Everywhere I go I find a pal

Peter Weinschenk, Editor, The Record-Review

I am 65 years old and there has been military conflict in some part of the world every minute I’ve been alive.

What I haven’t seen, however, is war. That is, until last week.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the first time in my personal experience where one nation state didn’t just try to change the government of another nation state, but, instead, in a declaration of war, try and erase an internationally recognized border, eliminate a nation state and take over a people.

I am still trying to wrap my head around what is going on.

I think I know what war is. It is Napoleon Bonaparte commanding an army of French troops and, using bayonets, muskets and cannon, to expand the French empire in various campaigns. It is Adolph Hitler doing the same thing to create a thousandyear Reich across Europe.

I thought, however, humankind had put an end to war. The planet’s superpowers enforced international borders with nuclear weapons. And more recently, the internet, global trade and a merging of nearly all national economies has served to protect the “international system.”

Vladimir Putin, however, is old school. He’s trying to subjugate a neighboring country by brute force. He is bringing back war.

Now, as a 40-mile long convoy of Russian tanks seeks to encircle Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, the world watches in horror to see if war works.

My bet is that it won’t. Impressively, 27 countries in the European Union, along with the United States, Britain and a host of other countries, have walled off the Russian economy from the rest of the world. As of today, you can’t use GooglePay to take the subway in Moscow. The Russian ruble is worthless. The Russian stock market has crashed.

Napoleon waged war because it helped the French government pay its bills. The “little general” looted the capitals of Europe, shipping gold and other riches back to Paris (after skimming off plenty for himself and his troops).

Putin’s war promises not to enrich the Russian government, but to impoverish the entire nation. In the end, I think economics will eclipse tanks, helicopters and troops. But that’s just a guess.

Back in the 1960’s, I was a teenager who was inspired by the anti-war movement. This was a movement that didn’t just think that the American military defense of South Vietnam was stupid and immoral, but that war itself, as a human institution, was pointless and crazy and obsolete. That discussion about war ended pretty much when American troops left Saigon in 1975.

We are now faced with Russian aggression into Ukraine. The community of nations has pushed back strongly to maintain the international system. My belief that war is obsolete has been challenged by an autocrat with access to nuclear weapons.

I can’t tell whether Putin will, in the end, remove Ukraine from the list of nations. The fog of war obscures the future.

But you must forgive me. This is, after all, my first war.