I ask everyone to spread this text. If you are a citizen of the USA or other NATO country, send it to your congressman/parliament representative, to the newspapers, or post it in popular blogs and forums. If you are Ukrainian, send it to your diplomats to provide them more arguments for persuading their Western partners. You may omit my name, shorten and rephrase the text (and translate it, of course) - just keep the essence.
While I was writing this article, Russian aggressors attacked the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. While our Western leaders demonstrate their weakness and cowardice, being afraid of an imaginative nuclear war which Russia will never dare to begin (see below), Russia begins the acts of nuclear terrorism which is actually more dangerous. This alone is enough reason to use NATO forces against the world menace, which Russia is, as fast as possible. But see below the more detailed arguments in support of military action against Russia. I stress that they are rational arguments, not an appeal to emotions.
I am an American citizen, living in Florida - so I am not interested in a nuclear war in which American cities may be targets. But I was born in Russia and spent there the first 38 years of my life - so I know and understand Russians better than any American-born expert can. And I know - not "believe," not "hope," but know - that Russia will never dare to start a nuclear war against the USA (nor any major nuclear country). Let me explain why all the fears of President Biden and other American and European politicians are wrong and just follow Russian propaganda, not the reality.
1. First of all, stop using the term "the Third World War!" It's a lie and manipulation. The Third World War is absolutely impossible for a very simple reason: for a world war, two (at least two) opposing blocks must exist. There is no second block. Russia is alone! No country in the world will fight for it - neither China, nor North Korea, nor Iran. China is deeply integrated in the Western economy and has absolutely no reason for such a war. Other countries, even the worst American haters, are too weak against the USA and NATO and they know it. So, the only realistic scenario of the war is "Russia alone against the US and their allies."
2. You may say "Whatever the war is called, Russia may use nuclear weapons against us." No. All Russian nuclear threats are a blatant bluff. Moreover, Russia will not dare to attack America even with conventional weapons - as long as it will be sure that America will respond with all its power.
While Russian propaganda depicts Russians as berserks, the truth is, Russians are very bad warriors, and they are cowards. Almost every single victory in Russian history was won due to overwhelming quantity, not quality, and often with great losses, Russia never dares to attack an equal opponent, let alone stronger ones - only the weaker (or allegedly weaker from Russian point of view). Below is the list of main Russian aggressions against independent states (invasions, occupation, annexation, participation in civil wars) since WWI (NOT including individual destruction of civilian ships and airplanes; political assassinations and brutal repressions inside Russian borders):
This list alone is a strong argument for why the Free World should fight Russia, which is (literally!) the most aggressive country on Earth, being it under any government (including democratic Yeltsin time) and will never stop until is it ultimately defeated, demilitarized and disintegrated. But again, you can clearly see from this list that Russia, which has a typical bully mentality, attacks only those whom it considers as the weaker ones. For example, Russia attacked Japan not when it was strong but on Aug. 8, 1945 - two days after Hiroshima bombing, when Japan was virtually defeated! Even Poland in 1939 was attacked only after it was already crushed by the Germans.
So, Russia never dared and never will dare to attack America (let alone America and its allies). Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Russia was bluffing, threatening the USA, but when Kennedy, who definitely did not want a nuclear war, still ordered the highest readiness and informed American allies that "the United States may find it necessary within a very short time... to take whatever military action may be necessary," Khrushchev gave up so fast that he broadcasted it via Moscow radio, fearing he would not have time to do it via diplomatic channels. And BTW, Khrushchev was not a soft or even comical person, as some people think today. While he condemned Stalin's terror after Stalin's death, at the time of that terror Khrushchev was one of its pillars who signed thousands of execution lists. In the bloody struggle for power he defeated two other butchers - Beria, who was supported by the KGB, and later Zhukov, who was supported by the army. By Russian standards, Khrushchev was a daredevil, way braver than Putin. But still, he gave up immediately when he saw that the USA was ready to fight.
And Putin is just a coward with a bully mentality. Remember the Western missile strikes against the Asad regime. Before those strikes, Russian propaganda was furious, promising to shoot down "every flying object." The result? Russians didn't dare to do anything - even to attack the unmanned missiles. Remember Azerbaijan regaining Nagorno-Karabakh? Armenia, which is virtually a Russian puppet state, was begging Putin for military help - but got nothing. Putin did not dare to attack Azerbaijan backed by Turkey. Do you still think he will dare to attack the USA? Actually, we already had a battle between the US and Russian troops - on Feb. 7, 2018 near the city of Deir ez-Zor (also known as Deir al-Zour) in Syria, when Russians violated the agreement (as they always do) and attacked local US allies, The result? From 200 to 300 Russians killed; not a single scratch on the US side. Yes - it was a "Wagner" mercenary group, not the regular Russian army. But the Russian army did not dare to provide that group any support against American troops (BTW, those experienced mercenaries are, on average, better warriors than Russian regular soldiers). But even the more definite proof we got in Nov. 2015, when a Turkish fighter plane shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber. It was exactly the situation we are discussing: what happens if a NATO state plane shoots down a Russian plane. The answer is: nothing. The hysteria of Russian propaganda was very loud (and very funny), but that was all they got. Not a single bullet, let alone a nuclear missile, flew in the Turkish direction. And it was just Turkey. Not the USA.
