The Russian Invasion Changes Things

Last week, at breakfast, a friend of mine posed this question for our group: “What would you be doing right now if you lived in Ukraine?” After breakfast, with that on my mind, I turned on the car radio to find out the news that the Russians were moving on three fronts–the invasion and subjugation of Ukraine had begun.

Some Americans may say “so what?” Most do not know or haven’t heard much about Ukraine. Yet, Ukraine is a country about the size of Texas with a population of 44 million people. We are not talking about “small peanuts” here. Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade this country is a big deal.

There should be no quarrel now as to what Putin is up to–he wants to cobble back together the old Soviet Union using military force. Despite former President Trump calling him “savvy,” it is clear that he is a tyrant of the first order. We in the West should have seen this coming after his forcible taking of Crimea in 2014.

...wars are very easy to get into but usually very difficult to get out of.

One thing true about tyrants is that they can act quickly and unilaterally. They have no messy democratic process to deal with. However, it is also true that wars are very easy to get into but usually very difficult to get out of. As one columnist put it: Putin may be the main “driver” of the invasion but that does not mean that he will “master” it. Let’s hope that is the case. The Ukrainians are fighting back.

Aside from imposing sanctions against Putin and his regime–NATO, the European Union and the United States must now commit military resources to counter his next move. History shows that dictators are never satisfied and Putin will want more. What will be his next move? We must be ready for it.

The question that my friend asked at breakfast is not easy for an American to answer since we have never been invaded by a foreign power. As I saw videos of clogged highways of people trying to flee Kiev (Kyiv,) it reminded me a bit of people leaving Florida for points north and west when a hurricane is coming–though in the case of Ukraine, many of the refugees of this Russian military “hurricane” may not be going home again soon.

For me, this awful invasion reminded me of the beginnings of World War II. It was disconcerting and depressing. There is a dark side to human kind, and it has again reared its ugly head. In the words of President Roosevelt voiced after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor: the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia will go down in history as a “day of infamy.”

World order, if it is to be put back together, will fall to the few democratic nations who have the military strength and resolve to defend it.

Just as with every world calamity, cries have gone out of “where is the international community?” The truth of the matter is that the so-called “international community” as an organized fighting force that can quickly put “boots on the ground” really doesn’t much exist. World order, if it is to be put back together, will fall to the few democratic nations who have the military strength and resolve to defend it. The leadership of the United States of America will, as in the past, be needed to stop this current blight of dictatorship and aggression.

Freedom and democracy are not something we can take for granted. We have to be willing to fight to keep them. The clock of history has been turned back, and a new generation of Americans now has the burden of maintaining peace in a fractured world.

Rolland Kidder