Is Europe on the Verge of Nuclear War?
The current times expose Europe’s vulnerability and the risk of further escalation of war that could explode in a split second. Finland and Sweden have announced their desire to apply for NATO membership. On the other hand, Russia looks at the move as a threat and has warned of a military response including the deployment of nuclear and hypersonic weapons to the Baltic Sea area if those nations join the alliance.
We will be able to prevent our complete annihilation only when we realize that ruling through hate and separation only paves the way toward destruction. Any hope for a better future depends on our willingness to change our narrowly egoistic viewpoint to a more comprehensive and inclusive view of relations between people and countries.
Finland and Sweden claim that the war in Ukraine has prompted increasing public support for them to become part of the 30-member military alliance, based on opinion polls. Both Nordic countries have refrained from joining NATO for decades in an attempt to maintain neutrality, but it seems those calculations have changed.
Could the tensions in Europe unfold in the form of nuclear conflict? First of all, as soon as the war in Ukraine ends, the perspectives of the European countries and of the world in general about the future will change profoundly. The assessments about life before and after the conflict–if it can be called a conflict, because it is more complex than that–will determine what lies ahead for everyone. But until we understand that our innate human desire for dominance does nothing to promote a positive change in the world, it will continue to pose a global threat to us all, and the danger of nuclear war will persist in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
The risks of nuclear expansion arise for a purpose: in order to make humanity understand that threat and domination is not the correct way to solve problems between countries. Since nuclear weapons have the ability to exterminate entire populations, they force the world and every person to fear such an outcome and to consider how to change human society as a whole so that such a disastrous scenario would not materialize.
We should have learned this lesson from previous painful events throughout history, but unfortunately, humanity has learned nothing from the former blows. Therefore, we keep stumbling over the same stone again and again.
We will be able to prevent our complete annihilation only when we realize that ruling through hate and separation only paves the way toward destruction. Any hope for a better future depends on our willingness to change our narrowly egoistic viewpoint to a more comprehensive and inclusive view of relations between people and countries.
As foremost Kabbalist Baal HaSulam explains in his eye-opening composition The Writings of the Last Generation, “The bombs will do their thing, and the relics who remain after the ruin will have no other choice but to take upon themselves this work where both individuals and nations will not work for themselves more than is necessary for their sustenance, while everything else they do will be for the benefit of others.” Hopefully, we don’t have to reach a point of despair in order to react and change our course of action from self-interest to cooperation and mutual care.