Why “Us-and-Them” Thinking Equals Strategic Failure

Intrepid space voyagers have once again sent back photographs of the whole Earth from space, underlining our all-in-the-same-leaky-boat condition of interdependence that renders national demarcations oddly irrelevant. The detonation of anyone’s nuclear weapons would spread radioactivity across such abstract lines; likewise pandemics show equal disrespect for borders, as do rising sea-levels and ever more ferocious storms. All this is new in the human story, and our thinking has yet to catch up.

While we may have spent decades trying to transcend our limited identifications, old habits persist. It is so instinctively easy to worry more about successfully extracting a second downed American pilot from Iran than about 175 Iranian children killed by an American missile. Reflexive national chauvinism lies deep and dies hard.

As a prime example it is hard to ignore Mr. Hegseth’s holy war, take-no-prisoners approach, which represents an obsolete way of thinking going back to the Crusades. He has allowed himself to become a mirror-image of the Iranian fanatics he wants to annihilate without mercy, making no distinctions between the hard-liners and the millions of Iranian people who have no use for theocratic government. As our fresh-thinking American pope said in his Palm Sunday homily, the “King of Peace” rejects the prayers of those who wage war.

Failing to comprehend the radical implications of the view from Artemis II, we fall into unworkable contradictions. Two apparent goals of Trump’s war—to reduce Iran's ambition to possess nukes and to ensure the free flow of fossil fuels through the strait—have boomeranged against him. The president's climate denial and attachment to fossil fuels mires him in an energy paradigm which is counterproductive to everyone's interests, including the non-recoverable effects of the climate emergency.

This unnecessary war has ensured that hatred and fanaticism and the desire for revenge will further extend for decades. It repeats the mistakes and abysmal lack of both historical and cross-cultural understanding that marked our previous misadventures in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, let alone in Central and South America. Worst of all, our “excursions” are a distraction from the real war—the war to sustain our threatened biosystem.

Change begins to happen when near-catastrophe threatens the old-paradigm thinking of establishment experts, even as outlines of better alternatives begin to emerge from those able to imagine them.

It is already clear that the brutal Iranian regime will not be bombed into submission and collapse and will be probably all the more motivated to join the nuclear club.

Which brings us back to the fundamental change on our small blue planet wrought by the invention of never-can-be-uninvented nuclear weapons. What constitutes security in our new condition? Every country a nuclear power? Or pushing toward a different security system based upon the irreducible reality that no one is safe until everyone is? Toward a system which reduces incentives to possess weapons of mass destruction?

There are no good nuclear weapons or bad nuclear weapons. They’re all bad. So when we go to war to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program, we might think about gestures toward reducing our own. Paradoxically, as William Perry, the defense secretary under President Clinton, has pointed out, the U.S. would be more secure if it unilaterally eliminated its entire land-based ballistic missile system, which consists of weapons which cannot be called back in the event of a mistake. We could go further. We could begin the arms control process again with both Russia and China. Perry’s proposal might count for something against Russia’s and China’s present unwillingness to negotiate. The U.S. could commit itself in principle to acceptance that nuclear weapons cannot accomplish anything good by being the first nuclear power to sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

All inspections of imports will include an urgent need to detect a clandestine nuke. All wars from here into the future will be fought under the looming presence of these weapons. World leaders seem to sense that they cannot be used in wars. Putin could “win” with them against Ukraine. Israel and the U.S. could “win” with them against Iran. But we have restrained ourselves, at least so far, because we know the depth of loss such a “win” implies. Now the president of the U.S. is threatening the Iranians with hell. Is he implying that he might cross the nuclear threshold? That would be the ultimate strategic failure of  obsolete “us-and-them” thinking.

Iran and the Illusions of War

 

For whatever reason, our president has been sucked deeply into just the variety of foreign entanglement that he campaigned against. While he and his absurdly gung-ho “Secretary of War” assert that they are not bent on nation-building like their supposedly hapless and woke predecessors, they sure seem to be trying to build an Iranian state with whom we can “peacefully” coexist—by killing as many potential Iranian leaders as they can.

