Thursday open thread: Scorched earth is nothing new for Russians

As Napoleon Bonaparte pushed farther into Russia in 1812, Tsar Alexander I ordered that the earth be scorched to deny the La Grande Armée food and supplies. The order was successful; by winter, Napoleon's army was starving, and began the long and deadly retreat back to Europe.

There's another incident to relate. As the Second World War was drawing to a close and the Western Allies broke through into Germany, Adolf Hitler ordered what was known as the "Nero Decree": German troops were to destroy anything of value. Farmland, factories, train tracks: all were to be destroyed. Not to deny the enemy resources—the Allies didn't need German materiel to conduct the war. This was a Götterdämmerung order. If Hitler was going to die, he was going to condemn those who followed him to death as well, for having failed him in his visions of world dominance.

The picture heading this piece is a picture of a nuclear reactor building at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in occupied Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence began warning last week that Vladimir Putin had ordered the reactor buildings to be fitted out with explosives, and that he would order them to be blown up to create a false flag operation blaming a Ukrainian artillery attack for their demolition, and the possible meltdown which would follow. This satellite image shows that explosives have been placed on the roof of reactor number four; the white boxes on the roof are the munitions. Russia has also begun to evacuate the surrounding area.

One would think that meteorology would preclude Putin from taking this step. But that was before Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion in June. Putin saw how weak his hold on power was. It's not as if the military sprang to his defense. Prigozhin's uprising severely weakened the regime, showing it to be, like much of anything in Russia, a Potemkin village. Putin has to be wondering from where the next coup will come. Because it will come. The way has been shown. The best he can hope for is to be brought before the Hague for war crimes. But his concern is of him suffering the same fate as so many of his opponents in the country. A fall out of a window. A bullet to the head.

I think Putin realizes that he's not getting out of this war alive. So, like Hitler, he has decided to punish his people for their failure of strength and determination. Any meltdown would irradiate the parts of Ukraine claimed by Russia, and inhabited by ethnic Russians. The radiation, based on prevailing winds, would also float into Russia proper. But for him, it's what his people deserve. They have failed him, and there must be a purge.

NATO has declared that blowing up the nuclear plant would be a trigger for Article 5, the common defense provision of the treaty. NATO would be at war. 

My purpose is not to frighten you, but to lay out where things stand. There is a nonzero chance that the US and its NATO allies could be at war with Russia soon. One would hope that such a threat would clarify minds in Moscow, and lead to Putin's removal, one way or another. We're living in perilous times. But hiding from reality won't help.

Human existence is put in peril by men like Putin. May we soon outgrow our tantrums, and evolve to a society where such men attaining power is unthinkable.