The Conscience of a Single Person Can Be Worth the Entire World
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The danger of World War III is nearing the point of no return. Although figures such as Ret. Gen. Harald Kujat—former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and former Inspector General of the Bundeswehr—are sounding the alarm over the transatlantic sector’s perilous course in Ukraine and Iran, there remains a profound lack of reason and courage among the broader population to stop it.
Much of this has to do with fear, but also the lack of understanding of the true nature of nuclear war. In an interview with the German podcast “Die Weltwoche,” Gen. Kujat laid out clearly the tragic course which Germany is presently taking against Russia, a nuclear power, and the insanity behind the narcissistic self-destruction of those pushing for such confrontation: “We are dealing with a nuclear power—namely, the largest nuclear power on this Earth. Through the use of nuclear weapons, we are capable of bringing about the end of the world. And if that is not an incentive to prevent an escalation into a war with the largest nuclear power, then I do not know what else it would take. At the very least, it would mean that here in Europe, the use of nuclear weapons would trigger at least a 50-year Nuclear Winter…
“How is this European continent supposed to survive if there is a war here? We have witnessed the destruction of the Second World War. A future war would surpass that by many times over. Where has this historical knowledge actually gone among our politicians? Where is the understanding of the dangers we are exposed to today?”
In addition to what Gen. Kujat says, one might ask where the courage, among citizens, has gone? Pope Leo XIV, an active, courageous voice who has not only opposed the war agenda of the Trump Administration in Iran, but has also denounced the evil of artificial intelligence replacing human intelligence, noted that the courage of individuals has prevented nuclear war, something no computer program is capable of doing. In Disarmed And Disarming: Peace Is A
Gift, a just-released collection of Pope Leo XIV’s speeches, sermons, and reflections, he emphasizes a crucial point in history in which human conscience intervened to prevent World War III:
“History has already seen us come close to nuclear catastrophe. Records recount that the decision of one man, Soviet official Stanislav Petrov, contributed to avoiding a possible global atomic war. It was 26 September 1983. The radars of the bunker near Moscow, where Petrov was on duty, signalled the launch of multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles from the United States toward the Soviet Union. However, it was an error of the Soviet satellite detection system. Petrov disobeyed orders and chose not to signal the presumed attack. It was a decision that was made with the conscience of someone who knew that that simple gesture could have caused millions of deaths. A world in which machines, albeit sophisticated and faster than us, are the ones to decide to bomb defenceless people would be truly frightening. The conscience of a single person can be worth the entire world.”
While one may fall into fatalism, and regard events as inevitably leading to each other, without the capacity for individuals to influence them, there is an avenue through which one can act, as Stanislav Petrov proved on September 26, 1983. In the same essay, Pope Leo XIV says, “To those who risk falling into the temptation to despair before so many ongoing wars in the world, I direct the invitation that Pope Pius XI extended to the whole Church: ”Let us thank God that He makes us live among the present problems. It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre."
Indeed, and let us transcend mediocrity in favor of a new security and development architecture, where dialogue supersedes confrontation, and wisdom replaces insanity. Such is the task before us in stopping the march towards war.