Why should Americans care about Ukraine

Why should Americans care about Ukraine? How dangerous and unstable do we want this world to be? What is so great about having the freedom that these messy democracies offer?  If the west does not inflict pain on Russia for this, it could inspire others elsewhere to go and do likewise out of lust for taking and invading other lands their ideology considers their own. The message we send should not be the west is so divided and weak, we can be ignored.  Why wouldn't our adversaries think why not give it a try when think they can succeed if the opposition is weak or unwilling to stop them? Trump refused to support the mutual defense clause of NATO, as well as indicating he would not defend the Baltic NATO members. Biden furthered the impression to Russia that the US was still on an isolationist path with his messy withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Biden reversed Trump's sabotage of NATO and Russia's threats of territorial grabs by military force also contributed to a rejuvenated NATO. The purpose of NATO was originally to stop Russian aggression just like what is happening today. Other areas of the world with predators waiting to invade their neighbors for their related ethnic makeup are North Korea v South Korea, China v Taiwan, Serbia v Bosnia. Except for Serbia (allied with Russia), all of these potential aggressors have nuclear weapons and could start World War III., as Putin reminded us yesterday that Russia has them, too..  There are those on the right in the US who think we should have moved US troops into Ukraine just like the Russians threatened to do. Biden wisely did not want to spark World War III and a nuclear confrontation from Russia.. He took that risk off the table because 1) we did not have a treaty with Ukraine to require this because Ukraine was not a member of NATO. 2) we would be doing what Russia threatened and did that we said was so wrong, only we would have taken the first step.  This is not pre nuclear world. Get real  

In the 1930's, some of the same isolationist sentiments now espoused by FOX talkers flooded the radio waves and radio demagogue Father Coughlin was the supporter of the style of Hitler.  Such isolationists do not need a resurrection of Father Coughlin when we have Tucker Carlson and MAGA followers fawning over Russia and patting them on the back.   Thanks to other similar America First and isolationists advocates and politicians in 1939-1941 public sentiment mostly opposed entry into World War II until after the Blitz in London, Czech's Sudetenland was handed over to Hitler to appease him, Austria was joined to Germany, Poland was conquered by the Nazis, and US looked useless and weak. Japan then took this as evidence they could take over the South Pacific and Pearl Harbor happened. 

There are not many of us left born before World War II or have actually experienced the Soviet Stalinist consolidation of power in post war Berlin or who had firsthand personal relationships and visits to such oppressive autocracies, but I have thanks to student abroad experiences and being married to over 50 years to an east European.  Putin is a throwback to the Cold War and his ambitions are to reassemble the old Soviet Slavic empire. He reaffirmed that even two nights ago in a TV address.   Anyone who opposes him in Ukraine, he threatened this past week, will be treated as dissidents, The KGB colonel that Putin once has not faded away He has already. poisoned, imprisoned, assassinated or executed, Russians who opposed him. He has announced publicly the death and imprisonment of Ukrainian "dissidents" when his chosen government is established.  He controls the media and message to his own people.   He has only yes people around him.  We failed to react strongly to his similar attacks and grabs in Georgia, Syria, Crimea, and infiltration into two provinces of eastern Ukraine.  

Old Cold War terms are being revived, wondering if we call this as a new Cold War.  Perhaps not yet has the Iron Curtain descended over Europe, but it is Putin's Iron Fist at work.  Not all NATO members are liberal democracies, and some have tinges of authoritarianism such as Hungary, and less so Poland. Erdogan of Turkey is a full-blown dictator.  Perhaps the old term of "free world" applies to "our side" best as the contrast between Putin's governing style and the one we call "freedom".. In various shades of authoritarianism. degrees of characteristics are in common.  Allegiance to Marxist Leninism still is the Chinese ideology and measure of loyalty. Otherwise, the allegiance is to the dear leader, from North Korea to Russia. If you disagree with the government policies, corruption, sexual harassment, you are considered a dissident.  The rewards of favoritism go to the loyalists; dissidents need not apply. Dissident leaders and their subordinates are killed or imprisoned, and the only information you get is that which is approved by the government/dear leader/political party since they own, control IT and all journalistic media.   Your neighbors may report any anti dear leader activity and expression to the authorities for their files.  The ultimate difference between a democracy and an autocracy/dictatorship. Regime change in an autocracy only happens with an uprising of population.

