President Obama Saturday Night Live

and the 

Invasion of Ukraine

February 25th, 2026

There was an hysterical skit on Saturday Night Live many moons ago that asked the question: What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub (Kirk Douglas was the guest star). What if?

But here is another What if, one that perhaps should be asked: What if Nazi Germany had had nuclear weapons in 1938? Assume that France and England also have nuclear weapons, (if Germany alone had nuclear weapons we would all be speaking German).

If, in early 1938, all three countries had nuclear weapons, and Germany had insisted on taking Sudetenland, what would have been the correct response from France and England, what would have been the proper response from Neville Chamberlain? Would he now be known as the great appeaser? Or as a wise statesman?

Hitler repeatedly used the imagery of Germany victorious or being destroyed in a world-ending (or at least Europe ending) cataclysm, and in the end he refused to even consider trying to save Berlin or the other cities of Germany.  But it’s often postulated that if France and Britain had mobilized in the summer of 1938, Hitler would not have marched into Czechoslovakia, he would have backed off on his demands and there might not have been a war. (It was Great Britain’s and France’s failure to mobilize on the issue of Czechoslovakia that convinced Hitler he could grab Poland without risk of a general war.) But, if Germany had had nuclear weapons and was threatened by the French and British armies, would he have threatened annihilation if they marched? The armies could not reach the Czech frontier, but they could have annexed pieces of Germany. Hitler certainly would not have allowed that. It certainly is a possibility that Chamberlain would have been thought prudent to have conceded Hitler the point and instead strive for deescalation and “peace in our time.”

Which leads to the obvious case of Ukraine.

Sunday was marked across much of the world as the 4th anniversary of the war in Ukraine. It was not. The anniversary is February 27th, and the year count is 12. On that date, 4 days after the end of the Sochi Olympics, Russian troops - the Little Green Men (so called because they were soldiers wearing uniforms with no markings) - moved on key installations in Crimea and seized control of the peninsula.

The West’s response was slow, soft and, demonstrably ineffective. Some people were placed on sanctions lists and the UN General Assembly passed a resolution. President Obama, speaking before the UN General Assembly 7 months later (24 September 2014) noted:

America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy. We will reinforce our NATO allies, and uphold our commitment to collective defense. We will impose a cost on Russia for aggression, and counter falsehoods with the truth. We call upon others to join us on the right side of history – for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions. But, over the following 8 years, with the exception of what turned out to be only a few minor sanctions, little else was done and Russia wasn’t deterred. Further, the kind of preparations needed to defend Ukraine on or near her borders in the event of future Russian actions, were not made.

Arguably, the seeds were planted in 1994 when President Clinton “assured” Ukrainian sovereignty, apparently without anyone asking “how might we do that?” (To those who will note that we did not “guarantee” sovereignty, only “assured” it, two separate concepts to the esteemed wordsmiths of the State Department, the word used in Ukrainian, Russian and French versions of the memorandum is “guarantee.”)

Surely, someone should have noted that steps needed to be taken then to provide that sovereignty. None were. Some steps were taken after 2014, but they were far from adequate. 

In January 2022, as Russia moved more forces toward the Ukrainian border, President Biden implied that there might be no serious response if it was only "a minor incursion.”

That statement, though quickly retracted, placed in the context of the debacle in Kabul 5 months earlier, as well as continued and growing European dependence on Russian energy, virtually guaranteed that Russia would go.