It is not going to work. Neither America nor Israel will become more secure in the long run. If anything good comes of such so-called (and despicably named) “mowing the grass,” I’ll eat my hat.

Sweet Jesus, our benighted species does sometimes seem awesomely stuck on stupid. Here we are a quarter into the 21^st century with two world wars and a series of futile superpower “excursions” into Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan behind us. Russia remains bogged down in the middle of a brutal and cruel “special military operation.” Ahead of us looms a global climate emergency wherein the minimum terms of global survival will be the mass adoption of solar, wind and other renewables. Yes, the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has demonstrated the significant continuing demand for oil and other essential commodities, but the era of fossil fuels is clearly winding down, notwithstanding the president’s ostrich-like denial of climate and obligation to the oil execs who helped pay for his re-election.

In order to keep on assuming that adventures like the cooperative bombing of Iran by the U.S. and Israel will result in anything positive at all, let alone unalloyed positive good, it is necessary to cling rigidly to a series of illusions. A few are listed below, along with their equivalent counter arguments.

•Massive firepower has the capacity to permanently erase ideology, collective resentment and a desire for vengeance. (Nope. This campaign has intensified Iran’s hatred of Israel and America in a way that almost inevitably will carry into further generations.)

•Massive firepower has the ability to obliterate all of Iran’s war-making capacity, including its capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. (Nope. A resentful angry regime will only bide time, rebuild, and hit back down the road. It is impossible to uninvent nuclear weapons. It may even be impossible to stop the sale of a nuclear weapon by one country to another, or the smuggling of same into “enemy territory.” And if God forbid a nuclear holocaust results, we will finally realize that all the wars humans have been fighting are really civil wars. We, we the human species, have become our own worst enemy. All territory is either enemy territory or an occasion for people to wake up and realize that everyone shares an overarching interest in survival—a deep potential bond with “enemies.”)

•America and Israel are totally good and Iran is totally evil. (Sorry, nope. At this point in human history every schoolchild needs to be taught the rudiments of shadow work. It’s now two thousand years since a wise teacher said: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Yes, evil is real, but it is not all over there in the “other.” We have a far better chance of dealing creatively with evil if our brain is not addled by projected blame and fantasies of vengeance and omnipotence. Iranians remember vividly the 1953 British-American coup against them as a gross illegal attempt to de-legitimize a democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mossedegh.)

•Violence permanently resolves conflict. (Nope, it’s exactly the opposite. Violence perpetuates conflict—all the more when we “make a devastation and call it peace.”)

It is long past the moment when we need to think creatively about where such stubbornly-held illusions and simplifications are taking us. A brief catalog of different models of thinking that might help move war from our immediate go-to reaction to our absolute last resort:

•Recognizing my own capacity for blame, indifference, and moral simplification.

•Acknowledging the pull of vengeful feeling without allowing it to govern action.

•Seeing my own capacity for harm, and the shared human condition beneath conflict.

•Understanding that ideas and resentments persist beyond physical destruction.

•Acknowledging that survival is uncertain in a world where others are not secure

•Accepting that militants cannot be cleanly distinguished from civilians—including children— in modern war. And most of all learning to put myself in my adversary’s shoes, in order to listen for common ground. It is easy to destroy. It is much harder to painstakingly push for diplomatic solutions that have the potential to prevent the expense, waste and horror of war. An even more radical way to define our challenge is a line from W.H Auden’s great poem “September 1, 1939”: “We must love one another or die.”

A Speech by a President Who Really Wished to Avoid More Middle East Wars

      Good evening, my fellow Americans.

You entrusted me with your vote to represent the interests of the United States—domestic and strategic. Yet it has become an inescapable reality of the modern world that no nation, even one as powerful as ours, can achieve security in isolation. In the long run, national security depends on global security.

As you know, a few days ago Israel began a pre-emptive aerial strike on Iran. Israel is a longstanding ally and has an absolute right to defend itself. The horrific attacks of October 7, 2023 were, in their brutality and tragedy, a grim echo of our own September 11. Iran has been deeply implicated in supporting Hamas and in fueling other forms of proxy violence throughout the region.

