JANUARY 31, 2023 – After nearly a year into the Russian war against Ukraine, I’m amazed that any people or buildings are still standing in the second largest (geographically) country in Europe. Russia’s brutal assault, prompted by delusions of imperial grandeur and fed by the age-old Russian tactic of quantity over quality, seems destined to continue as long as Russia is Russia. Given its centuries-long immunity to misery, Russia is likely to endure longer than NATO can stay united. At least that’s Putin’s wishful military strategy.
We know his original objective, because he gave speeches and published articles about it: reconstituting the imperial Russian suzerainty as it was after the Turkish wars of Catherine’s reign. But we live in 2023, not the 1780s. The world is a different place from what it was in the 18th century. The map of Europe reflects lots of crushing history since Catherine the Great, and to give credence to Putin’s rationalizations (or those of his apologists and critics of NATO) is to undermine democracy around the world. If we citizens of democracies value . . . our values . . . we must give Ukraine what it needs to drive Russian forces out—this year, not five years from now—then allow the embattled country into NATO to ensure against future aggression by Putin or other Russian mob meisters.
If we wish for Putin’s demise, however, we should know that his biggest critics are to his right. Unlike Putin the former KGB man, his successor is likely to embody even greater evil. A probable Putin successor—Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private, shadowy Wagner Group and beholden to no one—would simply march another 300,000 prisoner-conscripts into the meat grinder and hurl a few nukes at . . . the nuclear power facilities. Who cares if the prevailing winds sweep the fallout back into Russia? As Stalin said, “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic.”
Generally, I disfavor American military ventures based on invalid or inaccurate political calculations—Vietnam, Central America, Iraq and Afghanistan. In some cases, however, armed, international conflict is triggered and pursued by purely evil forces—see Axis Powers in the 1930s and 1940s and now, Russia in Ukraine. When civilians are savaged, not as “collateral damage” but as targets, and missiles are launched systematically at schools, playgrounds, hospitals, apartment complexes, cultural centers and other civilian targets, none of us can hide for long in the basement of isolationist “safety.”
If the suffering of innocent civilians in Ukraine is somehow outweighed by the sins of past generations of Ukrainians against Poles and Russians; if the short-term costs of NATO unity are deemed too high, then we must add to the scale, potential suffering of all innocent civilians under the shadow of Russian imperial (and criminal) designs and the future cost of confronting much wider aggression. Moreover, we must account for the price of giving encouragement to aggression by Xi of China; Kim Jong-un of North Korea; and Khamenei of Iran.
Despite evil’s ubiquitous prowl, we must hope that our species will evolve beyond self-harm and achieve more peaceful co-existence. Meanwhile, however, will AI figure out how to protect us from . . . us?
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
