Salman Khan
Department of International Relations ! National University of Modern Languages NUML Islamabad
The world is not ready to face the wars of mass destruction. Nations want cooperation, peace, and regional integration for sustainable growth. Although some political minds are in favor of balancing acts in international affairs, they might have forgotten the fact of miscalculations and unbreakable escalations. They think it’s the antibiotic for wars, but in reality, it was surely an adverse reaction. The Zelenskyy request for Tomahawk missiles plus endorsement of top-level Trump administration is distressing.
In international politics, the rationale about triggering of wars between European empires is widespread. “Corrupt practices of balance of power” which is based on secret strategic alliances along with overly idealistic or optimistic approaches towards human nature—these two theoretical frameworks are the roots to understand the state behavior, but it doesn’t mean to rely on them at all.
The recent development among the US and Ukraine regarding long-range subsonic cruise missiles (range 1250km–2500km) is alarming. According to Al Jazeera, the missiles can be launched from ships, submarines, or ground platforms. They carry high-explosive warheads and can attack bunkers and hardened targets while avoiding radar detection. Moscow is not happy at all with this development.
For the establishment of peace, weaponry blackmail is a bad option—especially when the opponent is more leveraging. Instead, table talks are the only source for the re-establishment of peace. The so-called champion of democracy, i.e., the US, is interfering in the zone of its rivals while not enduring its opponents to do the same, which is completely wrong.
We all know that Trump is not harsh on Putin like Biden and most of the Democrats. He wants good ties with Moscow. He also knew that bad relations with Putin do not fulfill the core interests of the US. Both of them were Cold War rivals and almost on the same level of nuclear warheads—that’s why Trump didn’t do something that could endanger world peace and, more importantly, the existence of the US. That’s why it might be a pressure tactic or a narrative-building stunt to erase, somehow, the previous drama between Zelensky.
Before joining the presidential position, Trump had no support for Ukraine. The tone was not harsh for Putin as well. For public cheers, he made a promise to end wars in his election campaign, arguing that “We will make America great again” by cutting off the burden of unnecessary aids—and, in the beginning, he did that.
When Trump invited Zelensky to the Oval Office, his attitude was disrespectful towards him. When Zelensky wanted to respond, Trump said, “You are gambling with millions of people and you have no cards.” This shows that Trump had nothing for Ukraine, but now the story is not that similar. In fact, the US is now gambling with the lives of millions of people.
Donald Trump is surely unpredictable, but world peace must be predictable. In the era of advanced technological warfare, a single misadventure could trigger World War III—a possibility that Putin has hinted at many times. Now, the deal of Tomahawk missiles has not been finalized, so the hope of escalation is still uncertain.
