Someone once said that maps are not a record of where you have been, but a projection of where you mean to go. Thus, Amerigo Vespucci’s great first map of North America in the early 1500s opened the New World to centuries of colonization. In Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, pay attention to the maps, and where he means to go is clear.
Ukraine must be destroyed by Putin for only one reason: he cannot abide a functioning democracy on his border. If Ukraine will not bend the knee, by God Putin means to kneecap it.
Other than that, however, watch the maps. If Putin cannot defeat all of Ukraine, he will most likely try to spread his “separatist” region in eastern Ukraine, along the shore of southern Ukraine to Odessa. That slim strip would make Ukraine a landlocked country, and thus forced into dependency on Russia.
As the war eventually winds down, Putin’s most likely play will be to keep those slender tendrils of Russian power along Ukraine’s border to give the appearance of having mostly left, while keeping just enough Ukrainian territory to seal it off.
So for Ukraine and its supporters around the world the test is how much war, death and suffering its brave people can withstand, before looking for terms. And those terms might never include a complete withdrawal of all Russian and separatist forces.
For the would-be appeasers (who’d counsel Ukraine capitulate by claiming neutrality, spurning NATO and the European Union) please consider that once war has commenced a too hasty rush to peace, any peace, does not always work out for the most afflicted.
Ukraine must be fast-tracked to European Union membership, that is most important. It does not need to join NATO but should refrain from declaring official neutrality in international affairs.
And while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would like to pursue war crimes against Putin, don’t hold your breath. While a blatant land grab, a desperate bid to blackmail the world into accepting him running a rogue state, Putin is as much a war criminal as former president George W. Bush, Colin Powell (RIP), or former British prime minister Tony Blair and any other leader who weaponized the lies that led to the destruction of Iraq, Syria, and the rise of ISIS since the American invasion of 2003.
The Russian military has undoubtedly killed civilians up close and from far away. But we forget that war itself is a crime and all war will slaughter innocents. The real test for war crimes is the casus belli of that conflict. The utter illegality and illogicalness of Putin’s claim to want to “de-Nazify” Ukraine puts him in good standing for war crimes charges; but he must wait in line for Bush et al.
President Joe Biden’s calling them war crimes, and the pundocracy echoing him on cable news is a rich scene to watch. Has anyone notice the United States is not even a signatory to the International Criminal Court that might indict Putin?
Meaning neither Bush nor Putin will ever see justice for the war crimes they committed. And neither Ukrainians nor Iraqis will ever get justice for the crimes they suffered.
And while only a hard heart would not be moved by the images out of Ukraine, it is not the poster boy for freedom, but for independence. We forget there is a difference. We fought for independence from Britain in 1776, we did not fight for freedom. What kind of freedom our independence brought is a question we are still very much fighting about 240 years later!
If Russia and Putin are to receive any consequence for its murderous actions, then some deep changes are needed. First, the UN Security Council must be reformed to remove the veto powers of the five permanent members including the U.S., China and Russia. That would democratize the UN at a time when we are all supposed to be overly concerned with the rise of authoritarianism. But who believes those nations would agree to that? Especially as had the UN been so democratized in the past, it would never have given then President Bush that shriveled fig leaf to cover the deadly bollocking he gave to Iraq.
And so, most unfortunately, while Putin has maybe reminded us of what is important — anyone care what the trucker convoys are up to? — it will be most likely taken as a one-off, something to punish Putin, Russia, and its people about.
My fear is that America and Americans don’t even know what is necessary, we don’t even know anymore how the world works! Liberals will be led by the nose by CNN and the Biden administration into fretting over freedom and those pictures of civilian dead.
Furthermore, while Putin is getting shellacked in Ukraine, his partners, the ultra-nationalists in Hungary and Serbia, won huge electoral victories just last week. As did the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India. Even in France Marie LePen, the far-right leader, has suddenly risen in popularity and may enter a runoff with President Emmanuel Maron this spring.
So, Putin’s failing war in Ukraine does not signal the end of the authoritarian moment the world is facing. Only the latest battle in a new conflict, the outlines of which we have only begun to live.
Joe Gannon, teacher and novelist, lives in Easthampton. He can be reached at opinon@gazette.net