Aristagoras and Nuclear War
Nuclear war is so hot right now. Who's buying?
This could all look very silly in a few decades. And hopefully, it will. I try to take my life deadly seriously without taking myself seriously at all. I know, that’s quite the juxtaposition, but here we are. Analysts now estimate there’s a 20-25% chance of nuclear war. That’s up from 0-5% when Russia first invaded Ukraine. It seems unfathomable that there is a one in four chance that is our future, but here we are. Dan Carlin has an excellent podcast episode on the history of the nuclear bomb and the avoidance of nuclear war. The relative tranquility of the globe compared to the potential of a nuclear holocaust is nothing short of miraculous. I would also recommend C.S. Lewis’s essay on living in a nuclear era. It may not be my place, and I may not have all the information but I felt compelled to write this piece. Because, you know, here we are. Be kind, love each other, God bless.
FA
In 498 B.C. the Ionian tyrant Aristagoras strolled into Sparta in an attempt to lure them into war. Aristagoras appealed to the Spartan king Cleomenes I for the great warrior statue's assistance. The Ionian assuaged the king’s ego by praising the elite Spartan warrior, tempting him with Persian riches and finery. The tyrant turned snake oil salesman even went as far as to claim the Persians would be easy to defeat, that they fought shieldless and in their trousers and turbans. Cleomenes ruminated on Aristagoras’ request until the Ionian made his fatal mistake. When asked how long of a voyage it was to Susa, the Persian capital, he told the truth - three months. Cleomenes rebuked the Ionian and consequently banished him from Sparta refusing any attempt of bribery that proceeded.
The previous year Aristagoras began a rebellion against the Persian Empire in his home city of Miletus; soon thereafter Ionia as a whole was embroiled in a war for their liberation. Realizing the Ionians were gravely outmatched he looked outward for aid, and after the Spartan king flatly refused his request Aristagoras turned to the second great power across the Aegean Sea. He then traveled to the fledgling democracy of Athens. There, he was met with an audience of an electorate eager to cast their vote. Aristagoras, now his pitch well practiced, promised everything he could think of to the Athenians and pointed out that Miletus was, in fact, settled by the Athenians so they ought to have a vested interest in its future. This is the pitch that succeeded. Aristagoras found it much more facile to woo egos and entice the greed of thirty thousand men than the wisdom of one king. Consequently, the Athenians sent twenty ships and their soldiers to assist the rebellion. Upon arrival, they were swiftly defeated by the Persian forces, and the Athenian public lost interest in the war effort. However, the Persian ruler Darius the Great did not move on so quickly; so that he would remember to exact his revenge on the Greek city-state he commanded a servant to remind him three times a day of the Athenians’ transgression. What would follow would be the Greco-Persian wars - decades of war seeing the loss of Greek territory and hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Ultimately, the Grecian city-states would be victorious but not without an undeniably avoidable great cost.
It’s been said plenty of times that although history doesn’t repeat itself, it does rhyme. Well, here comes the next line of a 2500-year-old coupling. Smooth-talking, cunning Aristagoras has strolled into the West with a new - nuclear - war to peddle. I know who most of the players are in this reimagining of the age-old Greek tragedy. Athens and Sparta will be played by America -understudied by its NATO allies. The Ionian rebellion is the conflict in the disputed areas of Ukraine. The Persian Empire - and this is where the poet takes a little liberty - is not Putin’s Russia. No, the all-conquering, domineering behemoth of the East led by the vengeful, thorough Darius will be played by global nuclear war.
The way I understand it there are three questions that are paramount to the survival of the West. The first of which is this: are those charged with the responsibility of keeping us (the public) out of a global war wise enough and independent enough to do so? We need only to take a cursory look at President Biden’s record so far to make that determination. Furthermore, we’ve observed the capitulation (or capitalization depending on how conspiratorial you’re willing to be) of our institutions to the whims of corporations and oligarchs during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Trump administration facilitated the largest transfer of wealth in the country’s history; standing by as small businesses were forced to shutter their doors and the likes of Amazon and Walmart picked their carcasses clean. Big businesses directed their lobbying wings at garnering ‘essential’ status while their small business competitors were forced to endure punitive lockdown restrictions. Pfizer and Moderna posted record profits dwarfing previous years due to their dubious vaccines being mandated for a large number of the population.
Meanwhile, the Federal government’s fiscal policy were working in tandem to ensure the eradication of the middle class; pumping the market full of new cash, reducing the value of any savings you may have had by double-digit percentages while investment firms like BlackRock were hoovering up single-family residences across the nation. Not only do all of these titans of industry possess preposterous amounts of wealth and capital, they have the necessary organization to exert their influence.
