FROM UP HIGH

In this blog post, I’m going to a high elevation to review the landscape. It is a practice that I see used by native Americans hunting the pole circle wilderness for subsistence harvesting when they climb to a high point in their terrain to glass the surroundings for prey. So much we can learn from the culture and practices of people who got conditioned by the absence of modern conveniences like roads, tap water, power and sewage systems, cell towers and all of the utilities enabled by such infrastructure!

From our high point we are able to see the forest for the trees.

There is so much going on both domestically and internationally that it is hard to keep seeing the big picture. It is so easy to get myopically focused on one or two storylines and fail to see the complexity of so many things happening at the same time, atmospherically, geographically, politically, scientifically, socially, and economically.

I’m taking my spot on the high perch and what do I see?

First, my eye catches the landscape of Ukraine, where, for the first time since the Russian invasion of February 24, the Ukrainian army seems to be on the winning hand and is slowly recapturing a good part of the ground it lost in the early phase of the Russian intrusion. The Ukrainian will and power of resistance is inspiring and effective beyond belief. No two situations are the same, but I can’t help comparing the Ukrainian refusal to bend for Putin’s troops with the ineffective defense of the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Denmark, and Norway against the onslaught by Nazi Germany. Including the heroic decision by the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to stay put in Kyiv, lead the defense, and organize strong international economic, humanitarian, and military support. Who, at the onset of the Russian invasion, predicted that 7 months into the war, the Zelenskyy government would still be in control of most of the Ukrainian territory, including its capital, and in effect be on the counterattack against a mighty Russian military force? It is too early to foresee where this conflict will go from here, but what has been established beyond doubt is that Ukraine is a vibrant, determined, courageous nation that will not (again) be subjugated by an imperial Russian authoritarian regime.

My gaze drifts for a moment to England, where an end has come to a more than 70-year reign by Queen Elizabeth II. Nobody does pump and circumstance like the British! After Brexit, the fall of the Boris Johnson government, the dispiriting spectacle of the Tory battle for the Johnson succession, the poor state of the U.K. economy, the weakness of the pound sterling, and the painfully high rate of inflation, the Queen was a rare symbol of British stability. The mourning and the long display of tributes and ceremonies has given England some respite from the national malaise, but it will only be temporary and soon enough reality will sink in. One has to pity the new king who will not have the time, the character, and the popular support to make us forget the second Elizabethan reign. It may be up to the English national soccer team at the World Cup in November to salvage some of the global prestige of Britannia.

Speaking of November brings me to the mid-term elections to be held in the USA on November 8. That will be the time that American citizens are given the chance to speak up on how and by whom they want to be governed. The ballot will be open on all of the seats in the House of Representatives, one-third of the seats in the Senate, and numerous State and local initiatives and elective offices.

While history and conventional wisdom point to a resounding defeat of the party of the incumbent President in his first term in office, there is tension in the air and a strong suggestion that this is going to be anything but a normal routine mid-term election. For three reasons. First, because of the commotion and indignation caused by the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs case, that reversed the 50-year-old Roe vs Wade ruling that gave US women a constitutional right to have an abortion. Second, because of the tumult in the Republican Party between the Trump fraction and the conventional Republicans. In many of the primaries leading up to the mid-term election Trump loyalists have come out on top but may have great difficulty attracting the vote of conventional Republicans and Independents in the general election. And third, because of actions and declarations of populist Republican office holders, governors and congressmen, on the subject of abortion and immigration that are far outside of the bounds of popular opinion. Each of these expressions of the culture wars raging in the USA are stirring the ire of the public and are likely to drive an extraordinary number of voters to the voting booths on November 8.

