The Problem with Putin's War

By Maury Blackman

There’s a hard truth that world leaders understand but rarely articulate: Russia will not be allowed to lose this war. At least not in the way we typically think of a country losing a war. Because if it does, Putin may choose to take the world down with him. That’s the grim reality behind the headlines, the quiet calculus shaping every Western response to the invasion of Ukraine. It’s not that the West lacks the means to stop him—it’s that it fears the consequences of pushing too far. And with good reason.

This is the problem with Putin’s war. It is being waged not just with tanks and troops, but with the implicit threat of nuclear escalation. That threat has turned a brutal, illegal invasion into a global crisis with no clean solutions. It has paralyzed our institutions, warped our moral clarity, and exposed just how little leverage even the most powerful democracies have when one man with a nuclear arsenal decides to upend the world order.

We all know what’s at stake. Putin has already committed war crimes—targeting civilians, razing cities, erasing national identity. And yet, the response has been measured. Aid is sent in waves, military support is carefully calibrated, and direct confrontation is off the table. Why? Because the minute he feels existential pressure—if the war turns decisively against him, or if regime survival is at stake—he has the capacity to escalate in ways that make conventional warfare obsolete. Tactical nuclear weapons. Long-range ballistic missiles. Strategic strikes designed to “end” the war with finality.

This isn’t alarmism. It’s realpolitik. The Cold War may have ended, but the logic of mutually assured destruction never disappeared. It simply mutated. We’re no longer in a standoff between two superpowers with rigid doctrines and backchannel diplomacy. We’re dealing with an autocrat who sees himself as the state, who views humiliation as a death sentence, and who has cultivated a domestic narrative in which the West is always the aggressor.

This is the central dilemma: if Putin is pushed too hard, he could destroy far more than Ukraine. But if he isn’t pushed at all, the West cedes the future of global order to those willing to break it by force. That’s the tightrope we’re walking. We want to support Ukraine, but we also want to avoid global war. We want to hold Russia accountable, but we fear what accountability would provoke. This balancing act—morally, strategically, and diplomatically—is what defines the modern security challenge.

And the danger isn’t limited to Russia. The longer this war drags on under the shadow of nuclear blackmail, the more attractive that playbook becomes for other regimes. North Korea has already built its deterrent. Iran is inching closer. And if Russia is allowed to invade a sovereign neighbor, flatten its cities, and rewrite international borders simply because it has nukes, then the incentive for others to acquire them multiplies. Fast.

This is why stopping the spread of nuclear weapons isn’t some abstract Cold War priority—it’s a matter of survival for the rules-based international system. If Iran goes nuclear, it won’t just threaten Israel or upend the balance of power in the Middle East. It will become the next regime capable of acting with impunity, knowing that the world will hesitate to stop them out of fear of nuclear retaliation. A nuclear Iran, emboldened by what Russia has shown is possible, is a red line we cannot afford to cross.

The war in Ukraine has also exposed the limits of existing global institutions. The UN Security Council is hamstrung. NATO is bound by its charter. Even the most aggressive sanctions haven’t stopped Russian aggression or broken its economy. Power, not process, is what matters in this new age of conflict. And that means the West must return to basics—military strength, diplomatic leverage, and a clear understanding that peace is not the default state of the world. It must be maintained, defended, and backed with force if necessary.

Values still matter—freedom, democracy, sovereignty—but values without power are sentiment. What Putin’s war has shown is that soft power alone is no match for tanks backed by nuclear threats. We must build a new strategy that combines deterrence, defense, and diplomacy—but one that doesn’t flinch in the face of nuclear coercion. That means confronting the new reality without illusions. We need more than resolve. We need capability, credibility, and a unified front that tells the world: this ends here.

This war may be fought on the streets of Kharkiv and Mariupol, but its outcome will define the 21st century. It will tell every regime watching what is permissible, what is punishable, and what the cost of defying the international order really is. If we fail to answer that question now, we will be forced to answer it again—somewhere else, with even higher stakes.

Global Reawakening – “The New Nuclear Consensus”

Putin’s war is a wake-up call. We are living with the illusion of a post-nuclear world, while rogue states operate with Cold War-era immunity. The world needs a new nuclear consensus—one that reasserts that these weapons are not tools of power, but threats to humanity itself. That starts with confronting Russia’s aggression firmly, halting the spread of weapons to countries like Iran, and recommitting to the principle that war crimes, land grabs, and nuclear blackmail are never acceptable in a civilized world. We can’t change the past, but we can shape the future—if we act now, together.