Uh oh, nukes coming in. Should we retaliate?

This strikes me as the stupidest question a human being could ask – and, just possibly, also the last. Our enemy of the moment is loosing hell on us (if warning signals are accurate), so let’s do the same back at them. If we kill more of them than they kill of us, we win! Yes, human life – all life – will likely be destroyed in a nuclear war, but that’s just the way things work. That’s not our concern.

Among the global superpowers, this scenario remains etched into the meaning of self-defense: the ability to retaliate, no matter the consequences of doing so. The marketing slogan, of course, is “deterrence.” As long as the bad guys understand that we have the capability to retaliate, they won’t start a nuclear war. Hence, staying safe as a nation means maintaining our ability to create Armageddon.

It's certainly the human paradox of the era. Are we stuck with it?

Well, that’s the question I’m asking right now. It’s the question most of humanity is struggling with in one way or another, although not, of course, at the highest levels of power, where wars remain a global certainty and the threat of nuclear war is humanity’s . . . uh, salvation. Apparently.

And thus, as the New York Times explains: “With Russia at war, China escalating regional disputes and nations like North Korea and Iran expanding their nuclear programs, the United States is set to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion over 30 years to revamp its own arsenal.

“The spending spree, which the government began planning in 2010, is underway in at least 23 states — nearly 50 if you include subcontractors. It follows a decades-long freeze on designing, building or testing new nuclear weapons. Along with the subs, the military is paying for a new fleet of bomber jets, land-based missiles and thermonuclear warheads. Tally all that spending, and the bill comes to almost $57 billion a year, or $108,000 per minute for three decades.”

And, oh yeah, the U.S. Department of Defense, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, currently maintains approximately 3,700 nuclear warheads, most of which “are not deployed but rather stored for potential upload onto missiles and aircraft as necessary. We estimate that approximately 1,770 warheads are currently deployed . . . “

And by the way, the Bulletin currently has its Doomsday Clock set at 90 seconds to midnight. That is to say, the world is trembling at the very edge of MADness, a.k.a., mutually assured destruction. Is there no way beyond this insanity? Shouldn’t addressing this, along with the expanding planetary climate crisis, be the number one priority not simply of ordinary citizens like you and me, but of the politically powerful? As a starting point, how do we create the context for global nuclear disarmament?

Into the midst of this madness comes – at the behest of President-elect Trump – Pete Hegseth, his nominee for secretary of defense . . . the Fox News Channel host, the guy who has said he wants to give the department its old name back: the Department of War. Maybe the Senate will approve his controversial nomination, maybe it won’t. But the fact that he’s the one currently under consideration illustrates the limited consciousness of those at the peak of American power: Security is about being the toughest guy out there. Security is about winning. And the pursuit of “peace” is for wimps.

Hegseth seems to represent the essence of that attitude – a white Christian nationalist who draws his MAGA certainties from the old days, when the world was neatly divided into two parts, good and evil, and defeating evil was the work of manly men and pretty much all that mattered.

The Associated Press provides a brief snapshot into the Hegseth soul: “Hegseth complains in his latest book that ‘woke’ generals and the leaders of the elite service academies have left the military dangerously weak and ‘effeminate’ by promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. He says rank and file soldiers are undermined by ‘feckless civilian leaders and foolish brass,’ adding that ‘the next commander in chief will need to clean house. . . .’”

“Hegseth’s writing,” the AP story continues, “is contemptuous of the policies, laws and treaties that constrain warfighters on the battlefield, from restrictive rules of engagement to the Geneva Conventions, which he suggests are outdated against enemies who don’t abide by them.

“He has little patience for the moral questions surrounding war. Of the Americans who dropped nuclear bombs on Japan to end World War II, he writes, ‘They won. Who cares?’”

His focus, he has said, is making the military more lethal, and to that end, his body is plastered with moralistic tattoos, including a crusader’s cross on his chest and the Latin phrase “Deus Vult” on his bicep, which, according to the Daily Beast, means “God Wills It.” The term dates back to the Christian crusaders of the Middle Ages and “is now associated with right-wing extremism.”

Wow, the Crusades – and nuclear-armed crusaders! How could America, how could the world, be any safer than this?

As I say, the Hegseth nomination may not get approved, but the nomination itself is wearing a MAGA hat. I fear the era of “greatness” the American right is yearning for goes back at least to the Middle Ages, which is to say, far enough back in time so that actual reality is subsumed by legend: valiant good charging forward, conquering groveling evil. Those were definitely the good old days.

But my point here is not simply to denigrate Trump, Hegseth and the MAGA right. The centrist Dems are equally committed to war, including that multi-trillion-dollar investment in nuclear weapons upgrade. Not to mention genocide in Palestine and a world committed to going MAD.

We can do better. We have no choice.

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His newly released album of recorded poetry and art work, Soul Fragments, is available here: https://linktr.ee/bobkoehler

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