The same sense of foreboding that came over me when in 1956, when I was just twelve years old, the Soviet Union moved on Budapest to put down the uprising of the Hungarian people against the Soviet dominance of the country, is coming back to me now that today Putin’s Russia is moving into Ukraine to impose its political will on another nation yearning for deliverance from Russian imperialism. I have never forgotten that on June 16, 1958 the Soviets finished the job by executing the Hungarian prime minister Imre Nagy and I bet you that President Zelensky has not forgotten that either even though he was not born yet when it happened.
As in 1956, in
1968 when the Soviets put down the Prague velvet revolution, and in 2014 when
Putin overran and annexed Crimea, the sense of powerlessness overwhelms me.
With all its military, economic, and political might, the Western alliance has
nothing more than sanctions to respond with, is utterly incapable of changing
the course of events, and has no choice but to leave it to the Ukrainians to defend
themselves, their nation, and their freedom. Our power proves to be naked. The
only hope to offer Ukrainians is that in the long run they may yet prevail, as
the Hungarians and Czechs ultimately did when the Soviet Union broke apart.
It is agony
to hear the Ukrainians under siege asking, like the Hungarians and the Czechs
did before them, “where is the West when we need them” and to have no answer,
no comfort, no help to give them. But the reality is that short of nuclear
power, the West has nothing in its arsenal that can militarily turn back the
Russians and Putin has clearly demonstrated that he has no time or respect for
diplomacy. The best we can hope for is that Putin, in his delusion and arrogance,
pushes his ambitions further that the Russian people and its military are
willing to go and in the process is digging his own grave. Kyiv may ultimately
become Putin’s Waterloo once the body bags are coming back to the motherland in
large numbers, the sanctions are seriously hurting the home front and the
oligarchs, and the ordinary Russians are wondering why they would be fighting
their Ukrainian brethren. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is like the USA
invading Canada or the Netherlands invading Belgium.
With ‘Naked Power’
I mean power that on paper looks formidable but in practice is unusable. The
weakness of NATO is that its only serious deterrence to Russian aggression is
in its nuclear capabilities, but these awesome capabilities are matched, if not
outmatched, piece by piece by the Russian nuclear systems and, if put to use, are
certain to produce catastrophic mutual destruction. The lesson of WWII is that
Europe, without massive American reinforcement, lacks the military readiness
and cohesion to defend against a force that is organized to attack and is led
by a determined despot.
There is a
US domestic component to this Ukrainian tragedy. As of the time of this writing
there is no official coordinated response from the Republican leadership to the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it is clear from utterances from former
President Trump and some of the right-wing media that in part of the GOP there
is more sympathy and support for Putin than for Ukraine. Undoubtedly fueled by
speculation that a win for Vladimir Putin will be seen by the American voters
as a loss for Joe Biden.
There used
to be a time when the American political tradition was that the divisiveness
between the political parties would stop at the water’s edge (the water being
the ocean water). It meant that, when it came to conflict with foreign powers,
the parties would close ranks behind the commander in chief. That tradition has
gradually eroded by ill conceived military interventions, without prior
congressional approval, in the Balkans, in Iraq, and Afghanistan, but it never
has been flaunted as much as in recent days when the former President, his acolytes,
and his media voices, in defiance of the Biden foreign policy, have openly
sided with Putin in his invasion of Ukraine. While it remains to be seen
whether the GOP aisles in Congress will follow the Trump route and withhold support
for the sanction regime designed by the Biden administration in close
coordination with its European allies, it hints at the possibility that the GOP
will push this issue to the point that it will hurt the party in the upcoming
elections of 2022 and 2024. Just like Putin may find to have shot himself in
the foot by overreaching in his imperial ambitions to the point that he will
lose the support of the Russian military and the Russian people, the Trump
faction of the GOP may be disqualifying itself in the eyes of the American
voters by siding with Putin in his attack on Ukraine. We will find out in the
coming weeks and months.
In the
meantime, we are relegated to standing by as the Ukrainians struggle to
maintain their sovereignty. If we don’t want to be confronted with the
nakedness of our power at the next go-around, America better gets busy
reorganizing NATO into a force that can actually deter any enemy with military
might that does not rely on a nuclear arsenal. Otherwise, article 5 of the NATO
charter may prove to be a empty letter. Putin may just be betting it is. Let’s
pray that Putin’s next move, if he does not get tripped by his Ukrainian escapade,
will not be directed towards the Baltic, where our resolve to stand by our
commitment under article 5 of the NATO charter would be sorely tested.