Unbiased observers will also point to the quiet but exceptional progress the Biden administration has made in the first two years of its term in office. Without having to resort to ‘nuclear options’ like abolishing the filibuster rule, packing the Supreme Court, or granting Statehood to Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Territories. Given the wafer-thin margin of control of the House and the Senate, it is remarkable what the Biden Administration has been able to do with respect to infrastructure renovation, gun control legislation, chips manufacturing repatriation, veterans’ healthcare improvement, college debt reduction, and climate control measures. With the economy and the supply chain flow threatened by a rail labor dispute, it has decisively stepped in to avoid a strike. In foreign affairs it has rebuilt trust and cooperation within the Western Alliance, strengthened NATO and lead the free world to assist the Ukrainians in their struggle against the Russian invaders.

From my high perch I can see all the way to China where, starting on October 16, the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will decide if it will keep supporting the personal cult of President Xi Jinping and give him an unprecedented third term in office. Although he has carefully and ruthlessly stacked the deck in favor of his ambitions, a tradition of collective rule and cultural aversion to a personality cult rivaling the one of Mao Zedong may put his leadership to a test at a time that it is weakened by the unpopular and ineffective control of the Covid epidemic that started in China, by a weakened economy and by resentment against the technology enhanced surveillance state he has put in place.

My panoramic view reveals a global struggle between progress and regress, between democracy and authoritarianism, and ultimately between peace and war. What has yet to come in focus is how these struggles will be decided, but it is clear that the next two years will, if not decisive, be indicative of the kind of future that awaits us. In America it will be shaped by popular vote in November of this year and in November of 2024. Not all nations are that lucky and it remains to be seen if our luck holds. By rights, sovereignty resides with the people of nations, not with whomever happens to temporarily have assumed secular administrative control.

DEMOCRACY DEMANDS

Liz Cheney’s resounding defeat in the Republican primary for the only Wyoming seat in the House of Representatives signals a watershed moment in America’s political constellation.

On one hand it provides clarity: There is no more doubt where today’s Republican Party stands. The litmus test is clear and absolute: If you are not an election denier, you are not a Republican. Of the ten Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted for impeachment in Trump’s second impeachment trial, only two are left standing, David Valadao of California and Daniel Newhouse of Washington.

On the other hand, the future looks murkier than ever, and more ominous. Liz Cheney’s defeat raises so many questions about the future of what she terms to be ‘this miraculous experiment called America’:

·        Who will stand beside her in defense of the American democracy while campaigning for public office in 2022 and 2024?

·        What platform will be left for her to continue her battle after the new Congress convenes in 2023 and she will no longer be the Vice-Chair of the January 6 Committee (which may not be there any longer either if Republicans win the House of Representatives in November)?

·        Will she run for President in 2024, and if so as a Republican or an Independent? In her concession speech she emphatically and repeatedly declared herself to be a Republican. But the current Republican Party wants nothing to do with her.

·        Who will emerge as the Democratic front runner for the 2024 Presidential Election? In spite of all official pronouncements to the contrary, Biden will be too old to run effectively, and Kamala Harris has done nothing to deserve taking over the mantle. At this early stage, the absence of a clear front runner from within the Democratic Party – one who can unite all wings of the party and attract Independents in large numbers – gives Trump a huge advantage if he can win a contested Republican primary. Who is there on the Democratic side? Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Jamie Raskin? Ironically, the person who is best positioned to attract the vote of Democrats, Independents, and probably some remaining anti-Trump Republicans, is Joe Manchin, who has thwarted the original Biden agenda at almost every turn but is a stalwart of constitutional democracy.

The irony is that, if it comes to preserving the great American experiment in democracy, the best candidates to squash the authoritarian populist wave that has engulfed a significant part of the voting public are on the Republican side with people like Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, and Ben Sasse. But, sadly, none of these can be expected to prevail in a Republican primary contest against Donald Trump. And Ron DeSantis is too much of a authoritarian populist himself to be relied on for saving the constitutional republic.

There is much to be said for having one of these traditional Republicans, if none of them can beat Trump or DeSantis in the Republican primary, run as an Independent for the Presidency in 2024, but with a weak Democratic candidate, it would almost certainly siphon off Independent voters and some moderate Democrats and by default hand the victory to the person who should in Liz Cheney’s words never again be near the Oval Office.

