War and peace
I have written several articles and held many a discussion on the Ukrainian invasion by Russia, yet I still find myself unsatisfied by what I said — not to mention by what Western countries did. I will attempt to clarify my thinking here, with all the objectivity I can muster — and all the optimism I am capable of…
The beginning of this crisis can be found right around 1991, with the collapse of the USSR leading the way towards a modern Russia devoid of its Eastern European nucleus of satellite countries. What happened then is critical to the tragedy we are witnessing today: nothing. In other words, after decades of a Cold War based on a US/USSR confrontation, the end of the latter essentially meant that the former let out a huge sigh of relief, before working to shape a new world that would ensure its supremacy could not again be challenged. And so NATO — and the EU — expanded eastward in an effort to both help countries from the former Eastern bloc rebuild — and prevent Russia from retaining influence over them. Meanwhile, the country was largely left to its own devices, with millions of people losing most of what they owned to inflation and careers vanishing overnight, while future oligarchs took over the wealth of the nation by semi-legal means. With de facto Western approval.
As Vladimir Putin rose from these 1990’s ashes, basing his (now effectively endless) presidency on a return to a strong Russia, whatever that may entail, we were quick to ignore the signs once again. His first claim to “fame”, the 1999-2000 Second Chechen War, was a bloody affair that resulted in the reintegration by force of the region into the Russian federation after the trauma left by the first Chechen War. The 2008 Georgian war followed, then the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and attack on the Donbass. Meanwhile, an increasingly paranoid regime curtailed individual freedoms inside the country, with elections being grotesquely manipulated and the system gradually shaping up to be a new cult-of-personality based dictatorship around Mr. Putin. All this was done largely to the eyes of the world, but equally largely kept untouched by said world because it was just too complicated a situation to untangle. After all, Russia was a sovereign land — and its oil and gas were plentiful… So we let these internal changes happen, while we formally protested to Russia’s external exactions. Never quite going beyond words.
In the night between February 23rd and 24th, i.e. Defender of the Fatherland Day (symbols matter), Russian forces started a full scale invasion of Ukraine, days after Putin announced his new doctrine that Ukraine was and had always been Russian, then formally recognized the separatist republics of Donbass and Luhansk. Under the pretence of freeing Ukrainians from a supposedly fascist regime, the Russian army started an all-out war over the country, that is still very much ongoing to this day. While the Ukrainian resistance, led by its courageous President Zelensky and heavyweight Klitschko brothers, managed to drastically slow down the Russian offensive, it seems likely that the invader's sheer mathematical superiority will eventually prevail. Because, once again, Western countries are doing very little to stop it. Granted, the EU and NATO are sending out equipment while Poland and Romania welcome Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war and NGOs help provide the bare necessities. However, the US warned from the get-go that it would not get involved (stating Afghanistan as a left field reason) and the EU or NATO have yet to effectively intervene. For reasons transparent to anyone following this: Russia’s resolve is leading Western countries to fear escalation. An escalation that could theoretically mean a new global war, this time with nuclear weapons on all sides…
I am perfectly conscious of the fact that taking action at any step of this process would have been / would be arduous, as any sort of foreign intervention is a delicate matter. Yet, post-1945 Europe would have been far worse off were it not for the US-led Marshall Plan. Yet, the rise of a new de facto dictatorship in Russia should have been cause for concern outside of the sheer Eastern European (former) bloc. Yet, the start of a unilateral war at the gates of Europe and NATO should be a sign that we should, finally, get involved. Once again, symbols matter: this year marks the hundredth anniversary of the Soviet Union…