Putin does well in hell, so after a while he is given an afternoon leave of absence to return to Moscow. He visits a bar and orders a vodka.He asks the bartender, "Tell me, do we still have Crimea?"The barman says, "Yes.""And the Dombas? Do we have the Dombas?"The barman says, "Yes."Putin is elated. He orders another vodka and then asks, "Kyiv? Did we get Kyiv?""Yes, " the barman answers, looking a little bit confused.Putin has a third drink and downs it with a smile. "How much for the drinks?" he asks happily.The barman answers, "15 Euros."
This is Easy Sunday, and that is a satisfying joke for me and most Americans.
Twentieth Century history gives a template for thinking about what is happening in Eastern Europe. Putin is Hitler. Russia is Nazi Germany. Crimea is Czechoslovakia. Ukraine is Poland. The U.S. and NATO avoided being Neville Chamberlain. Putin and Russia are the bad guys. We are the good guys.
Simple!
But here is a warning. There is other history to consider, including one written by Thucydides about the Peloponnesian War 2400 years ago. That virtuous feeling of moral clarity is dangerous. I will write about that soon.
12 comments:
That is very cheap Vodka, even in Russia.
Peter said:
That virtuous feeling of moral clarity is dangerous.
True enough. But there are reasons for it. This is an amazing country.
At the end of World War II, we stood astride the globe like a colossus. Our military and technological prowess was unmatched. War for existential stakes has a Darwinian way of improving excellence through direct, unequivocal feedback.
The prowess inevitably deteriorated over the following largely peaceful decades, but we still had what it took to grind the Soviet Union into the ground at the end of the 1980s.
Now there is a new threat from communist tyranny China, in some ways every bit as evil as the Axis Powers were in the 1940s. And our country is in sad shape. We are polarized, at each other’s throats, and much of our industrial capacity has been exported.
But America was in worse shape in the 1930s, and look at how we rose to that challenge. I am hopeful that we can do it again this time.
Putin’s bar tab was in Euros. Europe could not have accomplished that without backup from the military might of America.
The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members, not in its military might.
We got out of the Depression because FDR figured out how to do it. Then WWII happened and everyone had a job, even my mother.
I believe we got out of the Depression courtesy of war production for WW II.
If a society lacks the military might to properly defend itself, it will soon not be in a position to treat its most vulnerable members well.
Examples: Poland in 1939, Tibet in 1950, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and most recently, Ukraine in 2022.
Maslow was correct about his hierarchy. Military might is a prerequisite for taking care of your citizens. This lesson has been learned the hard way over and over again for millennia.
As Leon Trotsky once said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.“
Defense is great, but occupying Afghanistan and invading Iraq were intrinsically stupid. The same with Vietnam. Too often, war achieves nothing but the mass slaughter of innocent civilians and massive increase in our national debt - hardly a recipe for helping our most vulnerable citizens.
Agreed.
The US has spent trillions of dollars on military expenses and then allows a Russian asset to become president.
War is good for businesses.
Maslow placed military in his hierarchy? You sure about that?
Malcolm,
Maslow didn’t specifically include “military“ in his hierarchy. But he included physical security as the lowest level. That would include security from military invasion by enemy forces.
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