It is now clear that a major, if not decisive, battle for democracy was lost when in February of 2021 only 7 Republican senators ( Lisa Murkowski, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey) voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial which centered on his denial of his defeat against Joe Biden and his actions and omissions during the government transition period between the November 3, 2020 election and Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021. The January 6 investigation has established beyond any reasonable doubt that, following his electoral defeat, the former President tried every trick in the book to thwart a peaceful transition of power and he should have been impeached for that. It would have eliminated the pickle we are finding ourselves in today. Instead, the Senate, needing 67 votes for a conviction but getting only 57, acquitted him.

America will now be forced to go through four excruciating political contests: The midterm elections which will decide control of Congress for the next two years and the lead-up to the 2024 Presidential election; the primary elections to decide the Presidential candidates for 2024; the Presidential election itself; and -menacingly – the contest of wills following the election of the new President if, like in 2020, the loser refuses to concede.

America is facing a double threat to its democracy:

1.       There is a real risk that in the 2024 Presidential Election an anti-democratic, authoritarian, populist will be voted into the White House; and

2.       If that is not the case, we can expect to see a repeat of the denial of the electoral outcome, this time assisted by State legislatures and officials willing to overrule the popular vote and pick their own slate of electors.

In either scenario, we must fear for violence in the streets. America will then pay the price for having allowed ordinary citizens, including members of the political fringes on the left and the right, to arm themselves with an unlimited supply of military style weapons. We have already seen enough of the tragic consequences with the events of January 6 and recent attacks on the FBI and other law enforcement. No one can say we were not forewarned. The threats are everywhere on social and a-social media.

Democracy demands that American voters come to their senses and vote in droves, in November and again in 2024, for only those candidates for elected office who profess to abide by the verdict that the voters pass on them when they enter the voting booth.

DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED

There is no denying that, ever since I published my book NEITHER HERE NOR THERE in 2014, I have grown increasingly pessimistic about the political future of our beloved country. At a stage of my life, towards the end, that I should be mostly concerned with enjoying my retirement, my beautiful family, and the unshackling of any business obligation, I find myself obsessing with what I see developing as the undoing of the great American experiment in democracy.

I lived so long with the mantra “do the best with what is within your control and don’t waste any energy on things that are beyond your control”, but now I can’t help myself agonizing every waking moment about what I see as an inexorably disintegrating American dream, realizing full well that, if it is happening, it is completely beyond my control. It is well known that Benjamin Franklin on September 18, 1787 – the last day of the Constitutional Convention- in answer to the question ‘what have we wrought’ answered: ‘a republic if you can keep it’. For 235 years we have managed to keep a constitutional republic, but now I fear that we may not be able to safeguard it any longer.

The source of my pessimism is found in a message I recently received from an old friend of mine who represents the populist version of extreme right-wing ideology – the political undercurrent I fear most – in which he lamented: “Beginning about 1992 America began to feel guilty about our accomplishments, our exceptionalism, and our wealth. And from Inauguration Day 1992 (the start of the Clinton presidency) we have, inch by inch, foot by foot, meter by meter, disassembled the greatest God-fearing constitutional republic ever formed on earth. But today, 30 years and 6 months later we are absolutely doomed! I can’t fix it and I damn sure refuse to ruin my few remaining years on earth trying to understand why my country abandoned me and traded me for a very small community of left-wing kooks!!! I no longer believe in the USA. I did my part, so I am comfortable I did my best to help the USA!!! She’s truly of course, failing fast and sure to collapse.”