3. And this is for a reason. Russia has absolutely no chance of winning neither conventional nor nuclear war against NATO (or even the USA alone), and Russia knows it. In conventional weapons - and even in nuclear submarines and strategic bombers - the West has overwhelming superiority in quantity and quality (and speaking of quality, we should take into account not only the hardware but the people; a typical Russian soldier is a young boy from a depressed town, who was not smart enough to avoid the draft, is constantly beaten and humiliated by his "comrades", lacks normal food, clothes and medical help, who hates the army, and has a very low overall morale). And in a nuclear scenario - I am not saying it is acceptable, I am just explaining why it will never happen, and please keep this in mind reading the following paragraphs! - most Russian warheads will never reach their targets due to the Western countermeasures and their own technical problems. But even if they do, America will survive, and Russia will not. The concept that a nuclear war will eliminate the whole mankind (or even "all life on Earth") is also a myth invented by Russian propaganda (back in the Soviet time) because they understood that such a war would eliminate them but not their enemies. Actually, we’ve already had a nuclear war, but most of the people did not even notice it. More than 2000 nuclear blasts (1054 of them - on the US territory) have been made since 1945. While only 2 of them - and relatively weak - were carried out against populated cities (the rest were tests and non-military explosions), this confutes the concept that "radioactive pollution will kill all life." Even the aforementioned two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, prosper now. Actually, in a nuclear blast most radioactive isotopes decay - that's why the blast happens - and stop being dangerous after that (or soon after that in a chain of short-living isotopes decays). This is contrary to a reactor meltdown (Chernobyl scenario), when those isotopes are just thrown out and widespread, polluting a great area for years. So, from the point of radioactive pollution, a nuclear war is less dangerous than an attack on nuclear power plants which Russia is undertaking right now!
And while human losses from direct nuclear hits would be huge, the West would survive Russia even because of a much greater population. Imagine that in a nuclear war Russia and the USA lost 140 million each. For Russia, it's the complete elimination. For the USA, it's a 40% loss. Can a nation survive such losses? The Black Death in the 14th century killed about a half of the European population; in some cities up to 3/4 died. But none of the nations affected, nor the European civilization in general, was destroyed.
But a nuclear war destroys not only life but infrastructure. Yes, and here the USA also has a great advantage over Russia. The USA is very decentralized. Most state capitals are not the biggest cities of their respective states. Administrative, business, industrial, scientific centers and facilities are widespread all over the country; transportation is also very decentralized (including thousands of airfields and about 2 million private airplanes). So, destruction of Washington, or New York, or any single city will not destroy America. In Russia, almost everything is concentrated in Moscow. A single bomb will end the whole state.
And Russians know this. That's why all their nuclear threats are - and always were - just a bluff.
4. But Putin is insane, you may say - so he can start a nuclear war even knowing that he will lose his country and probably his own life. Well, maybe he is. But in this case, his insanity will only progress, making the situation worse with every day of your indecision. If you are afraid that he will start a nuclear war if today you shoot down his planes which bomb Ukrainian civilians, what will prevent him from starting the nuclear war tomorrow because of your sanctions? Then, because of any kind of your support for Ukraine? Then, because of the very fact that you exist and he hates you? If he is insane, that makes it only more necessary to act as fast and firm as possible to eliminate him while it's not too late!
5. Insane or not, Putin is the current Hitler. Could Hitler be stopped by any sanctions? No, he was stopped only by military force. The West does not learn the lessons of its own history. We know how in the late 1930's the Western leaders did not want to conflict with fascist Germany exactly like they don't want to conflict with fascist Russia now. Hitler was allowed to capture the Sudetenland, then the entire Czechoslovakia, then he invaded Poland - and even after the Great Britain and France declared war on Third Reich, America abstained and continued to abstain (providing some support to Hitler enemies but not sending its troops against him) until it was attacked (by Hitler's ally) on its own territory in Pearl Harbor in Dec. 1941. Had the USA, UK and France sent their troops against fascists in 1938, maybe WWII could have been avoided - or at least would have been much less bloody. The same is happening now. Russia was allowed to capture parts of Georgia in 2008, then parts of Ukraine in 2014, and even now, when it tries to destroy all of Ukraine and commits more and more war crimes every day, the NATO countries, which are much stronger than it, are afraid of any military conflict with it and openly show their fear! Again, Putin has a bully mentality (as well as most Russians, because being humiliated by the stronger and humiliating the weaker is the core of Russian lifestyle). If (and only if!) he sees weakness and lack of resistance - he attacks, and will go further and further. Hitler benefited from the same approach - "Why Die for Danzig?" Those "useful idiots" in France who did not want to die for Danzig soon had to die for Paris (and still could not defend it). If America and NATO don't want to fight for big Ukraine, will they fight for little Estonia? Well, maybe they will, but Putin doesn't think so. By fearing to fight, you are inviting him to attack.
A Russian proverb says: "A greedy one pays the double price." Or, as Churchill said, who, having a choice between war and shame, chooses shame, will get war a little later. Fighting the Empire of Evil with all means NATO has, including military force, is not just a moral choice - it's a rational choice. Right now the Free World still has a chance to defeat its ultimate enemy - the fascist Russia - on Ukrainian territory and relatively easily, by air force only, as the ground tasks will be fulfilled by the Ukrainian army. But it should be done immediately - otherwise the scale of the war, the amount of victims and the overall consequences will be much graver.