Still, the military-industrial complex is the most insidious of all these partnerships. The wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq and the revolving door between ‘consultants’ and lobbyists at Raytheon and Lockheed Martin will disabuse you of the idea of America acting on virtue and nobility on the global stage. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of this growing union of government and industry in his farewell address.
Before we answer this first question, let’s take a look at the second. Does the American electorate possess the sensibility and the information required to abstain from supporting military intervention in the East? See above. If the public at large were aware of who was actually calling the shots for the last 70-odd years surely they would no longer tolerate it. Right? If Americans had been aware of the absurdity of invading Afghanistan on the grounds of it, not Saudi Arabia, fostering the terrorists responsible for the events of 9/11, or the erroneous nature of the claims of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq then surely we could have avoided two decades-long occupations of foreign countries.
Of course, this alternate history would rely on the public developing a resistance to the propaganda pouring out of the mouth of Aristagoras - but that’s another challenge.
What makes Aristagoras’ story such a great analogue for where we stand today is that America, is both the ever-warring Sparta and the democratic Athens. We elect a king every few years. The modern-day executive office has unparalleled power compared to its predecessors yet the Commander-in-Chief spends half their time pandering to the populace in preparation for the next election cycle. Franklin D. Roosevelt ran on an isolationist platform in a resolutely anti-war America at the beginning of World War II despite seemingly knowing the necessity of American involvement abroad. The problem isn’t America’s eventual induction into the second great war, it was Roosevelt’s reticence to level with the American electorate for fear of losing the next election. It was the historical equivalent of ‘read my lips: no new taxes’, or ‘if you like your health care plan, you can keep it’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that we’ve gotten much better at assessing the veracity of campaign promises while we still don’t have mechanisms in place to hold officials accountable to their promises between elections.
What the Athenian referendum teaches us is that outsourcing the decision to several thousand men didn’t allow for equal or better results than what the Spartan king had determined. What further exacerbates the matter is that, when you’re one of thirty thousand, it’s a whole lot easier to be pro-war when in all likelihood you’re not the one who’ll be in the direct line of fire and no soldier will be knocking on your door asking why you decided to send them to war. State pride and moral virtue are easy to maintain if you’re taking the smallest portion of the decision-making responsibility.
At least the Athenians had an idea of what warfare was like. The Athenian army was made up of every able-bodied male citizen - but the richest among them were heavily armored and the poorest had to rely on state charity if anything - so combat was no stranger to them. What was a stranger to them, however, was the prospect of fighting the super-power Persian Empire. Americans may have some semblance of the idea of warfare, passed down from their grandparents who fought in Vietnam or Korea, or our parents and contemporaries who did tours in the middle east - and I think that’s being generous. We have no earthly idea of the ramifications of nuclear war, and that is certainly our privilege. Eric Weinstein has long been a proponent of bringing back above-ground nuclear testing for this very reason. The atom bomb has become a vestige of the past, an abstraction of our collective memory. But, if we were reminded frequently of the devastation and terror they’re capable of inducing would we be more eager to remind our leaders to tread carefully?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Four to Five years ago many of you called this crazy because you said Nukes were passé.<br><br>This was July 22, 2018. More than 4 years ago. Those of you robotically chanting “Слава Україні!”…you have got to snap out of being in thrall to this media narrative.<br><br>Wake up. Now. <a href="
9, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
During the Korean War, President Truman resisted high-ranking officials’ recommendations to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Having previously used them in Japan, President Truman flatly rebuked the proposition of using them in a war of such smaller proportions having greatly deliberated whether or not to use them in WWII in the first place.
The Cuban Missile Crisis and the disaster it promised were largely mitigated by the diplomacy of President Kennedy and Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. The leaders of the opposing world powers began a correspondence slowly building trust in one another. Eventually, as the tone of their letters developed, this led to days of tense, secret negotiations. Kennedy and Khrushchev, together, we able to come to an agreement. The USSR would pull its nuclear missiles from Cuba while America would remove its missiles from Turkey. Notably, Kennedy’s concession to the USSR was not revealed to the public until decades later for fear of the President - and the country - looking weak.
Now, in an effort to look strong and stalwart, Biden stubbornly refuses to speak with Putin about de-escalation while Russia remains in Ukraine. The pinnacle of diplomacy, indeed. At the risk of appearing a pessimist, I’m afraid my answer to the first two questions is not in the affirmative.
Now, this is where the waters get a little murky. In the aforementioned historical events, the advantages, the conflict of interests, the rewards seemed clear; they were easy to track. If the Persians had been defeated the Athenians would reap the reward of the debt owed to them by the Ionians. Merchants and statesmen, alike, would have been clamoring at the prospect. Entangling the United States in wars that would offer little consequence to the American public but the state would gain considerable influence in the Middle East and profits would be split amongst their partners in industry makes sense. It was perfectly reasonable for Aristagoras to mislead the Athenians and the Spartans about the nature of the Persian Empire. What I fail to understand is whose best interest is it to mislead the American public about the true nature of nuclear war?