This is America in a nutshell today. We are both afraid that the great American experiment is doomed, but for diametrically opposed reasons. I am deeply concerned about the future of our democracy because in our two-party system one of the parties has chosen to put party over country and is making its case to the people by fearmongering, appealing to its most primitive nativist instincts, spinning the craziest conspiracy stories, and taking advantage of a carefully orchestrated take-over of State governorships, State legislatures, and the Supreme Court. At the same time, my old friend feels defeated by the threat of a take-over of the government of the nation by ‘left-wing kooks’. You would think that he would feel buoyed by the prospect of Republican control of the Congress after the November election, by the re-emergence of Donald Trump and his sympathizers, and by the support his ideologies are getting from a retrograde Supreme Court. But, instead, he believes no longer in the USA.

While I am concerned about the fact that voting rights are getting trampled in all bright-red States; that it has proven to be impossible in the current political constellation to strengthen our democracy by some simple improvements to our governance model by reducing the money influence in politics, eliminating gerrymandering, increasing the number of members of the House of Representatives, eliminating the ‘winner takes all’ rule in the assignment of members of the Electoral College, and making ‘ranked voting’ the rule in State elections; my old friend wants us to go back to the time that white male conservatives controlled all levers of power in the political domain.

While I am concerned about the cavernous inequality that has split American society; about peoples’ indulgence with the proliferation of guns in America and the resulting daily carnage they cause; about peoples’ tolerance for misinformation coming at us from social media and partisan news channels; about populist attempts to whitewash all sordid aspects of our checkered history; and about a clear resurfacing of racist, nativist, sentiment that gets openly spewed in political campaigns on the right; my old friends frets about our nation slipping into a socialist wasteland.

How can these diametrically opposed assessments of where we are heading and what the relevant threats to our nation are be reconciled? The only point we agree on is that the outlook is bleak, that we are on a path to doom of our own making. And I’m afraid my old friend and I are representative of the two camps the nation has split into and that is the reason for my increased pessimism. With the camps so diametrically opposed, and seemingly no viable constituency in the middle, how do we ever get out of this impasse and find a way to regain our democratic élan, bring our system of government up to speed with modern times, and thus save the republic that was created 235 years ago?

God forbid that we just throw in the towel and surrender to the antidemocratic groundswell that has swept what once was the Grand Old Party. It is now really up to the People. With the elections of 2022 and 2024 the voting public has the opportunity to right the ship, save the democracy -and the republic- by unequivocally denying the populist right-wing zealots access to elected office. What is needed is the mobilization of every citizen in defense of our constitutional democracy so that we can prosper under a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. And I mean all of the people, not just the ones who rule the roost.

Postscript. Tonight, in prime time, we will witness the final scheduled hearing of the January 6 Committee, which will be presided over by Republican Representative Liz Cheney (since chairman Benny Thompson is in Covid quarantine). The January 6  hearings have been the only serious push-back against the authoritarian take-over of the GOP by Trump and his sycophants. Faced with the near certainty that its work will be halted after the mid-term elections in November, the Committee is working overtime to get the record established on the insurrection attempted by the former President and condoned by most Republicans. Liz Cheney is a rare politician who is prepared to put her political future on the line in pursuit of defense of our democracy. As such, she is one of only a few bulwarks against a decisive slide into authoritarianism. Her warning is stern: “As a country, we’re at a moment where we really do have to step back from the abyss and it’s not totally clear to me that we’re going to. The forces that want to drag us over the edge are strong and fighting. But we have to.” I hope all of America will be watching tonight and be heeding her warning.

JURY OF PEERS

For open minded people, the revelations presented to the nation by the ‘Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol’ likely raise the question why the Justice Department has not (yet) taken prosecutorial action against the former President or any of his closest advisors. That question comes to me with increasing frequency and incredulity from my Dutch friends and relatives and it is a question that I have been pondering for quite a while. My readers know that I am no friend of the former President and have opposed first his candidacy and then his presidency with all my powers of conviction and that, for that reason, I can be accused of bias, but the evidence, surfaced over time in actions and words of the man himself and now presented to the nation by the Select Committee, is so overwhelming and convincing (as it is coming almost exclusively from Republicans who at one time or another were supporting the former President or worked closely with him) that it looks as if there is an open-and-shut case against him. If only it was that simple.

