World War III is not going to happen. Not as a result of this war anyway. In fact, with the strengthening of NATO and the weakening of Russia, global conflagration though not a zero possibility remains extremely unlikely. But before you go to bed this Friday night...
...give a thought to what is going to happen. A nation, already being destroyed, is going to be further shattered. Tens of thousands will die. Mothers & children. Grandmothers & grandfathers. Soldiers & aid workers. Politicians & farmers. Tens of thousands will be injured.
War crimes, already begun, will get worse. Damage, already probably over $100 billion will double and triple. Much...families, businesses, communities, cultural treasures...will be forever lost, no amount of reconstruction can restore them.
Those who survive will never feel fully safe ever again. Here's what else is going to happen, those who are responsible for this will probably get away with it. Some will lose money. Some may even not be able to live the lifestyle they once lived.
But to end the suffering, a deal will be cut, the perpetrators will be allowed to withdraw. Their illegal war will have achieved nothing except destruction. But the planet will want to move on. Sanctions will be lifted too soon. Armchair historians will opine.
They will say "remember Germany after WW I," we mustn't be too harsh. But of course, Germany's anger was due to having lost the war and due to the incompetence of its Weimar leaders. Hitler rise had many roots. Many nationalist strains & prejudices had existed for centuries.
And part of the problem was that as Hitler violated the terms of the armistice world leaders chose to look away. So the analogy, and rest assured it will be made, is not appropriate. Rather we should look and see what happened to Russia...
...after it obliterated Grozny, after it helped do the same to Syria, after it invaded Georgia and stole Crimea. What happened? Not much. The message that was sent to Vladimir Putin was that the world doesn't care, that the most brutal player sets the rules of the game.
We should prosecute war criminals. We should maintain sanctions until Russia pays for rebuilding Ukraine. We should demand Russia pulls back from the borders of its vulnerable neighbors. We should require that they & all nations enter into talks to eliminate nuclear weapons.
We should make it clear that nothing will be normalized until Putin goes. We should make it clear that those who aided Russia will also pay a high price, not just during this war but long after. We should seek not retribution but justice, not just a cease fire but lasting peace.
We should. But honestly, even with the wisdom and competence of the current set of leaders in the Western Alliance, I doubt the above will happen. NATO will be stronger. Ukraine will get rebuilt--probably with the help of its friends. Other aspects of the solution will be...
...deeply galling but honestly, that should be up to the people of Ukraine and one can hardly blame them if they want to stop the suffering. (Though I'm sympathetic to the view that Russia has fared so poorly that with enough support, they might be defeated.
It's a long shot. But defeat is another of the tools we have to try to ensure this doesn't happen again. Defeat is what should have happened but didn't after all Putin's previous violations.) But, the pain is immense and so if compromises are the choice of Ukraine, so be it.
But the rest of the world should recognize the massive failures of how we dealt with Putin in the past. (To their credit, their response this time has been much more robust and that is a very good thing.) We should seek long term solutions not just an end to all this.
But my guess is we won't. I hope I'm wrong. I hope Ukraine triumphs on the battlefield and the world does not simply accept a return to a status quo ante of a month ago as an acceptable outcome and that true justice is sought.
But late on this Friday night, after a week of horrors in Ukraine, my fear is not of the nuclear catastrophe that probably won't happen but of a horrifying outcome that is much more likely, the one that looks like what is happening now...
...and when that looks like what has happened during and after similar Russian atrocities in the not too distant past.
Sorry for such dark thoughts, but perhaps by thinking them, as with considering the possibility of nuclear war, we can ensure they do not happen.
Sorry for such dark thoughts, but perhaps by thinking them, as with considering the possibility of nuclear war, we can ensure they do not happen.
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