of nuclear weapons rationally unthinkable.’
He is correct to identify economics as the only remaining lever we have to deal with this challenge: that is, with the exception of prayer. However, although there has been no alternative but to react spontaneously with economic sanctions to the Ukraine assault, we must in future build in a strategy to deny tyrants with nuclear capability the economic ability to hold the world to ransom without at the same time destroying our own economies.
Last week our commentary focused on carbon, because our addiction to fossil fuels has resulted in the huge trade leverage in favour of Russia from which the European Union, in particular, is struggling hard to extract itself.
But Canon Alistair is right to identify the risk of China following down Russia's path and, in that case, the economic vulnerability lies more with the United States. As we're all aware, China's economic revolution has been built on low price manufacturing which has created a huge trade imbalance with the US: if economic sanctions had to be applied as quickly there as for Russia, a huge swathe of businesses across the free world would be closed down. It would become very difficult to fund the US National debt, much of which is bought by China.
So, if strong economic action is to take the place of MAD when totalitarian regimes threaten nuclear response, we must take urgent action to re-align our trade policy so that we only permit significant leverage for those nations committed to democracy.
At the same time, we must stop treating the nuclear threat as a theoretical risk; and start educating young people in particular more affectively about its existential threat to life on Earth. Of course we include the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the school curriculum, and of course people are aware of the devastating destruction caused by a nuclear blast.
But do they understand radiation, and the way it poisons the environment for centuries, destroying the prospect of life — and rendering huge areas unfit for human or animal habitation? Sixty years ago that threat was very new: protest marches were commonplace, and protest songs were sung. The need for an underground bunker was a serious consideration in the 1960s.
Joe Biden is old enough to remember all this, but his words of caution over the risks of World War Three are interpreted by many as lacking moral courage to stand by the Ukrainians in their hour of need. But he is right to weigh these risks so carefully, especially faced with a tyrant like Putin whose sanity is in question.
It will take some time, and involve some real economic sacrifices, to re-adjust world trade in favour of democratic nations, not least because these countries have to make more effort to pay their people fairly. As this transition takes place — and the current hike in energy prices is evidence of that happening already — we must not let the burden fall on the shoulders of those least able to bear it.
On Monday 7 March I attended the latest briefing for Trussell Trust supporters, and they report a continuing and rising need for food bank support. The supply of donated food is no longer sufficient to meet the demand, and their helpline is flat out with calls for assistance.
We must therefore take action to support those who have to make the choice between heating and eating, and build those support mechanisms into the transition towards a safer world.
Sixty years on from Bob Dylan’s ‘The times they are a-changing’ challenge to the status quo, we need to re-think our approach to world peace and fair economics: and a more egalitarian form of capitalism could play a huge part in making that happen.
Gavin Oldham OBE
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