At the same time, if we look honestly at history, our own hands are not entirely clean. Without excusing the present Iranian government—which has brutally suppressed the legitimate protests of its own citizens—we can afford to acknowledge our past. I have no hesitation in apologizing to the people of Iran for the American role in the unjust coup of 1953 that removed the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. That intervention had grave consequences that have shaped Iran’s tragic history ever since.

If I believed that a bombing campaign against Iran had any realistic chance of producing a government worthy of that nation’s ninety million citizens, I would not hesitate to use the overwhelming strength of the American military to bring it about. But decades of painful experience in the Middle East have taught us that ill-considered military intervention often produces more long-term chaos and suffering than stability.

My fellow citizens, in an age of ever more destructive weapons and an accelerating international arms race, we must search for imaginative approaches to break the endless cycle of hate, fear, blame and revenge. Saying this aloud is not weakness. It is strength—strength rooted in the simple truth that escalating violence ultimately leads in only one direction: toward mass death.

My administration will continue to pursue diplomatic conversations with Iran about limiting its pursuit of nuclear weapons. This includes renewed efforts to revive negotiations around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the agreement designed to slow Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons.

Many Iranians living in exile have argued that the most effective path toward change in their country lies not through bombs, but through expanding diplomatic, educational, and commercial ties—connections that gradually open societies and strengthen the voices of those who seek greater freedom and democratic participation.

Israel today lives in a dangerous neighborhood and faces real threats. Yet recent military actions, understandable as they may be in the shadow of October 7, have not ultimately increased Israel’s long-term security. A nation as strong as Israel has the capacity to choose magnanimity rather than remain trapped in an endless cycle of retaliation.

In the end Israel faces the same fundamental choice it has long confronted: either to endure an unending harvest of counter-violence, or to recognize the full humanity of the Palestinian people and their right to the same safety and security Israelis seek for themselves. This will not be easy, and the history of dehumanization on both sides runs deep. But we know with certainty that endlessly escalating violence cannot produce a positive outcome.

The international community today faces a set of challenges so complex that no single nation can solve them alone. The “us-and-them” thinking behind our current global security system contributes little toward solving those problems. Nuclear weapons do not grow food for our children, desalinate water for parched regions, or cool a planet that is steadily warming.

There are no good nuclear weapons and bad nuclear weapons. As President Ronald Reagan once said, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Computer models suggest that fewer than a hundred nuclear detonations over major cities could send enough smoke into the atmosphere to plunge the planet into years of freezing temperatures—nuclear winter. This possibility hangs over the fruitless competition among the major powers to achieve parity in numbers of warheads.

If we expect other nations to reconsider their reliance on nuclear weapons, we must also be willing to reconsider our own.

Decades ago former Secretary of Defense William Perry proposed a bold step: eliminating the United States’ entire land-based system of ballistic missiles. Secretary Perry argued that doing so would actually increase the long-term security of the United States. Our deterrent would remain fully intact through our strategic bombers and our undetectable submarine fleet. Land-based ballistic missiles are uniquely destabilizing. They must be launched quickly in moments of crisis. They can be launched by mistake. And once they are launched, they cannot be recalled. Even if they reached their targets, there would be no victory for anyone.

Perry’s proposal is an idea whose time has come. As Commander-in-Chief, I am directing the implementation of a plan to demobilize the United States’ land-based ballistic missile force.

This initiative has several purposes. It sends a signal that the nuclear arms race is leading humanity nowhere. It reassures non-nuclear states that their security does not require joining the nuclear club. And it invites other major powers—notably China and Russia—to join us in taking their own meaningful steps back from the brink.

Our world remains complex, dangerous, and filled with conflict. The professionalism and strength of American military forces will forever be available to defend our nation and protect the innocent from harm. Yet their greatest service may be that their strength can help create the time and space for diplomacy that solidifies a rules-based international order—allowing all nations to turn from war toward working together on global issues like the climate emergency.