 February 24 update: A lesson in the difference between autocracy and the US kind of democracy that gives us our freedom happened February 24. 1700 protestors against Russa's invasion of Ukraine in Russia were arrested even after Putin warned them, they would be arrested. In spite of this, the brave still protested in the thousands.   There is no protection for anyone to gather and redress grievances peacefully in an autocracy, that our US Constitution guarantees us. Putin's attempt to lie about any justification for invasions and to squash media coverage contrary to his lie failed because Russia populace knew the truth via internet and smart phones.  This is not communications of even ten years ago and knowledge travels at warp speed and penetrates government control of communication.  If you are arrested for protesting in an autocracy, there are no for protections civil rights or human rights to protect peaceful demonstrators from being abused, imprisoned, or killed. Might makes right and sets the rules and controls the means of enforcement. You no longer have the ability to freely express your opinions that do not follow the party/loyalist line.    It does not have to be socialism or communism that drives these autocrats, but only a lust for power, keeping power, and gaining more power and in fact, they often join hands with oligarchs engaged in capitalism.  Both Hitler and Putin have harnessed their capitalists to increase and consolidate their power.   This is what these lovers of autocracy want?  The end of personal freedom to protest corruption and abuse? The end of the ability to change leadership short of violent revolution?        

Did Putin miscalculate? updated Feb. 21. April 7, May 8, 2022

Update April 7, 2022, May 8, 2022: Within a few days after the Feb.21 update, Russia invaded.  It was clear Putin had miscalculated, but so had the rest of the world. The common wisdom was that Putin's army would be in Kiev and 'Zelenski would have been taken out in three days.  The Feb. 21 column below missed an important element, the leadership of Zelenski who refused to be evacuated as Russian troops advanced into Ukraine and told the US offer, don't send me transportation, send me weapons. Further rallies were from the Snake Island defenders, who told the Russian warship to go f ...yourself...an icon that became a battle cry of defiance.  /The rest is playing out before our eyes on  television.Russia’s Grave Miscalculation: Ukrainians Would Collaborate - The New York Times (nytimes.com.  We all, Putin included, underestimated the strength of the human spirit to resist tyranny.   

Update February 21, 2022 continues. This may have been Putin's epic miscalculation. Over 50 percent of Ukrainians oppose Putin's invasion...and most of those would take up armed opposition or civil demonstrations. Ukrainians were supposed to put their ethnic ties with Russia above national identity and desire to be in the western economic and democratic orbit. In fact, there was a bloodless coup that resulted in the pro-Russian president fleeing to Moscow. and a democratic election of a new president. Putin may have expected Ukrainians would quietly accept a Russian quisling government and Russian troop occupation. Putin was only half right. His problem is where he is half wrong. The opposition was going to be deadly and drawn out as the outgunned Ukrainian military planned to fade into the population and undertake urban guerilla warfare. They have been trained and weaponized for that by the West. In effect, there was going to be a bloody civil war. The question is whether the Russian public has much stomach for that, believing Ukrainians were close ethnic cousins. This is why there is speculation Putin planned to cook up Ukrainian aggression against Russians within and outside Ukraine as an excuse to give Russians a justification and why the body bag count of dead Russian soldiers could damage Putin's political grip in Russia itself. With 100,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian borders, that Ukraine would attack Russians is a very unbelievable story. The US landing tons of small arms weapons and ammunition for use by pro-western Ukrainians is part of the credible threat that body bags filled with Russian soldiers would be sent back to Russia is a real threat to Putin and as a rational actor, he may be taking into account and his calculation in the timing. It takes time for the effects to be felt and perhaps he thinks he can beat down opposition and consolidate power before his own populace feel the blowback. . The Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan once the maimed and dead soldiers were in critical numbers to overcome their government propaganda to any contrary. That Putin cares about sanctions, no matter how extreme, is doubtful and it would take some time before Russian consumers would feel the pinch. Those massive refugees would result in the Russian invasion is also a slow developing anti-Russian propaganda impact. He may save face by a smaller incursion where the population is more to his liking, formalizing his prior stealth take over Donbas and breaking it from the rest of Ukraine and getting a better land bridge to Crimea. We will see. with a few weeks while frozen ground can give tanks traction. Update Feb. 21: https://www.vox.com/2022/2/21/22944995/russia-vladimir-putin-orders-troops-ukraine-east-donbas /The response from the West will determine whether he gets away with that without triggering massive sanctions and succeeds in taking the whole enchilada.