The Harvard law professor and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Jack Goldsmith, has provided some clear insight in the many complexities facing Merrick Garland, the current US Attorney General, in determining what, if any, criminal proceedings he could or should instigate against the former President. He has done so in a guest essay published in the June 20 edition of the New York Times under the title ‘Prosecute Trump? Put yourself in Merrick Garland’s Shoes’ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/20/opinion/trump-merrick-garland-january-6-committee.html

It is too early to say what will happen, but here are a few things to keep in mind:

·        The January 6^th Committee is not an official National Commission appointed by Congress like the 9/11 Commission was and will undoubtedly be disbanded when, as is widely predicted, the Republican Party will take control of Congress after the November 2022 election. It has not finished its job and may never get the time to do so.

·        Prosecution for criminal conduct by a former US President while in office is both a judicial and a political process and has never been tried before.

·        The former President has been impeached already twice but acquitted in both instances.

·        A successful prosecution for any crime committed by the former President will require a unanimous decision to convict from a 12-person jury of his peers.

·        Even if a conviction can be obtained, it is certain to be appealed up to the Supreme Court in a process that will take years and extend beyond the next Presidential election in 2024.

·        A prosecution resulting in an acquittal will have for effect that it places the President of the USA above the law in almost the same manner and measure as a decision not to prosecute would do. It will be heralded by the former President as a complete vindication.

One of the most impressive witnesses appearing before the January 6 Committee in its public hearings has been J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a staunch lifelong Republican.

In his prepared written statement for the June 16, 2022, hearing before the January 6 Committee he observes that we Americans are at war with ourselves and that “We Americans no longer agree on what is right and what is wrong, what is to be valued and what is not, what is acceptable behavior and not, and what is and is not tolerable discourse in civilized society. Let alone do we agree on how we want to be governed or by whom, or where we go from here and with what shared national ideals, values, beliefs, purposes, goals, and objectives – if any at all.” He speaks to the Committee and the nation of “a well-developed plan by the former president to overturn the 2020 presidential election at any cost, so that he could cling to power that the American People had decided to confer upon his successor.”

In an earlier, February 14, 2022, guest essay in the New York Times judge Luttig warned of a “clear and present danger to our democracy” in that the former President and his political allies appear prepared to seize the presidency in 2024 if he, or his anointed candidate is not elected by the American people. He has since repeated this warning in media interviews given in the days after his testimony before the January 6 Committee.

So, where are we? What is Merrick Garland to do and who can come to the rescue of our democracy?     Judge Luttig, in his written statement before the January 6 Committee, puts the responsibility for ending the war among ourselves squarely in the hands of “a critical mass of our two parties’ political leaders” adding that their number needs to “include a critical mass of leaders from the former president’s political party and that those leaders need to go first.” You don’t have to be an incurable cynic to ask where in the world these leaders can be found. These ‘leaders’ have been around for years if not decades without ever putting a stop to all the acrimony, polarization, and corruption and have, in many instances, been complicit with or tolerant of the subversion of our democracy by the former President. What will compel them to suddenly see the light? Either way, the question of accountability for the well-developed plan by the former President to overturn the 2020 election remains unanswered. I find harsh irony in the thought that, had his plan succeeded, the constitutional remedy would have had to be found not in a criminal trial but in a third impeachment, a recourse that is not available now that he is no longer in office.

There are no easy options at this point. Nothing can erase the fact that we are hopelessly divided on even the question if our republican democracy is worth defending. We have become a nation of extremists on the right and on the left and cowards in the middle. And, God knows, the extremists have the guns.

It looks increasingly likely that we will just have to fight it out at the ballot box. We will see revolt in the streets if the former president gets indicted and we will see it if DOJ does not indict or if a prosecution ends in acquittal. The uncomfortable fact is that in today’s America you cannot find any 12 randomly picked American citizens who will agree that what the former President has done to overturn the 2020 election and undermine our faith in the fairness of our elections amounts to a high crime and misdemeanor. It will take only one of 12 jurors to halt a conviction.

