Crimes against humanity must never be tolerated lest they become normalized and corrupt our humanity itself. As the Biden Administration and NATO generously provide military supplies, weapons, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, atrocities against civilians in Mariupol demand more than standing on the sidelines bearing witness to history as massive crimes against humanity are inflicted by Vladimir Putin and his barbaric military.
Throwing money and aid to Ukraine as we sit in the bleachers may be construed as complicity if NATO fails at least to directly intervene in the slow strangulation of civilians trapped in Mariupol and the city’s Azovstal steel plant. Regardless of what the genocidal perpetrator Putin dictates as to what NATO may or may not do to save lives, NATO must rise to assert fearless moral dominance and put an immediate stop to atrocities.
This capitulation to corruption is what philosopher and Nazi survivor, Karl Popper, warned against in the “Paradox of Toleration,” where toleration of the intolerable elements of society that is necessary in open societies is not without limit because toleration without limit becomes weakness, which is seized upon by the entrenched intolerant who eventually destroys the tolerant and civil society itself.
In other words, just societies built on the rule of law and democratic toleration must be maintained by force. To permit Putin to rape, loot, starve, and massacre innocent civilians and wounded soldiers, and to block evacuation attempts by the Red Cross and others, is to set a deadly precedent for all the world’s thugs with nuclear weapons who need only make threats to be permitted to do, take, or destroy whatever they want, with the only consequence being timid sanctions.
“If God is dead all things are permitted,” said Ivan in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. Whether believers or not, no people or nation can claim to be good if they tolerate such evils.
This is not to say that NATO and the world’s forces of good should act recklessly or provoke evil actors and autocrats to use nuclear weapons in defense of their crimes, but that we must consider each threat on a case-by-case basis, as we must now do with Putin.
Despite his threats, Putin has shown his hand, has shown that he is an out-of-touch ideologue and narcissist with a very weak grasp on practical reality and the actual power of his declared enemy, the noble Ukrainians. Not to mention both unlawful and unjust, his invasion of Ukraine was a poorly organized and myopic, strategic blunder that has cost him substantial credibility and rendered him a pariah who must never again be accepted into the company of free nations.
His foolish action has reduced his stature and sapped some of his authority as an authoritarian, which is a chink in the armor of a dictator that could lead to his downfall.
To maintain control, Putin must save face or put himself at risk of being deposed. He will save face, not by escalating the war but by getting out of it as soon as possible with some illusion of victory. His initial threat to use nuclear weapons was bluster, was from weakness, the weakness of a bully who is uncertain of his strength and whether he will win the fight he has started. But for him to use a nuclear or even chemical-biological weapon at this point would not only be an act of extreme desperation but of escalation and self-annihilation.
More than anything, pathological narcissists and dictators such as Putin love power and want to survive above all else. Putin dreams of his legacy, of being remembered as a “great man,” another Peter the Great or Stalin, who restored Russia to what he imagines is its rightful place as a world superpower. He hopes that his trespass into Ukraine will be a step in this direction. Involving nuclear weapons would quash his hopes and dreams because this would be an invitation to world war. Putin and his military are barely able to maintain a fight against the isolated Ukrainians, much less the immense forces of NATO, which also hold nuclear weapons and who could crush Putin in short order.
In his weakened position, Putin must be challenged and at a minimum his attacks against civilians and crimes against humanity no longer tolerated but unequivocally stopped. If handled correctly, however, the action proposed below may be understood by Putin to be both reasonable and unthreatening, giving him another way to save face against accusations of being a war criminal and weak leader.
It is well known that Putin respects strength and is contemptuous of Western rationalism and democratic deliberation. Below is a show of force by NATO that must be played out in Mariupol and other cities of Ukraine that may meet a similar fate.
NATO must immediately organize an armed evacuation of Mariupol with a temporary No-fly zone to protect the evacuees, making it clear that the incursion into Mariupol is not an attack on Russian troops but purely humanitarian, in defense of unarmed and innocent human beings, an action of mercy that is authorized by international law, by Christian ethics, and by a moral duty to protect human beings regardless of their nationality.
The exclusive purpose of the intervention is to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers, as well as to prevent further war crimes and crimes against humanity. Because efforts by the Red Cross and others to conduct evacuations and give aid have been consistently blocked by Russian forces, even when they have agreed to them, NATO has a categorical imperative, a duty under international law and God to intervene.
The evacuation force will make it clear that they are not there to engage with Russian forces but only to ensure that the evacuation is successfully completed. However, if fired upon or obstructed they will defend themselves and those in their charge, including calling in air strikes and enforcing a no-fly zone over Mariupol until the evacuation is complete.
This effort would not only save civilians but also provide Putin with the opportunity to save face and perhaps in his mind begin the repair of his reputation as a war criminal and an unconscionable mass murderer, a terrorist, who intentionally kills innocent civilians and violates the rules of war.
In other words, for NATO to immediately organize and assert this humanitarian incursion into Mariupol, which would force Putin either to prove that he is a war criminal by ordering his forces to fire on NATO forces, attacking the Red Cross and others involved in the evacuation, or to show that he is a human being with conscience, not a sociopath, who can show at least some empathy for others, permitting without conflict the action by NATO to rescue civilians from Mariupol and elsewhere if need be.
Yes, there is risk in this assertive plan, this act of intolerance, but there is more risk in standing on the sidelines as timid spectators who permit atrocities to take place before their very eyes as they wring their hands, feeling helpless, demoralized, and like guilty bystanders.
There is also substantial risk to Putin if he takes any overt action against NATO. Putin is already too weak to fight effectively in Ukraine, so taking on NATO would be suicidal. And if Putin dares to enlist chemical or nuclear weapons to retaliate, he would not only threaten massive destruction to the non-Russian world but would be guaranteeing his own and Russia’s annihilation. Putin has shown he is too much of a narcissist and survivor, with his big plans for the “Russian World” and fame, to take this fatal action from which there would be no escape but death.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