God bless our troops, and God bless the United States of America.

The Courage to Survive

 

In his dense and challenging lectures gathered into a book called “The Courage To Be,” the late theologian Paul Tillich sorted our modern anxieties into three existential buckets: first, the anxiety of fate and death, experienced as dread; second, the anxiety of guilt and self-condemnation, that we have failed to become what we ought to be; and third, the anxiety of meaninglessness, where we feel nothing we do could make a difference. Tillich was talking about the individual, but these work also on the collective level.

 

His triple definition of our deepest fears comes to mind as the last arms control treaty between Russia and the United States expires. Putin offered to extend it for a year; Trump said no. The U.S. is concerned about having enough weapons to deter China and Russia at the same time. Establishment talking heads solemnly opine that deterrence requires a response (ie., we need to increase the number of our warheads) to China’s present buildup so that the charade of our tottering assumptions about security can be maintained.

 

Which brings us directly to Tillich’s varieties of angst, all three of which coat with a thick paralyzing sludge the insane assumptions of nuclear deterrence. We assume nine nuclear powers can go on forever without making a fatal mistake. We assume that 900 nuclear weapons make us more secure than 600 nuclear weapons, and if another country has 1200 nuclear weapons, we cannot be secure unless we can field 1600.  We build; they build. The masters of war achieve prosperous quarterly returns as the Union of Concerned Scientists keeps moving the Doomsday clock closer to zero.

Meanwhile computers that model nuclear winter tell us that less than a hundred detonations over large cities would condemn the planet to a decade of freezing. At least that would result in one less mega-crisis—no more climate emergency from global warming—yet somehow that thought does not decrease dread.

The second Tillich anxiety, in the form of our collective guilt and self-condemnation, needs the air and sunshine of open dialogue, instead of being pushed into shadowy recesses of denial. The international community has known for eighty years that nuclear proliferation leads only to less and less security and more and more danger, greater confusion, increased probability of error. Average citizens, busy with making a living, let themselves off the hook, leaving it to the experts to ensure disaster will not occur. But some of us do feel uneasy that our tax dollars continue to prop up the madness of Mutual Assured Destruction.

It is challenging to maintain the courage to be, to bear the guilt and introspection that leads to responsible action—to say, no one can do everything, but everyone, including helpless little me, can do something.

Tillich thought the third anxiety was the most dangerous of all: the anxiety of meaninglessness and paralysis. We don’t get the impression that the diplomats of the great powers have searching conversations about alternatives. Are they saying to each other “We may have different political and cultural systems, but we have a huge shared interest in survival. How can we cooperate more effectively to ensure that all of us can survive?” They and their apologists in the think tanks want to continue the absurdity that deterrence, however tragic, is the only reasonable alternative. If they do not look for new possibilities, they will never find them. That is despairing helplessness—and a grievous failure of ethical imagination. To condemn ourselves to mass suicide is not worthy of our high destiny as descendants of a 13.85 billion year process.

We find ourselves in the midst of a world that is dying and a world yet to be born. One sign of a dying world is that the leaders of nuclear powers have only minutes to decide the fate of the Earth once they receive indications that missiles are incoming. This bug in the system is not a bug, but an unavoidable feature of deterrence—so egregiously nutty that we just put up with its dysfunction and hope for the best—ie. that it never comes to that. In another example, Putin knows he cannot “win” with nuclear weapons. Instead he falls back upon conventional bombs to destroy power stations, cruelly freezing the stalwart Ukrainians into capitulation. But Putin also knows that however territory is redistributed, no one will emerge victorious. There will be only be suffering, loss, and an immense unquenchable resentment.

In the world that waits to be born, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has gone into force, though none of the nine nuclear powers have signed on. That treaty expresses a response on the part of billions of people around the world to Tillich’s three anxieties. Billions dread mass death. Billions, however submerged their awareness of it, yearn to be relieved of collective guilt for a holocaust that would dwarf the Jewish Shoah. Billions want to make a difference in favor of life.