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The United States and NATO just completed a military exercise in Poland with 31,000 personnel from 24 countries. NATO is building a series of military bases along the western border of Russia. President Putin is building a new army base in Klintzy on the Northern Ukrainian border, and there are reportedly plans to have Russian bases from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic Sea in the North. I understand that Russia is building up its Navy, and is modernizing submarines to include drones that would not be detectable by customary sonar systems and that could take weapons close to sea port cities without detection. In the last few months, Russian aircraft have buzzed U.S. navy ships and airplanes. In May, a pair of Chinese planes flew within 50 feet of a U.S. plane.
This seems like a recipe for "World War I creep" to me. It is a good time for angry, unstable people like shooters in Orlando and the UK. It is a good time to bluster and threaten and shout. It does not seem like a good time for quiet voices of rationality. In the 1980s, when I worked with Physicians for Social Responsibility and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize, 1985), our power and credibility were directly related to keeping to a calm, clear, non-political voice: as physicians, we were advocating for the health of the entire planet. Both organizations are non-partisan, and not nationalistic. We advocate for basic public health.
Many people have asked me how I have spent nearly 40 years thinking about nuclear war without becoming clinically depressed, numb, or apathetic. The Anakonda exercises scare me badly, as do the confrontations in the South China Sea. My mind starts to "double." I try to put away the laundry, feed the dogs, pick pea pods ... and then see fire storms. Each day that goes by, I look in the eyes of my critters and unless I've spent hours trying to prevent nuclear war, I'm overcome by guilt because they have no power, no say, and I imagine them being vaporized or fatally burned. My cat Topper's picture is on this post.
This song, from True Blood, but actually an old civil rights song, reverberates in my head: This may be the last time... youtube.com by Ndidi O.
As trite and geeky as it may sound, then I imagine the Litany Against Fear, from Dune by Frank Herbert:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
So I live each day in a doubled frame of mind, knowing each minute could be the last, and loving each entity with fervor. I work to protect them, trying my best, and then it is possible to sleep at night. This "doubling" is one characteristic of post-traumatic stress disorder. Unpleasant memories or images intrude into ordinary life like land-mines, without warning. They are always there, more or less, more or less vividly.
The term "post-traumatic stress disorder" became common around 1980, as physicians dealt with the emotional casualties of the Vietnam war. Prior to that time, soldiers who fell apart emotionally in World War I were said to suffer from battle fatigue or shell shock. They were often sent back to battle after only three days. During World War II, psychiatric disorders in combat veterans were serious, even though there were relatively few U.S. ground forces. General Patton is reported to have struck soldiers twice, and screamed "You’re going back to the front line and you may get shot and killed, but you’re going to fight. If you don’t, I’ll stand you up against a wall and have a firing squad kill you on purpose. In fact, I ought to shoot you myself.” Emotional consequences of killing or being hurt were not recognized as a big deal until after Vietnam.
Now, of course, we know that many kinds of threats and mayhem create PTSD. There is even a whole new academic discipline that examines the intergenerational effects of trauma via colonialism, "historical trauma." Canada just completed a Truth and Reconciliation Process Tribunal examining the cultural genocide that took place in Canada, causing grievous damage to people of the First Nations.
Yet what I deal with every day is anticipatory. I work to prevent nuclear war, and to do so I have to imagine the consequences with great and vivid detail. Two weeks ago, I went to my 45th college reunion and gave a little talk. People came up to me afterwards and said: "I just can't handle it." "I'm too scared." "My therapist told me to have compassion toward myself first, and that means I can't think about things like nuclear war."
Personally, I am no hero and no lover of dark images. I bookend my work with glorious things like playing with animals or playing Bach. The key, for me at least, is to work every day for life, for the continuation of life on the planet. Then I try to augment the day with kindness and love, beauty and appreciation. Really, folks, it is not easy but it can be done.
I am reaching out here to everyone who loves life and life forms. Where are the community of scientists, biologists, ecologists, and other who need to share our non-political but intense sense of urgency? Stephen Hawking is very involved, and his role is similar to that of Carl Sagan in the '80s. My sense from talking to young scientists is that they are mostly clueless, involved in the sweet fun of crunching big numbers and getting tenure or big grants, but they are not watching the Doomsday Clock. How do we reach them? What about birdwatchers? Equestrians? Farmers? Gardeners? Foodies? Fisher-people?
There are two steps to a world free of nuclear weapons:
Negotiate, conclude and bring into force a ban.
Negotiate the disarmament and verification process.
