Thoughts on our failure to draw the right lessons and ask the right questions
Lenin once said that there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen. If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that these weeks in February and March 2022 are going to go down in history. The events unfolding on the border between Russia and Ukraine are of a magnitude that cannot be fully grasped today. Bearing in mind that “in war, everything is uncertain and variable” we must not allow this uncertainty to prevent us from reflecting about what we are living through. It is precisely because these are dark days, that we must not shirk the effort it takes to see as clearly as possible. What follows is not an account of the facts on the ground. Others are doing a much better job of that than I could. Indeed, plain information is available on an unprecedented scale. Rather, this is an attempt to find the right frame of mind for all this. It is with the right kind of attitude, and only with the right attitude that we will be able to make sense of the current drama.
In light of the eclectic cast of actors, the crescendo of the plotline and the stakes involved, the events in Ukraine can certainly be described as a drama. Let us first consider the man at the centre of the plot: Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation. It is remarkable that the man who ordered Russia’s occupation of Crimea, its invasion of the Donbas and its military support for the Assad regime managed to deceive so many as to his character. Putin has his country’s levers of power in a vicelike grip. Nuclear-launch button in hand, he appointed himself judge, jury and executioner of Ukraine. And yet, officials and pundits alike are now lining up to confess they had gravely misjudged him. Yes, it is difficult to see into another person’s heart of hearts. That is what makes books, movies, and real life interesting. People, especially when considered individually, aren’t that predictable. Nevertheless, character does influence decisions. A person’s character can give us a clue as to how they’re likely to act in given circumstances. Besides Putin’s moves on the geopolitical chessboard, his smaller, more personal decisions could have helped us paint a clearer picture of his character.
Had we paid more attention to his track-record of murdering opposition leaders, rivals and dissenters we might have been less surprised now that he has finally revealed his hand for the world to see. For weeks, he and his henchmen laughed off western concerns about the Russian troop build-up as hysterical. Today, Russian tanks are rolling through Ukraine. The invasion is not out of character for Putin. Ever since he rose to power, he murdered opponents, interfered in other countries, and looted his own. He brazenly lied about all this, attempting to cover his tracks with disinformation. The fact that this man nevertheless fooled so many testifies more to the power of make belief than to his own charisma. Our failure to see the vindictive violence in his character is entirely on us.
Now that his commitments to peace have been exposed as empty, the mask is off. While there will no doubt remain a stubborn minority of useful idiots, Westerners now see the tyrant for who his is: a man who cares nothing for justice, nothing at all for truth. This is a man who says that his army is liberating Ukraine, a country whose President is Jewish, from a Nazi junta- while keeping a straight face. This resentful man rose to power through force. He maintains himself there through force and fears nothing more than the limits of his power. This man speaks only the language of power. Having misjudged him for too long we must, therefore, make ourselves understood in that same language.
We didn’t see Putin as the man he was because we didn’t want to, and we didn’t want to because there was money to be made and elections to be won. Cutting down the size of our armed forces and reducing the quality of their equipment meant that the ironically named “peace dividend” could be invested in ways more likely to sway voters. Our own weakness blinded us. We kept telling ourselves that Putin’s penchant for violent revenge was limited to individuals. We forgot about the fact that he levelled Grozny. We tried to convince ourselves that the man whose air force turned the bombing of Syrian hospitals into a blood-sport surely wouldn’t dare act similarly in Europe. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Character simply cannot be neatly segmented. The man who did all these unspeakable things was the same man who a few years later orchestrated the greatest concentration of military might in Europe since WW2. Still, too many were willing to believe that his sabre-rattling was meant only as a bargaining chip. The alternative was simply too scary to contemplate. Now that reality has finally caught up with us the final verses of Stefan George’s “The Antichrist” come to mind:
“What’s left of life-essence, you squander its spells
And only on doomsday feel paupered.
You’ll hang out your tongues, but the trough has been drained;
You’ll panic like cattle whose farm is ablaze . . .
And dreadful the blast of the trumpet.”
If you find these lines over-dramatic, I suggest you ask yourself a question that many Ukrainians have been asking themselves these weeks: What are you willing to defend with your life? In the coming months and years this question will impose itself on us with irrepressible force. Zbigniew Brzezinski once remarked that “without Ukraine Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated Russia automatically becomes an Empire”. If you think Putin so far has been ruthless, wait until Russia becomes an empire. The world we are about to enter is going to be less patient with us than the one we are leaving behind. We can no longer afford to just look away. We can no longer avoid questions just because they’re unsettling. In any case, our answers will reveal a lot about who we are. While our words will certainly one day be judged, our deeds and sacrifices will count more heavily. What were we prepared to sacrifice when we were finally woken up by that dreadful blast of the trumpet?
In his televised address on February 23rd President Zelensky told Russians “when you attack, you will see our faces, not our backs.” Not just President Putin, but all world leaders and each and every one of us is revealing their true faces now. It took this invasion for the world’s illusions to be shattered. Now it is up to us if we allow it to shatter much more than that. Are we going to stand up for our most cherished values? Are we willing to defend our way of life and the international order against those who would not hesitate to destroy it given the chance? Let us deny them that chance. Let us refuse to gamble our freedom on the good will of Vladimir Putin. A threat can only become truly dangerous if it encounters weakness. Our challenge is clear: we must grow in strength, we must harden our defences and we must stiffen our resolve. If we are to succeed, we will have to learn to love our communities without idealising them. This is a daunting challenge, and it is late already. Ukraine reminds us that the stakes nonetheless require us to persevere.
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