There can be no more audacious behavior than when a nation’s political elite sends its young people into war. The arrogance, the sense of self-righteousness, of self-importance, is mind-blowing, or at least should be to the reasonable mind.
The reasons for offering a nation’s youth on the altar of ideology or material advance may be authentic or cynically motivated. Regardless, we, the people, go along. But why, we should ask, do we go along? It seems most people want to get onboard with a cause, to give meaning to their lives, to experience a sense of righteousness. It is human nature. But analyzed, apart from this emotion, it makes little sense.
We are talking about the sacrifice of our children. Would you sacrifice your child for anything? For an ideology? For a tract of land? Would you not sacrifice everything to save the life of your child? And if the above is true, how can we ask other parents to sacrifice the lives of their children, in war, for the advancement of an idea, or material welfare?
Yet we do this. The U.S. and NATO have sacrificed the lives, health, and spiritual welfare of its youth over the course of decades of war, and much more tragic in terms of sheer numbers, the lives of those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and further back: Vietnam. Estimates of lives lost in these war and warlike efforts exceed two million. Millions more have suffered injury–both physical and spiritual, millions more have been uprooted and taken on refugee status.
For what is all this pain and suffering endured? To promote an idea of democracy abroad, dispite of crumbling democracy at home. This, the result of extreme wealth inequality and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United and a companion District Court decision Speechnow.org v. FEC. These two decisions opened the gates for floods of money to influence election outcomes. Is this democracy? Yet we fight for “democracy” abroad? Audacious!
There are those, of course, who direct us into war, out of a sincere belief in the greater cause, and there are those who cynically seek power or greater wealth through war. It is hard to distinguish between the two groups. But the question remains, who willingly sacrifices their child for such things once the fog of irrational thought, patriotism, and flag waving, has cleared? In the end, does it matter whether the average working person serves one national overlord or another?
Which brings us to the Russian-Ukrainian war. There is little credibility to the argument that the West, via the U.S. and NATO, did not provoke the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia, which views itself as a great world power, had warned the West for 30 years against NATO expansion eastward to its borders. Afterall, the sole purpose of NATO, prior to taking on a few “peacekeeping” missions, was to counter the Soviet threat. That threat, now superimposed on Russia, continues despite three Soviet and Russian presidents who suggested in more hopeful times that perhaps Russia could join NATO in an effort to create a cooperating global security arrangement. This suggestion was ignored by Western leaders even as they added former Soviet republics and satellite states: members of the former Soviet military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, to the NATO alliance.
If that alone did not make Russia feel threatened, it is hard to imagine anything that would. But the West moved forward with successive rounds of NATO expansion, most notably the additions of the Baltic nations: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all of which lie on a Russian border. The U.S. has been providing military equipment and training to the Russian border state of Georgia, and has participated in joint military drills with the Georgians since the early 2000’s.
The U.S. and NATO, have intervened and fought wars in the lands of Russian friends and allies in Serbia, Libya, and Syria. Other wars were fought close to the Russian borders in Iraq and Afghanistan. All of this is threatening to the Russian people.
When the West claimed at the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit that it would eventually admit both Ukraine and Georgia to NATO, two Russian border states, with strong strategic importance to Russia, a dark future became clear. Ukraine has deep cultural and economic ties with Russia; it is estimated that 25% of Russia’s military hardware was produced in Ukraine; several Russian gas pipelines flow through Ukrainian territory. There are deep religious connections between the two nations.
The war is not about Russia rebuilding an empire; it is about Russia’s maintenance of its territorial integrity.
One might argue that nations should be free to choose their allies but it is hard to imagine Americans making the same argument if Canada or Mexico were to have attempted to join the former Warsaw Pact. Or, if either of those two nations today were to attempt an alliance with China.
None of this is intended to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The invasion is barbaric, wrong, and should be condemned–particularly from a nation which claims a messianic mission bestowed from on-high to thwart expansion of the decadent West. There can be no act less messianic than war.
But back to the original point. Why did we, the people, put up with Western audacious provocations which knowingly risked war? The Russian-Ukraine war can lead us into world war. Are we willing to sacrifice our children or the children of others in this conflict? For some, the answer appears to be yes. We have already sacrificed Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, the children of others, in war through the provision of goods and war materiel to the Ukrainian people. Why? For a narrow interpretation of the idea of freedom? For tracts of land? In the hope of the break-up of Russia which would grant the West free rein in its foreign policy and access to Russia’s vast natural resources by Western capital?
The West could negotiate a settlement to this war through the threat of withdrawal of support for the Ukrainian effort. A final settlement would likely grant greater autonomy to the Donbas region, and the mostly Russian Crimean peninsula would remain in Russian hands. This is not too big a price pay for peace. Greater autonomy for the Donbas region was part of the 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements arranged between various parties to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine. It was later revealed by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Ukraine signed the agreements to buy time to build-up its military in order to take-on the Russians at a later date.
Rather than force an end to the war, however, there seems to be a desire on the part of the West, to finally put Russia in its place, or, as hinted above, to continue the war for other more cynical purposes. Russia may not be willing to accept its designated spot in the Western scheme of things. In the face of loss, or worse, a break-up of the nation, Russia might resort to nuclear weapons. This is a path few of us would like to journey down. The arrogance, the audacity, expressed in the willingness to sacrifice further life in the pursuit of this war, along with the risk of nuclear war, again, should be mind-blowing to a reasonable mind.
How are we advantaged through this war? Will democracy be advanced at home? Will Americans share in the spoils of war if Western capital expands into areas of former Russian control. We have already witnessed a decline in democracy and greater wealth disparity over the past four decades and there is no reason to believe this will suddenly change if we were to exert a humiliating loss on the Russian people. Besides, we have already established the outrageousness of the sacrifice of our children for ideological or material advances.
In terms of participation in a greater cause, is not the cause of peace a greater cause? Peace through peace, non participation in war, this is the path towards real peace. This is what we must demand from the audacious political elite.