The original February 7, 2022 posting continues: There is speculation that Putin may have been influenced by the USA's messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, thinking that the America was so weak and lacked resolve or desiring isolationism, that it would not get heavily involved in a Russian military invasion of Ukraine. This is the danger of MAGA. It makes the US look weaker, not greater. We do not know what is in Putin's head, but if he thought the isolationist had won in the US, as evidenced by the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, the weak response to Russia's military grabs in Georgia, Syria and Crimea, he miscalculated. If Putin pays little for marching into Ukraine and the west does not inflict pain on him for doing so, others will take that as a green light and try it elsewhere such as China with its designs on Taiwan. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs still have hopes the northern half of Bosnia (ethnic cleansed of Muslims and Croatian Catholics in the 1990's civil war) would become part of Greater Serbia and are watching for the intensity of western response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. The MAGA movement period is similar to the America First and isolationist era in the 1930s. The pro-fascist movement in the US gained steam and adherents in spite of FDR's disposition to the contrary. Before TV and and the internet, America had radio and fascist, isolationist media personalities like Father Coughlin, with a large radio following and an anti-Semitic demagogue supporting German fascism. . The 1938–39 deplatforming of Father Coughlin. (slate.com)The Father Coughlin of our era is FOX news and Tucker Carlson. Carlson's spiel is not anti-Semitism, but an admirer of autocracy instead of democracy and an apologist of Putin's rule and expansionism. He ignores the anti-Semitism that tinges these autocrats, especially Viktor Orban of Hungary.. Tucker Carlson Says Ukraine Isn’t Important. These Key GOP Voters Beg to Differ. - POLITICO. Tucker Carlson, Hungary, and the right’s embrace of authoritarianism - Vox   Hitler, maybe have thought, thought the US would be content to remain in Fortress America. Before Pearl Harbor, America stood by while Czechoslovakia's ethnic German Sudetenland province was handed over to Germany, (to get Peace in our Time0, Poland was invaded, Anschluss with Austria was finalized, France and Norway fell to the Germans, Britain was pulverized in the Blitz and the US was asleep at the wheel until December 7th, 1941. One wonders what kind of a country we would have been had not Pearl Harbor happened. It gave FDR the political winds in his back to fight a two-front war as the American public realized that isolationism did not work with airplanes as the new weapon in the sky. The world in 2022 is even more intertwined by trade, alliances, and technology, cyber vulnerability, and nuclear weapons with intercontinental reach than it was then.

These kinds of conflicts do not end well. This reminds me of the horrific Bosnian war of ethnic cleansing in the first half of the-1990s and the death of 100,000 civilians.. Until now, this was the only hot war in Europe since World War II. The Serbs lost their attempt to expand the boundaries to encompass all of their ethnic kinfolks and their president died in the Hague awaiting trial for crimes against humanity. The result is that the current population of Bosn1a, once similar to Colorado's, has decreased from 5 million in 1991, the beginning of the conflict, to 3 million, resulted in massive emigration, is the poorest per capita economy in Europe, still subject to ethnic strife and threatened with renewed violence and break up. My fear is that Ukrainians would devolve into this tragedy. The size of the impact dwarfs the Bosnia conflict. The population of Ukraine is 44 million. and the threat extends to all former Russian satellites bordering it

My interest in this is personal. I also fear for any number of my relatives by blood and marriage and good friends with similar ties in Poland, the Baltics, and the Balkans though less so Hungary and Austria, who have maintained cordial relations with Russia. Even friends with relatives in Germany are nervous about a Russian invasion in their neighborhood. All of them are targets of Putin's desire to reassemble the old Soviet Union boundaries and spheres of influence. They have enjoyed the peace and more prosperity after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I have often written about eastern Europe in this blog, drawing on over 50 years of being married to a remarkable person from the Balkans, studying in post-war Berlin, in seminars on eastern Europe in college, and spending a measurable part of my life there on family visits. My particular interest is Bosna, with close relatives by marriage there, a fascination with its history of cultural conflicts beginning my first visit in 1959. In 2020 I completed a six-year project of humanitarian aid through Rotary, writing, and championing three grants there that brought me physically there and close friendships. Our family business is the importation and distribution of cosmetics to the US from Croatia.

My views of Russia are not frozen in the cold war any more than are Putin's He was the last KGB station chief in Dresden, as the wall came down. Those former satellites have enjoyed peace and increasing prosperity with their alignment with the west since then. They have understood and cherished the freedom of political expression and economic advantages of a freer market society. Putin has replaced Marxist-Leninist doctrine with oligarch capitalism and hyper-nationalism. His methods of governance however are similar to the old USSR, punishing those who challenge his accumulation of wealth, power, and loyalty to him with more finesse and secrecy than the show trials of old. Poison, imprisonment, mysterious assassinations of dissidents are his tools. The breakup of the old Soviet Union he believes was a tragedy and the reassembly of that empire is his stated goal. So far he has been successful in Georgia, Syria, and Crimea. Putin is apparently planning to go "full Stalinist" if he takes over Ukraine by military force. This would be right out of Putin's KGB playbook: "The U.S. has warned the United Nations that it believes Russia has plans to kill large numbers of critics, dissidents and "vulnerable populations" in Ukraine" https://news.yahoo.com/russia-plans-target-dissidents-ukraine-060948378.htm

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-lists-ukrainians-killed-sent-055416138.html "Washington has warned the UN rights chief that Russia has lists of Ukrainians "to be killed or sent to camps" in the event of an invasion, according to a letter... "     If  US intelligence agencies know about this list, hopefully they know who is on it and is warning them.   

It is assumed both Russia and the West have more accurate polling, but here is what is public:Poll: Over half of Ukrainians will actively resist Russian invasion (kyivindependent.com) /The pollster is the CNN like news network of India, which does not have a stake in the outcome of any Russian invasion of Ukraine)Every third Ukrainian ready to put up armed resistance to Russians: Study, World News | wionews.com