Some might argue that this is only obvious in hindsight. It’s bad form to quote yourself, but I am going to… This is what I saw from the Great Dismal Swamp, 5,000 miles from Crimea.  On March 6th, 2014, a week after the seizing of Crimea, I wrote:

Tsar Putin intends to expand the Russian empire.  This is not an idea new to him.  Expansion of the empire has been a Russian imperative since Tsar Ivan (the Terrible) recognized that the cities of Moscow and Kiev – heart of his new empire – were not readily defensible.  They were and are surrounded by grasslands, with no major features – canyons, deep and fast rivers, mountains, or seas – that provided any natural bulwark. The only defense was and is depth – increase the distance an enemy must travel to reach Moscow…

This is why we are now facing a grave danger.  First, let us accept that in the near term – the next 5 years at a minimum – only the US has the overall military means to stop Russia.  Europe on its own does not have several of the major elements needed to present a viable blocking force, one that would serve to preempt warfare before it began, whether the intelligence assets, the command and control, the logistics, or the quantity of smart ordnance necessary to present a viable counter-force. Russia understands that as well as the members of NATO. Without vigorous US participation any NATO blocking force would only serve as a trip wire for further escalation, not as a credible opposition that would signal real intent to deter. 

I closed with this:

Putin is not a bully, the analogy is inapt.  Putin is an amoral, power hungry practitioner of hardball politics.  He also, in his own twisted way, loves Russia (don’t get dewy eyed, Hitler loved Germany.) Behind him he has groomed a handful of deputies.  If Putin goes, he will be replaced by a very similar figure.  The expansion will continue. 

My point then (and now) was that the West needed to act to keep the “genie in the bottle.” What’s the genie? Nuclear weapons. 

The problem is simple: if a war escalates, eventually one side is going to start to lose badly. They will come to think of it as existential. And that will lead to using nuclear weapons. So, you need to plus up your weapons - nuclear and non nuclear, so that, as during the Cold War, between the nuclear powers there can be gradual escalation, which means time to talk, which leads to gradual de-escalation. But that didn’t happen.

Where does that leave us?

As I noted a dozen years ago, we need to act, the sooner, the better. 

First, we have to recognize that this is not Europe of 1937-1938; nuclear weapons change everything. Simply, great powers (nuclear powers) dealing with other great powers (other nuclear powers) need to understand that direct confrontations need to be clearly managed. To steal a line from Pascal: we must not confuse the probability of an event (in this case nuclear escalation - which may seem remote) with the consequences ( a nuclear exchange - which would be catastrophic). Cries that “Putin is never going to use nukes” do not help the situation.

Second, we need to face the fact that Ukraine is dying a slow death in front of the world. This is not simply a comment on the painful grind of the war in the east; this is a comment about a country that has gone from 52 million people in 1991 to 43 million in 2021 to 31 million in 2025, and is, per a former Ukrainian minister of economics, on a glide slope to 15 million by 2035. There has been close to $600 billion in infrastructure damage to the country, and it is estimated that they will need 10 million new laborers to rebuild the country All that speaks to the need to end this war.

Third, we need to recognize that the post-Cold War world has, at least in the west, been marked by a true strategic vacuum. Once Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal in 1994 - and the US assured their sovereignty, the least little bit of planning would have pointed to a need for a host of defensive capabilities being provided to that country, and an expansion of US and NATO capabilities, particularly NATO. This would have cost a great deal - Perhaps $15 billion per year or more. Something approaching $500 billion.

That’s $500 billions over 30 years - compared to the $500 billion Europe and the US have already spent on the War, the $600 billion in damage, the 15,000 dead and 40,000 wounded civilians, the 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in action and another 200,000 severely wounded (and similar numbers of Russians). And as a whole, what President Zelenskyy has called, “An entire nation with PTSD.” I think, by comparison, $15 or $20 billion per year would have been pretty cheap.

Fourth, recognize that we need a different answer - and we need it now. Everyone grit your teeth, and just draw a defensive line across Ukraine and build it. Real defenses, plus Patriot missiles, intelligence systems, drones, mines, energy weapons, cyber defenses, the whole shooting match. In depth. It needs to be capable and it’s needed fast - so it will be expensive. But do it. It will mean the de facto ceding of terrain to Russia. But it needs to be done.

Finally, perhaps most importantly, Europe needs to get in the game. Europe should, in fact, be leading this; this is their fight. European nations need to start rebuilding their armies and air forces and navies, and their defense industries. And they need to modernize their nuclear weapons. It will cost a lot of money.

But the other options are simply too expensive.

v/r pete