Just one more quip and I’ll be gone.
Some people are starting to - if not agree with, then - converge with Trump’s desire to end the war in Ukraine. Yes, that implicitly means compromising in the name of peace. One of many examples is this Foreign Affairs article
The counter arguments are usually that it would be an open invitation to steal European soil for all despots in all future. A very un-nuanced argument which completely ignores the solidarity aspect of the Russians. Since internal discussions divulges a deep empathy with Russians in Donbas(s) and Crimea (and I urge you to go read the transcripts of the Russian State Duma for instance), then there is a good chance you have just discovered why Russians feel the war has legitimacy. Russia is trying to protect Russians abroad.
The geopolitical aspect - sure! The current administration has lost all faith in the West’s good intentions back in the late nineties. Frankly I am not aware of any place where I see good intentions towards Russia expressed in the foreign policy press at all, so perhaps Putin simply has a sense of the direction of things. Certainly he wants the NATO map rolled back. But still he derives his mandate from the government because he is shielding Russians in East Ukraine.
Another counter argument is of course the price Ukraine will have to pay. Surveying the landscape of arguments on both sides is an immense task.
There are material losses such as:
- (Arable) land area - consequences for tax income and agriculture.
- Industrial power.
- Man power in the work force.
To some, these are tangible reasons to keep fighting. To me, they are relevant but less than what the West makes them out to be. Ukraine was combatting corruption internally all the way up to the war and still is (just like Russia was and is). They will probably prosper more from ending the war, one could argue.
There are political losses:
- Loss of sovereignty. A blow to the core political belief that domestically, a government can decide anything within their own borders without fearing from their neighbours.
- Loss of enforceable independence. What security guarantee can Ukraine walk away with?
- By severing the predominantly Russian parts of Ukraine off, you basically just tilt the balance between majority and minority in those areas.
These are consequential matters, and rank high on the negotiation table.
There are psychological losses or however else we shall label them:
- The loss of pride and self-respect. The consequences of having had one’s group identity broken.
- The fighting would have been in vain.
These arguments are probably the essential ones for most Ukrainians (and Russians too).
Now for the main point: Our emotions are dangerously tied up in the national project worldwide.
To the extent that nationalism has substituted religion, nationalism follows the exact same war-inducing pattern that previous religion conflicts followed.
We are all dormant zealots who can be awoken to deed at a moments notice.
Why do we always get entangled up like that? What does a Ukrainian born man or woman have to do with the industrial power of their country to produce lethal weapons at a sufficient scale to accomplish a political victory?
Nothing, you say. I am missing the point: They are Ukrainians at heart (or for that matter the Russians are Russians at heart). It is their essence, their culture, or if all else fails, their freedom to choose their culture. The government tries in a responsible way to shield the people it is meant to protect from harm in a practical way.
To that I say: I can see the beauty in that, but also two dangers: One is from the government, whose mandate in this context is to shield the culture of its citizens. The “how” is left unspecified meaning it can wander according to the politicians’ own taste. Dangerous. If it opens up for Russian geopolitical ambitions or Ukrainian liberalist-capitalist ambitions is really the same. They are equally harmful in the long run.
The other runs deeper: Shouldn’t we fight against identity as a broad cultural phenomenon? Shouldn’t we rather outshine such a simplistic unifying character trait with something so intrinsically native to our being that it cannot be put on formula?
“My Dear, Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains. For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.
-Falsely yours”
– Charles Bukowski
How do we counter the next continental war?
We start by discerning between Trump’s voters simplistic xenophobia and the political elite’s institutionalised dehumanising perceptions. (Read twenty pages on US Senate’s opinion on Russians, Ukrainian Rada’s opinion on Russians or Russian Duma’s opinion on Ukrainians and Americans to realise that they are driven by the exact same psychological traits).
Which one is worse is perhaps hard to say, but the ideological strain can fuel itself for ages. Xenophobia can ravish everything in its proximity if the fires catches on. But the institutional aversion to other lines of thinking can produce military commitments that can last for decades and prove just as destructive.
The real danger is the combination of the two: Xenophobic masses in motion guided by ideological fundamentalists. But is that Trump? Trump the ideologist? Hardly.
The problem is probably not so much what would happen if Trump becomes elected in 2024, but the doors he could inadvertently open for the next leader.
Unless of course he can change the course of the country in one term in office:
Ideology is a self fuelling Perpetuum Mobile.
Xenophobia is a fire that burns out eventually.
Don’t get me wrong. At a deeper level xenophobia is small scale ideology and ideology is too often irrationality cloaked in theory. But for the purposes of this essay, I think the partitioning is acceptable.
Enjoy your election, America.
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