It is what I would have wanted to see: a large army built on dictatorial fiat with conscripted soldiers attacking a neighbor unnecessarily, getting their asses handed to them by a smaller but motivated army of volunteers in a democracy fighting for and on their home turf.
At the beginning of the war the conventional wisdom was that Vladimir Putin’s modernized army would roll over the Ukrainians after a brief but inspired fight. This is what so many of the talking-heads on TV predicted. But the reality seems to be something different: the Ukrainians are fighting the Russians to a standstill, and maybe even winning.
Any student of history should not be so surprised: the Japanese in 1904, the Germans in 1915, the Finns in 1939, the Germans in 1941, the Hungarians in 1956, the Afghanis in 1979, the Chechens in 1994 — history is rife with smaller inspired countries enjoying military success against a lumbering clumsy Russian military, at least in the beginning. Is it any different in 2022 with Ukraine?
We shall see.
The fog of war is hard to see through.
But I seem to see that Ukraine is making history and defying the military experts. They are going toe-to-toe with the Russians and are not losing. President Zelensky is appearing in “live” videofeeds in Western legislatures, using language emotionally resonant in those democracies: quoting Churchill fighting against the Nazi Blitz in 1940, the Pearl Harbor surprise attack in America, “Tear Down This Berlin Wall” to the Germans, etc. This is high drama. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was a professional actor before he became his country’s president, is showing himself to be a master communicator, in the style of Ronald Reagan, another actor turned politician. After so many years of uninspiring leadership amid the Western democracies this is a breath of fresh air.
There are many problems with democracy, much in evident recently. Bitter “culture wars” and partisan division; protests and riots and seeming disorder; contested elections and rumors of contested elections — talk talk talk talk talk and little action. Two cheers, and not three then, for democracy. But as it was in Winston Churchill’s time it is now: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest which are tried now and again.” Autocracy in Russia or China is the better answer? Really?
Then there are the advantages of an awakened democracy: it seems a huge chunk of the Ukrainian citizenry believe enough in their sovereign nation to fight for it to the death. Teachers like me in their 50s or IT managers in their 30s lining up to get government-issued rifles to fight against Russian tanks; Ukrainians around the world flying back home to fight for the survival of an independent democratic Ukraine. It is one thing to fight an opponent’s army. It is quite another to confront almost the entirety of an aroused civilian population which is willing to die fighting. Vladimir Putin is learning this, much to his chagrin. Will he kill a large part of the civilian population of Ukraine to achieve his political goals? Does Putin have sufficient military force to do that? In a country, like Ukraine, which is approximately as large as Texas? With a population of some forty-four millions?
Comrade Stalin would have known how to deal with such a restive population resisting the control of his regime. The Hungarians in 1956 learned, to their loss. So did Ukraine of the 1930s in the Holodomor. President Putin is operating out of this playbook. Turn Kiev and Mariupol of 2022 into the Budapest of 1956 or the Grozny of 2000. That seems to be the Soviet/Russian way of war: shell it to the ground, bomb it into ruins, and then fight and occupy it. It worked in Berlin in 1945. Will it work with Kiev or Odessa?
But again, the lessons of history. How many revolutions in Russian history have taken place after unwise wars turned into disasters? How many dictators in Russian history have seen their fortunes turn for the worse after starting wars which went bad? 1855 and Czar Nicholas I? Or Nicolas II in 1905 and 1917? Afghanistan in 1979? Might this war in Ukraine affect the duration of the regime of Vladimir Putin? As Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk explained, “Dictators always look good until the last fifteen minutes.”
Or, while I am at it with quotes, as the Chinese say, “May you be cursed to live in interesting days.” It would seem we live in interesting times.
I find it hard to follow the news from Ukraine. It is so painful to read about, and there is no real new news: just intense fighting in many places, and vast suffering amidst the fighting — and a seeming stalemate on the battlefield. This much I knew from the beginning: there would be widespread intense combat all over Ukraine, and huge amounts of civilian refugees would flee the country — not unlike in the recent Syrian Civil War, where Russian fingerprints also loom large. Misery, misery, and more misery; the blind red god of war Ares (a hated “colossus”) would arrive into the land and devastate the country. Anyone with eyes could see that would happen. And so it has happened. But I did not see the poor performance of the Russian military, and I did not see the inspired and continuing valor of the Ukrainian military and civilian population.
So I turn my head away from the misery, knowing mostly what is happening; I read the headlines without reading the details on a daily basis. Misery, misery, and more misery. The combat on the ground, and the politics in Moscow and Kiev, will become more clear with time. For now, the fog of war is thick.
But the fog will dissipate over time. The changed reality will become clear. I will be at the attention to detect it.
History is happening. Right now. In front of us.
As I said to the Ukrainians at the beginning, so I say it again: send lots of Russian boys home in body bags. It is the only way this war will ever end. It is the only way you will secure your independence. So far the Ukrainians have done an admirable job. Keep it up, boys!
History is watching.
You have your country, and your freedom, to gain. The cost might be high, but it is worth it. Your future, and your children’s future, is at stake.
The American Congress, the British Parliament, the German Bundestag, among others — they stand with you.
As would the Athenian assembly, or the Roman senate.
Join the West, and shun the East.
And then the Ukrainians can set to work on what is arguably a harder, more subtle long-term job than repulsing Putin and getting his tanks out of their country: administering a functioning liberal democratic government in Ukraine which can rule effectively and fairly, at least some (most?) of the time. All you have to do is look across the border and see the kleptocratic dictatorship in Russia to know what you don’t want. It is that simple. And that complex.
