War in Ukraine

Unless you're a fervent nationalist, most international disputes require careful, scholarly analysis.  An empathy for both sides.  A study of the pros and cons of war, from both nations' point of view.

The Ukraine War is different.  This is a war that was unprovoked -- not a retaliation against hostile acts by the other side.  It's an attack on a neighboring sovereign neighbor -- not a hotheaded response on the spur of the moment, but a war for which Russia has prepared for weeks, in plain view of the world.  "Premeditated," as we say in criminal law.

A war by a superpower against a small nation.  Unpleasant words come to mind.  "Thug."  "Bully."  

Unpleasant  historical analogies must also be recalled.  Mussolini's attack on primitive Abyssinia.  Germany's attack on Poland.  Wars fought not to right wrongs, from the viewpoint of the attacker, but simply to add some more square miles and human population to a would-be empire.  

After the Soviet Union ended in 1991, Russia had thirty years to develop a more democratic union, as it at first seemed anxious to do.  Russia had thirty years -- and enormous natural resources -- with which to develop a thriving economy, an economy that would give a good life, a decent living, not to just a privileged few, but to the entire Russian population.  

Russia frittered it all away.  It became increasingly autocratic.  We understand autocratic, since Trump is a pale avatar of Mr. Putin.  Russia developed large corporations, devoted largely to extraction and sale of the country's oil and minerals, and to very little else, corporations owned and managed by a small oligarchy, an oligarchy that loved Putin for what he was doing for them.

Russia's people asked for more.  They deserved more.  Russians are not, by nature and by historical experience, an impatient or demonstrative or disruptive people.  But they are an intelligent and well-educated people and -- surely -- were aware that their government did not have their interests at heart.  They watched as the Chinese, towards whom their government had long been condescending, rapidly outpaced them, leaving Russia as almost a client state of China. 

When you can't give your people what they want and deserve, change the subject by starting a war.  That's part of the explanation for Russia's actions this month.  Another explanation is extreme nationalism.  Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels, as Samuel Johnson wrote, but Putin -- to give him his due, for what it's worth --  seems legitimately obsessed with nationalistic fervor, for the Glory of the Fatherland.  Many of our own people share this obsession, viewing national bodies as though they were individuals who were susceptible to insult and hurt feelings by other nations. I'm reminded of the line by a German boy in the trenches in All Quiet on the Western Front:

A mountain in Germany cannot offend a mountain in France. Or a river, or a wood, or a field of wheat.

But Putin sees disrespect and insult from other nations as the equivalent to disrespect and insult to himself.

And, in anger, he threatens the world with the devastation of nuclear weapons.

I have no solution to this war.  No one does.  No one can end it but the man who has caused it, all by himself.  And he apparently is now entranced by war.  He seems not at all interested in "solutions" short of conquest.

The losers won't be merely the Ukrainian people.  Russians also will lose, as many of Russia's citizens have already acknowledged.  But it is the soldiers, of course, who have the most to lose.  As the German soldier in Remarque's novel noted:

While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and dying. While they taught that duty to one’s country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger.

All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1929-30 and, together with the film based on it, was an international sensation.  Young men from many countries, including Germany, vowed they would never fight another war like World War I.  

Ten years later, Germany invaded Poland.  I'm not optimistic that reason and sense of shared humanity will overcome the fervor of Russian nationalism.