Two Years of War

Exactly two years ago today, Russia, under its current Orthodox Tsar Vladimir Putin, launched an imperialist aggressive war against its European neighbor Ukraine - the first such imperialist aggressive war on European territory since 1945. Under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the U.S. and NATO originally responded effectively. Since then, however, MAGA isolationism and a general societal fatigue with "forever wars" have imperiled that response and endangered Ukraine's long-term survival prospects.

As if a reminder were really needed, the death of Russian dissident Alexei Novalny has further reminded the world what a monster the current Orthodox Tsar actually is - and by extension how serious the threat Putin's Russian imperial expansionism poses in the immediate term for Ukraine and in the longer term for the rest of Europe. 

The religious component of the conflict may be too complicated to sort out here. However, there is much to be said for Tim Alberta's observation: "Russia wasn’t merely using Christianity to endorse its ambitions. Russia was using Christianity to define its enemies. It was the kind of identitarian programming that presaged some of history’s greatest crimes—and, in the case of Russia’s butchery in Ukraine, it would not have been possible without the blessing of the Church." The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism (HarperCollins, p. 236).

Since 2014, Ukraine has lost about 18% of its territory to Russia's imperialism (about 7% before the current war and about 11% more since this war began). In this terrible two-year war, some 130,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed, or wounded, or are missing. Meanwhile, some 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have also been killed and some 25% of the population has been displaced. While Ukraine has never really been "winning" the war, there was a time when it looked at least as if Ukraine were on the offensive. Now that illusion has been dispelled - as may be the illusion that the United States is a reliable ally, After delaying four four full months the President's request for military aid to Ukraine, Congress has taken two-week vacation. So much for any sense of urgency about the government's business!

In the "second-guessing" game that inevitably follows any major conflict, it may well be that the Biden Administration has been too slow in supplying needed weaponry to Ukraine out of  (possibly reasonable, possible misplaced) fear that Ukraine might use the weapons against Russian territory and thus "escalate" the war. Whatever the reasoning was, a mistake may thus have been made in the pace of American military aid. (To be fair, of course, there was reasonable doubt at first that Ukraine could resist effectively. There would have been no purpose sending large amounts of weaponry, only to have it fall into Russian hands. However, Ukraine's willingness and ability to resist were quickly established. And taking the conflict to Russia's homeland was a wise strategy, at least from he Ukrainian perspective, regardless of American nervousness about "escalation.")

What the Biden Administration did do very well was to mobilize European support behind the defense of Ukraine. Europeans, having frittered away the post Cold War "peace dividend" and having for far too long relied too much on the U.S. defensive umbrella, were finally fully awakened to the degree of threat posed by Russian imperialism. Russia's neighbors - Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States, Poland) know from their long history what a dangerous enemy Russia inevitably is. So their awakening seems to have been more complete and effective. Of all of this war's ironies, Putin's goal of undermining NATO led instead to Sweden and Finland joining NATO and the overall strengthening of that indispensable alliance.

The problem now is not Europe but the U.S. - more precisely the Trump MAGA dominance of American politics and stranglehold over Congress. Thanks to Trump's envious admiration of Putin and his hostility to NATO and thanks to the slavish subservience of the Speaker and his Caucus to Trump, the U.S. may be on the verge of an irresponsible abandonment of its international obligations analogous to its abandonment of its international obligations after World War I. And we well remember how that story ended!