Is Russian President Vladimir Putin normal?

Is that what we actually see in the Kremlin? Does Putin accurately describe such a sequence of preferences? Or is he willing to tolerate major security risks for Russia in exchange for its personal power and prestige? At the moment, this is a rather reliable assumption of everyone.

That happens, among other things, because the Russian president is now talking openly and without hesitation about launching a nuclear war. Whatever the specific or secret security calculations, US President Joe Biden, the allies of America in NATO, but also Israel (because the world always functions as a system) will have to understand that even a seemingly rational Vladimir Putin could pose a existential threat.

In a series of obvious cases, and because of miscalculations in decision-making, which are increasingly possible during crisis episodes, a rational Putin may pose even greater risks than irrational Putin.

In such complex matters, it will always be important for responsible decisionmakers to know the difference between a simply evil Putin, a Putin that is potentially irrational or even subject to literal madness.

However, the Russian war against Ukrainian civilians is not limited to evil or madness. After World War II and the Holocaust, American psychiatrist Robert Jay Liftto interviewed Nazi SS doctors. Terrified as a physician by the idea that such monstrous crimes might have been justified as “hygienic”, Lifton was determined to answer some fundamental questions.

How could the Nazi doctors match the killing of so many innocent, helpless human beings with their normal lives in their families? Similarly, the U.S. leaders and others should raise Vladimir Putin and his people in the Kremlin this question: How can these civilized people promote the daily aggression and genocide that are now being caused in Ukraine by thousands of Russian soldiers and, on the other hand, continue in their private lives?

In today's academic range, this would be called “the spectator problem”. It was not uncommon for Nazi doctors to remain good fathers and husbands while systematically killing children in concentration camps.

These doctors who had sworn the Hippocratic oath to do no harm were able to oversee mass genocide killings in six days of the week. Meanwhile, they usually went to church on Sundays. Now, we have to ask similarly: Are Russian soldiers in Ukraine able to remain good fathers and men, even after the killings they are committing in Ukraine?

If so, what does this mean for the future of war and peace between Washington, Moscow, and other national states? Looking into perspective, should we expect an even greater war? For the doctor, the Hippocrates' Vow promises that “I will keep my life and profession clean and holy”.

When asked about this vow, most SS doctors interviewed said they did not perceive any contradiction. In Nazi predisposition, the Jew was a source of infection. According to her, the liberation of society by Jews was a proper medical anti-infective goal.

All mass killings were conceived as known obligations of healing, compassion, and what was called racial hygiene. The sheltering of good and evil within every man is a very old idea in western thought, especially in German literature from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Nietzsche, to Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann.

By studying that very precious literature, people can learn that the delicate limits of care and compassion exist within each individual. And as crimes like those tried in Nuremberg continue to escalate in Ukraine at Putin's order, it has come to be acknowledged that <x0->murbed” of normality, anomalies and human rationality are obviously incompatible.

They may even allow a single individual to waver among extremes. After attending the Nazi trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 in Jerusalem, political philosopher Hannah Arendt raised the assumption that evil in man may be common or banal.

Today, while the hatreds that incite violence are being channeled by Russian President Putin to cruel war passions for the sake of “Russia”, banality can accelerate not only other genocides but even the most catastrophic international wars. The worst case would be a nuclear war.

In the end, in all the obvious cases of Russia's criminal war against Ukraine, the truth will be excusing:“Happy are those who still know that unfathomable lies are behind all speeches!” With these German poet Rainer Maria Rilke laments the lies of all despots.

Although the virulent features of such lies are constantly changing worldwide, their general meaning remains similar and meaningful. While generally not accepted, normal human beings are still able to understand that in a supposed world “abnormal”, not being abnormal can express a unique form of madness. Even if Putin was judged by experts known as completely rational, it would remain a very existential or almost existential threat to world order./ Abcnews. al

Note: Louis René Beres, professor of international law at Purdue University, U.S.A.