Are We Ready For War?

Vladimir Putin gave a speech today. He mocked the West’s lack of resolve. Is he right? 

I'm sure the entire Duma applauded loudly and long. When Stalin used to address the Politburo, no one wanted to be the first person to stop clapping. The story was that the first person to stop clapping would be arrested and never seen again.

Someone was arrested yesterday in Moscow because she had donated 50 rubles to an anti-Putin organization. And yet, in a few weeks the world will witness the outrageous charade of Putin's "reelection" for six more years as "President" of the Russian Federation.

Everyone knows this is a fake election.

The frozen blood of Alexei Navalny cries out to heaven from the ice of northern Siberia against all the lies of Putinism. As does the blood of Ukrainian women and children, victims of war crimes, and the blood of the poor Russian conscripts used as human weapons thrown recklessly at Ukrainian positions by a nihilistic military that has no regard for theirs or anyone else's lives. And Ukrainian soldiers who are running out of ammunition to defend themselves... who can account for that?

The Western world—in particular my own nation—is constituted by the most materially wealthy, powerful, and physically comfortable people in the history of the human race. Does this entail no responsibilities in regard to the rest of the world?

Western Europe and the United States of America are already effectively "co-belligerents" with Ukraine: ironically, Putin is right about this. In a 21st century war, money, weapons, and training are more than "virtual boots" on the ground. But the West's contribution to this war is weak and cowardly. Eastern Europe—Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia—cannot afford to be weak. They are preparing for war. As Russia shifts to a "war economy," it will need to continue fighting wars. The ex-KGB clique that rules the Russian Federation almost entirely from Moscow will find plenty of pretexts to visit destruction upon its other neighbors if it succeeds in Ukraine.

It has been verified that North Korean weapons are being used by the Russian military in Ukraine. North Korea can only do what China permits it to do. China defines itself by politics, and unlike Russia's mafia-state, the Chinese Communist Party is pervasive and continues to refine methods of managing a materialist consumer society.

China is sharing its "methods" on every continent in the world. They take material risks and sometimes fail but they seem to "learn" (according to their own criteria) and keep going. Their influence will continue to grow.

In the West (especially in the United States) we expect to "win" without really risking anything. Both parties and several American Presidents have played different kinds of games since 2014, when Putin first seized and annexed Ukrainian territory and threw down the gauntlet at the structures of international law. 

Ours is the strategy of a decadent civilization. Our political leaders are reckless, narrow, and ignorant—and the ones who claim to represent morality (especially on points that I myself believe are necessary to human dignity) bring disgrace to human dignity and trivialize these sacred things by their craven political ambition and slavish adherence to an irresponsible and vindictive partisan leader. 

If we think these people can fix our society, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

I don't advocate war. I hate war. But self-defense is necessary, and the Ukrainian people are fighting a rogue state and they are running out of bullets, and the American Congress has adjourned themselves for a "vacation."

I rarely speak about my country's politics, but many reasonable voices (that are not the American mainstream media) are speaking, so I'm not entirely a fool here.

And I cannot be silent as the frozen skeletal remains of Alexei Navalny's body are buried in the earth tomorrow.