New Spider-Man Sequence: One Second Closer to Doomsday?

89 seconds to midnight announcement, January 28, 2025 -- image via video screenshot

By Biljana Vankovska

In 2022, I was invited to participate in a book project that gathered leading scientists worldwide to address a topic that already seemed critically urgent: managing the nuclear order. In this context, we organised several online debates. As one of the few participants from the global (or European) periphery, I dared to ask: What order? Where do you see order with the deadliest weapons on the planet? My point was radical (as usual): We don’t need nuclear weapons management, but the implementation of the UN resolution for their abolition. Some of my Western colleagues seemed startled, though I’m sure none of these good people approve of nuclear Armageddon. But when it came time to evaluate our chapters, one editor was adamant that I didn’t belong in the book. He disliked my tone and style (whatever that means). The second editor praised the text, but the purse strings weren’t in his hands. Thus, the usual suspects of Western academia or those educated at Western universities filled the book. This small anecdote reveals how voices from the margins are treated.

One of my theses – meant to sound an alarm ‘from below’, from us ordinary mortals and activists – was that the world was sliding toward an unthinkable scenario, captured in the subtitle: Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant! (Caesar, embodied in the violence-based system of war, we’re all condemned to death.) Here, I alluded primarily to so-called Western democracies, conscious that the West is in decline – a deep moral, political, and economic collapse.

Recall that this was early in what Moscow termed a ‘special military operation’, now openly called a war. When asked what kind of war, answers include asymmetric, hybrid, and/or proxy. But since 1 June 2025, after a mass attack on strategic nuclear targets deep inside Russian territory, talk of World War III and the unleashing of atomic conflict has surged. The operation, codenamed ‘Spiderweb’, was allegedly planned for 1.5 years (prompting Trump to again insist it was Biden’s idea; yet his silence is telling). Much remains unknown about NATO’s involvement in crossing what every nuclear power considers a red line – an operation unthinkable even during the Cold War. Two things are clear: first, the hero of this story is not Spider-Man (Zelenskyy). This isn’t David defeating Goliath; everyone knows he’s a deplorable pawn in the West’s proxy war. Second, this Spider-Man’s role is calculated for limited aims: provoking the ‘Bear’ into retaliatory measures that confirm the West’s ‘Putin = Hitler’ narrative (spun by PR firms and media for years).

After initial applause for brave little Ukraine that humiliated big Russia, while simultaneously engaged in (ostensible) peace talks, damage to Russia is now being tallied, and possible responses are being analysed. Though the Kremlin is unhappy with another defence failure, the attack’s effects are symbolic. It’s a drill for future clashes between nuclear powers. Even recent India-Pakistan skirmishes are now analysed through this lens. Strategy is absent here – anyone who thinks there are winners in nuclear war is deluded.

Many believe Zelenskyy (as in early 2022) remains under direct British influence. But what of the new US administration that allegedly seeks peace? Did the Secretary of Defense watch the operation live while snacking, or was he joined by his colleague Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump? This is a rhetorical question, of course. More telling: the usually loud Trump is quiet as a night – no ALL-CAPS tweets or adolescent-like memes. From the start, Trump’s capacity as a peacemaker has been unbelievable: a party to conflict can’t mediate. Had I been wrong, Trump and Putin – not Lavrov and Rubio – would now be negotiating survival, not courtesies.

If the ‘Spiderweb’ operation was long-planned, its launch on the eve of renewed Istanbul talks – alongside the Putin assassination attempt and two terrorist strikes on civilian infrastructure – signals open intent to escalate, not end, the war. Or at least control it… Another legitimate question: Why didn’t Spider-Man use these killer drones to defend his country, instead of following mentors who tasked him with provoking a superpower on its soil (all the way to the distant Amur)? We in ex-Yugoslavia saw many examples of such sacrificial proxy wars. Zelenskyy doesn’t care for ‘the last Ukrainian’ but for ‘the last (Western) man’ – though Fukuyama’s thesis has been long mocked.

The global nuclear order I wrote about earlier is now dismantled. With the Western-backed attack on openly stationed aircraft (meant to reassure under the bilateral START treaty), trust is gone. Moscow isn’t alone in learning this lesson: the only rule is that there are no rules. All orders – international, economic, trade, even nuclear – lie in ruins. Last I checked, the Doomsday Clock read ‘89 seconds to midnight’. Though Russia’s arsenal remains vast (contrary to Western propaganda), the ‘nuclear taboo’ – the idea that no one would strike first – is now exposed as nonsense.

The outcome seems foreshadowed like Chekhov’s gun: if a weapon appears in Act I, it’ll be used by Act III. That Trump still believes his Golden Dome can shield the U.S. from nuclear attack is evident, though whether, when, or how he’d realise this beautiful dream is unclear. For now, the world’s fate rests with Putin, who – fortunately – is no Wild West gunslinger firing at the first, second, or third provocation. But this can’t last forever, however calm his nerves or rational his mind. He’s long been pressured by hardliners demanding a ‘small tactical nuke’ on Ukraine – now crowing ‘told you so!’ Putin’s position is ambiguous: damned if he doesn’t retaliate, damned if he does so visibly.

And let’s not forget: NATO’s upcoming summit will pledge full support to Ukraine, rob member-state citizens under the guise of ‘absolute danger’ (a danger they created), while the EU takes notes on ‘how to become NATO’. That the West is digging its grave via militarism is obvious, but will the rest of the world quietly watch Rome burn, letting the fire spread? Similar calculations were made as Hitler’s military grew, but that was an era without a global nuclear order.

Biljana Vankovska is a professor of political science and international relations at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, a member of the Transnational Foundation of Peace and Future Research (TFF) in Lund, Sweden, and the most influential public intellectual in Macedonia. She is a member of the No Cold War collective.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.