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Hopefully this report is correct, since it will weigh more heavily on Russia's decisions than opposition from the West:
In recent conversations with their Chinese counterparts, EU officials say they have detected cracks in Beijing’s support for Russia. Chinese diplomats have removed their talking points blaming NATO for the conflict in Ukraine and made clear that the use of nuclear weapons by Russia would be viewed as totally unacceptable in Beijing.
Biden also shifted his rhetoric significantly and is now talking about "off ramps" for Putin. From the NY Times today:
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Mr. Biden told a crowd at the second of two fund-raisers he attended on Thursday evening.
“We are trying to figure out: What is Putin’s off ramp?” Mr. Biden said, adding: “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?”
Mr. Biden’s references to Armageddon were highly unusual for any American president. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, 60 years ago this month, occupants of the Oval Office have rarely spoken in such grim tones about the possible use of nuclear weapons, much less talked openly about “off ramps.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/world/europe/biden-armageddon-nuclear-war-risk.html?smid=url-share
This doesn't surprise me in the least and I think Russia considers this opinion true and yet redundant, as I'm not convinced this recent talk about the proximity of Armageddon , on account of Russia, actually reflective of Russian strategic thinking vis a vis Ukraine at this point in time.
More broadly speaking, I'm tempted to view the present war as a necessarily or inevitably (i.e. de facto) mutually antagonistic tripartite one inter alia: US, RU, EU. Now, what are the considerations, in their genuine plenitude, behind the subterranean mechanisms and architecture driving this? Perhaps one can reverse engineer them from the ultimate outcomes: who eventually loses the most, who the least? Sans energy it would seem the EU. So perhaps that's the telos driving this.
Another indication, again from the NYT, that there is at least some debate within the Biden administration about adopting a move dovish stance in Ukraine:
“No one in the administration wants to suggest, in public or private, that the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky should avoid chasing Russian troops out of every corner of Ukraine, back to the borders that existed on Feb. 23, the day before the invasion began.
“But behind closed doors, some Western diplomats and military officials say, that is exactly the conversation that may have to happen if the goal is to balance winning back territory against preventing Mr. Putin from lashing out.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/us/politics/biden-putin-armageddon-nuclear-threat.html
It's my hope that philosophers might raise their vision beyond the current conflict in Ukraine to the larger issues which that conflict helps illustrate.
1) We need intellectual elites of some variety to help us chart a course beyond the nuclear weapons era. Such a project would seem to start with the clear minded insight that doing so is not optional. I'm unable to conceive of any other intellectual enterprise more worthy of attention.
2) We desperately need insightful reflection upon the near universal culture of nuclear weapons denial which afflicts the entire society, including the philosophy profession. We congratulate ourselves on finally escaping climate change denial, but nuclear weapons denial is arguably deeper than it's ever been, and poses an even more dire threat.
3) If nuclear weapons were to magically vanish, the knowledge explosion would still continue to generate ever more, ever larger powers, at an ever accelerating rate. Which philosophers are willing and able to examine and challenge the "more is better" relationship with knowledge which is the foundation of this process?
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