To the Editor:

This is what should happen: The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must say to Vladimir Putin: “NATO was created to prevent or stop actions such as your criminal war on Ukraine. This war must end. The killing must stop. To that end, NATO commands that you:

— “Declare a cease-fire and immediately begin the complete removal of all Russians from all parts of Ukraine where they are without legal right;

— “Warn the master of the largest Russian warship in Ukrainian waters to abandon the ship, which will be destroyed in 15 minutes, as a demonstration of both our desire to end the killing and of our determination and capacity to end the war;

— “Withdraw Russian personnel; war material of all kinds must be abandoned. NATO will not pursue Russians beyond their border, but will not permit further aggression from inside Russia.”

Putin will capitulate. He knows that Russia is getting beaten every day. If he can’t deal with the Ukranians, he can hardly expect to deal with NATO’s army.

Forget the “nuclear option.” It’s a fraud and a delusion. For a device to be called a weapon, one must know, at the very least, how it works and what the effects of its use would be. Neither of these is known about any “tactical nuclear device.” It is nonsense to suggest that an army that cannot use conventional weapons effectively is going to be aided by such a supposed device.

Enough talk of how NATO is growing. It is demonstrably strong enough now to do what it says to end this war.

Every day there is news of some new Russian atrocity, often followed by an account of some Ukrainian success. We are to be heartened by the success to which we and countless NATO allies have contributed.

It’s a zero-sum game. I take no joy in learning that a 20-something Ukrainian has blown up a Russian tank and its 20-something crew of conscripts.

I am an 85-year-old pacifist. Oddly, I’ve been in war of one kind or another most of those years; the  Peace Corps (war on war), the War of Poverty, the war on racism (state Commission on Human Rights). 

Along the way I learned this: You cannot win a war. War is like fire; you can prevent a fire, or you can put it out, but you can’t win a fire, because fire is destruction.

The history of “wars to end all wars” is not pretty. Nonetheless, we must not fail to end this horror. We are not watching an ant farm.

It seems fair to suggest that any opponent of this plan should provide an alternate plan, a description of the end-state the alternative would produce and what steps would be needed to achieve it.

If Russia hopes to be considered a part of the civilized world, Russians must go home and pay for all the damage money can repair. The damages to all the souls on both sides will remain to be dealt with.

David Rodney Miller

New Scotland