Never in my 58 years have I experienced such mental trauma from an external geopolitical event as the Putin-led invasion of Ukraine. I grew up in Britain with the existential threat of nuclear war in the background and was horrified by dramatizations of worst case scenarios and post-apocalyptic dystopias. Somehow or other though, until this point, the world has managed to operate in a rule based universe where cooperation and growth has been the norm.
I have lived most of my adult life with the Finns who as a nation trod a delicate tightrope walk with their Russian neighbors. Finlandization was almost a dirty word in politics, but it describes well the intelligent pragmatism that a small independent nation displayed for over a century against an unpredictable, brutal and oppressive regime that swallowed similar-sized nations across the Baltic. Given our geographic proximity and present circumstances, that tightrope walk takes on new dimensions. The same rules apply for everyone in the northern hemisphere.
Every day now feels like a rising psychosis.
I recall the early 80s as a struggle of ideologies — raw capitalism with its liberation of money markets and a celebration of vulgar wealth in the west and the necrotic regimes behind the Iron Curtain that collapsed under their own corruption. Both were inevitable in their way, and both have led to the present crisis. The mantra of ‘greed is good’ is a song played to a zero sum game.
The Soviet Union was a special case though — a union with its epicenter in Moscow that only existed through oppression of its neighbors and vassal states. One which subsequently spawned a small coterie of ultra-rich oligarchs and politicians who flaunted their wealth in the west, even gaining citizenship in key countries with no questions asked about its provenance. This is the same stolen wealth gratefully received that now funds an illegal, brutal war on a peaceful neighbor.
I confess openly to an addiction to the news but now I shudder to read the paper or hear the latest news from television because I know innocent men, women and children are being slaughtered with bullets, rockets and shells as I sit here and write. Putin having removed his Botox mask of hateful inscrutability, reveals the cold face of war — a war persecuted by professional killers and then legions of conscripts possibly unaware of their role, certainly many fearful of their lives. Ordinary Russians I am sure have no wish for a war that kills people that speak the same language, share many of their traditions and look like them. If a media blackout of the war is not complete, the tide may turn against a dictator who willfully has sent Russia’s sons to die in a war nobody called for or wanted.
Many brave Russians in their own country are risking long sentences in prison to publicly protest this illegal war. So many are now also suffering the effects of a collapsed ruble while the kleptocrats at the top of their dirty pyramid still enjoy their ill-gotten fabulous wealth. How can this stand? Will sanctions have the desired effect or will they harden attitudes honed by propaganda? Only time will tell.
In an earlier blog, I wrote about asymmetry and Russia is a good case in point of extreme wealth and power at the top coexisting with extreme poverty at the bottom. Putin, nominally the richest man in the world grew up in a squalid 17 square meter apartment in St Petersburg before his meteoric rise through KGB ranks to his present position. To his wealth must be added the ultimate will to power through force. This logic runs completely counter to the threat the world faces from climate change, which will dwarf every other weapon of mass destruction in its raw power, if not mitigated.
Is it not telling that a nation led by Putin whose economy is almost wholly dependent on the revenues of gas and oil has decided to enact a land grab not seen since the Second World War?
A very clear sighted interview with political analyst and expert on Russian affairs, Fiona Hill who testified against Trump in his first impeachment outlines the factors that led to this present crisis. She also points to the factors that may yet extricate us from its worst effects. It involves a response not just from NATO but from the whole international community.
If there was ever a time for nations to settle their differences in the light of a greater existential struggle for world peace, it is now. Ordinary Americans must also understand the importance of a unified response setting aside partisan issues that have weakened their ability to respond to such grave threats to world order.
The next weeks and months of the Ukraine war will be crucial to world order as will the response from everyone else. China, I hope will show forbearance of its grievances on the world stage and steer Russia back to a diplomatic solution. Despite their recent announcement of full cooperation and understanding with Russia, I am assured that they do not wish an escalation that would halt their continued ascendance as an economic world power on a ruined and devastated earth, whether from thermonuclear war or environmental collapse.
The second hand of the doomsday clock is pushing forward. Everyone now must do all in their power to push it back to the position it was and start again. Pity the Ukrainians for bearing the horrific brunt of this conflict, condemn and contain its enablers and call all right minded men and women everywhere to raise their voices against oppression and evil.
May God save us all.
