Oxford (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The reports of the past few days are extremely worrying. The acrimonious and open split between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk will have major repercussions for US politics and for the rest of Trump’s presidential term. Consequently, it will also have a negative impact on international politics, which is already very unstable.
However, Ukraine’s attack on a large number of Russia’s strategic nuclear bombers is of a much higher level of danger that can certainly intensify the war between Russia and Ukraine. According to Ukrainian sources, as a result of a complex operation that had been prepared over 18 months, various trucks carrying drones and missiles had managed to penetrate deep inside Russia and had destroyed over a third of Russia’s strategic bombers. Even if the figures are exaggerated and the missiles have succeeded in destroying a fraction of what they claim, it has been an audacious and provocative venture.
According to agreements between the United States and Russia, the two countries must keep their strategic nuclear bombers in the open so that each side knows what the other side is up to. To be able to penetrate at least four of these highly sensitive airfields and to destroy some 40 of these very expensive bombers is unprecedented. After his telephone conversation with President Putin, President Trump, in a tweet which he later deleted, wrote that Putin had vowed to retaliate strongly for those attacks on its nuclear sites.
The question that arises is how and against whom Putin will retaliate, and whether those attacks would be limited to Ukraine or whether they will also target other countries which allegedly have been involved in those sophisticated attacks. Many international and nuclear experts have raised many questions about the nature and consequences of those attacks. Those attacks give rise to a number of important questions.
First, did Ukraine plan and carry out those attacks by itself without any help from its Western allies or not? That scenario seems highly unlikely because Ukraine does not possess independent satellites to identify and carry out those attacks deep inside Russia. If it did it by itself, did it inform its allies or not? If it didn’t, why did it keep such a provocative move secret from them? If it did inform them, how did they respond? Did they approve of those attacks, or did they try to stop them?
If Ukraine did not inform its allies, it would be an act of monumental betrayal to the allies who have provided so much financial, military and political backing for Ukraine, enabling it to continue the war. It would be extremely discourteous, to say the least, if she did not inform them of those attacks that affect international peace and security and may get them involved in a war, maybe a nuclear war.
Second, did the US and European intelligence organisations know of that highly dangerous move or not? If they didn’t, why not? How could they have been kept in the dark about such a major move by one of their allies, which had taken over a year to plan and carry out? How much credibility would they have if they had not discovered such a major operation that had taken such a long time to plan and execute, with potentially disastrous consequences for them and for the whole world?
If the US and European intelligence organisations knew about it, did they keep it to themselves, or did they inform their respective governments, as they should have done? If they kept their governments ignorant of what was going on, is this not the worst example of the machinations of the Deep State? Is it not highly irresponsible of them to go above the head of the elected officials and keep them ignorant of such a momentous event that could endanger international peace and security?
If intelligence organisations did inform their elected masters, how did they react? Most importantly, how did President Trump, who says that he wants to be seen as a “peace president”, react to that information? In his telephone conversation with President Putin, he allegedly told the Russian leader that he knew nothing about it. The question that arises is, why did he not know about it? As the commander-in-chief of the world’s mightiest army, who is also in charge of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence organisations, why was he not informed of such a move of global significance?
There are really no good answers to any of these questions. The least that needs to be done is for Western leaders, especially the US president, to order a thorough investigation of what has gone wrong and who has been responsible for such a consequential omission, and heads must roll. At such a dangerous period in world history, intelligence organisations should not be allowed to run a shadow government and keep their masters ignorant of such events that could result in a global conflagration.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine started on 24 February 2002 and has been going on for nearly two and a half years. During that period, hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians have been killed, and many more have been wounded. Out of a pre-war population of 41 million, about eight million Ukrainians have been internally displaced, and more than 8.2 million have fled the country, creating Europe’s worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. Ukraine has suffered major destruction, and its economy has been shattered.
The genocide in Gaza has continued for over 600 days. Tens of thousands of Palestinians, mainly women and children, have been killed and wounded. Due to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, no food, water, fuel, or medicine has been allowed to enter Gaza, and over two million civilians are on the verge of famine and starvation. Since the start of the war, in retaliation for Hezbollah rockets, Israel has invaded Lebanon, killing thousands of Hezbollah fighters and ordinary Lebanese. Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to occupy large tracts in southern Lebanon and is violating the ceasefire almost daily.
Netanyahu boasts that Israel has been instrumental in the invasion of Syria by HTS (former Al Qaida and ISIS terrorists) and the ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s government. Meanwhile, Israel has destroyed practically all of Syria’s military assets and has occupied a large part of Syria.
Israel attacked the Iranian Consulate building in Damascus on 1st April 2024 and killed 13 people, including seven members of Iran’s Quds Force. Two of those killed were a senior Quds Force commander and his deputy. Iran regarded those attacks as a violation of its sovereignty and attacked Israel with drones and missiles. Since then, there have been two more rounds of rocket and missile exchanges between Israel and Iran, and Netanyahu is working hard to get the United States involved in a major war with Iran.
“Disaster,” Digital, Midjourney, 2025
As though the wars in Europe and the Middle East are not enough, in a keynote speech at a security conference in Singapore on 31st May, US Secretary of Defence Peter Hegseth spoke about an impending war with China over Taiwan. He said: “We are not going to sugarcoat it — the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent.” He promised that Washington would bolster its defences overseas to counter what he described as a rapidly developing threat by Beijing.
The world is on the brink of a major catastrophe. The so-called Doomsday Clock stands at 89 seconds to midnight. This is the closest it has ever been to a symbolic time representing a nuclear war and global Armageddon. It’s time for all of us to pay attention to the impending doom and for our leaders to take serious action to reverse the course and take a step back from the precipice.
There are serious disagreements between major powers, which should not be dismissed, but nothing is more important than saving humanity. If President Trump can leave behind some of his current distractions and find a solution to these daunting problems, he will deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. We need a new global security system supervised by a new global political architecture. The alternative would be too horrendous to contemplate.
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