Question three. Who is our modern-day Aristagoras and what do they have to gain? The answer to this question is critical to our society’s imminent and long-term survival. Countless media personalities have attempted to diminish the threat of nuclear warfare, most recently Neil deGrasse Tyson on Real Time with Bill Maher.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Somewhat stunned by the ignorance displayed by <a href="
16, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It seems the whole governmental apparatus is inclined towards entering a hot war with Russia - and those who would push back saying a hot war between nuclear powers wouldn’t devolve into thermonuclear cataclysm are nonsensical. Putin is neither insane, nor a genius. He’s an ambitious leader that currently holds all their cards. Ukraine relinquished their nuclear weapons in the mid-nineties instilling their trust to their allies - while never achieving membership status with NATO. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction is disintegrating before our eyes, and if Putin - who has more nuclear warheads than he count - is backed into a corner, then, of course, he will lash out.
Ukraine are fighting an un-winnable war unless they procure similarly destructive weaponry. Those who advocate for more money, more weapons and materiel support to Ukraine will see the country and the Ukrainian identity reduced to rubble and diaspora. U.S. officials are aware of this - we’re no strangers to un-winnable wars ourselves - yet are unwilling to push Ukraine to the bargaining table. They know this yet before departing for the midterms Congress passed a spending bill meant to prevent a government shutdown that included $12.3 billion in aid to Ukraine. Biden promptly signed the bill into action. Oh, but why stop there? Worried that new members of congress won’t be so enthusiastic about the war effort in January when they take office, the current roster of representatives are attempting to pass a massive aid package that could see around $50 billion to Ukraine before their terms are over. Congress has allocated $65 billion to Ukraine since they were attacked early this year, an invasion that likely could have been avoided if Ukraine had abided by the Minsk agreements of 2014.
Elected officials continue to suggest Russia is responsible for the sabotage of their Nord Stream pipeline, an attack that will only pitches Europe further into the depths of the conflict.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Did Russia purposely sabotage the Nord Stream Pipeline?</p>— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) <a href="
28, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In a tweet that has since been deleted, former Foreign Minister of Poland and EU parliament member Radoslaw Sikorski expressed his gratitude to the U.S. for attacking the pipeline.
Senator Lindsey Graham chastised Elon Musk for suggesting a peace plan between the two countries. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">With all due respect to Elon Musk - and I do respect him - I would suggest he needs to understand the facts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.</p>— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) <a href="
5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
At the end of the Graham’s thread he even suggests that perhaps congress should “revisit the electric vehicle tax credit boondoggle.” Suggesting that the money that is used to benefit electric vehicle owners and manufacturers could be repurposed as aid to the war effort. Musk was then mocked by Stephen Colbert claiming the SpaceX founder was “doing Russia’s bidding” for simply suggesting an alternative that would see a ceasefire. Curiously, the organization FAIR notes that prominent peers of Colbert’s have ceased to discuss banning nuclear weapons. According to FAIR, the last time the New York Times even mentioned the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was in 2020. NPR hasn’t mentioned the treaty since January of 2021 despite running significant pieces about the nuclear bomb. CNN mentioned the treaty last in May of this year.
Of course, there is the small - I mean small - possibility that all of this is an elaborate kayfabe constructed in order to elicit a desired response. But, I seriously doubt the powers that be have the coordination to keep a ruse like that going for very long.
So, we must treat the threat as real, and everyday that tensions escalate we roll the dice once more. If nuclear war is on the table then our fates lie in the hands of only a few individuals. Only a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and fresh off the heels of the Cold War, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was faced with a dilemma. Intending to do research on the aurora borealis, a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a rocket off the coast of Norway. This rocket was falsely identified by Russian forces as the American Trident ballistic missile. Fearing nuclear attack, the ‘nuclear briefcase’ was brought to Yeltsin. Yeltsin, who was known to enjoy a tipple or two, had only minutes to decide to launch a retaliatory attack. Fortunately for all of us living today, cooler heads prevailed and no such attack was ordered. With that in mind, should we trust the nuclear football in the hands of Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden, and the revolving door of Prime Minister in the United Kingdom?
While we may not know what this 21st century iteration of Aristagoras stands to gain, we do know how to identify him. Midterm elections are a couple of weeks away. We must make sure we have the right representatives in place to conserve a peace that is becoming increasingly strained. And, if we are wise, like the Spartan Cleomenes I, we will not be corrupted.