WHERE ARE WE?

I just came back from a visit to Europe, which was planned for the purpose of catching up with family and friends as the COVID tide was ebbing away, but took on additional meaning after February 24, when Putin decided to invade Ukraine and broke the long period of European peace that followed the devastation caused by World War II. I was curious to find how Europeans assessed the situation. After all, they know all about invasion wars conducted on their territory, an experience Americans have not had to submit to since the war of 1812 and probably never will again.

We chose to make this trip the old-fashioned way, by boat, taking advantage of Holland America Line repositioning its newest ship in the fleet, the Rotterdam, from the Caribbean trade to the coastal Europe trade. It was a much more comfortable way to travel than an overnight flight and offered stops at the Azores, Normandy, Belgium and its destination, Amsterdam.

We saw a lot of Ukrainian flags and found the Europeans in great solidarity with the Ukrainian people, welcoming their refugees, in contrast with refugees from Africa and the Middle East, with wide open arms. We did not detect a lot of concern about the possibility of a much wider war in Europe but much appreciation of Biden’s insistence on resurrecting the Western alliance. It was poignant that our visit coincided with the 77^th anniversary of the Allied victory over Germany and that it included a visit to the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy. The words “Never Again” kept entering our minds, and yet, here we are, silent party to another European war. After disembarking in Amsterdam, our time was spent in our home country of the Netherlands. The Dutch observe two minutes national silence every year at 8:00 pm on May 4 (Remembrance Day) to pay tribute to the victims of World War II. We watched the ceremonies, including wreath laying by the king and queen of the Netherlands on the Dam in Amsterdam and a solemn memorial service in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. If we did not know it all along, we were reminded again how awful war is.

It was good living in a different world for a while, largely disconnected from social media, but now we are back stateside, and we ask ourselves ‘where are we?’ What has happened during the four weeks we were away and removed from the cable TV circuit. And how do we look at the world now that we have had a refresher course in world history that we don’t want to see repeated?

Where are we? The impression that comes to mind is that we are at the dark side of the moon. The side that is carefully and mostly hidden from view, but always there. And it seems that the moon is turning and that the dark side is more and more presenting itself as the face of the moon. The bright side of the moon gave us the impression that, once the Cold War was won, we were on an inexorably upward course to peace, prosperity, and equality bestowed upon us by a liberal democracy. The theory was that American demographics were favoring progressive over conservative prospects, as America was growing less white and more diverse. The future promised a more just and equal society, where everyone would be able to realize their dreams and ambitions, not just the lucky few. That theory is pretty much out of the window, relegated to the heap of unrealized utopias. What happened?

What happened in America politics is not unlike what happened in the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Church where the people in charge were more concerned about staying in charge than about their pastoral duties and were willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses of power that were rampant under the cloak of ecclesial moral authority. In fact, in American politics it went beyond turning a blind eye to abuse of power, abuse of power became policy. The methods are deceivingly justified by reference to a 235-year-old Constitution and archaic rules of procedure governing the proceedings in Congress. The result is that any attempt to modernize the American political system away from a platform of white incumbency has been thwarted, despite fundamentally changed demographics. It explains why, for instance, the 2019 report ‘Our Common Purpose, Reinventing American Democracy for the 21^st Century’ from the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences has never gained any traction and why suggestions from the National Constitution Center for a new Constitution for the United States in 2020 have been completely ignored. It explains why we still have the ‘filibuster rule’ in the Senate, why we have not expanded the House of Representatives in line with our population growth, and why we have so many octogenarians in leadership roles in Congress.

We know that we are on the dark side of the moon when the issue of the day is not how to reinvent American Democracy for the 21^st Century but if we can fend off a direct attack on our American Democracy from an authoritarian streak in the Republican Party initiated by our 45^th President and his populist followers. Supported by our reverence for our archaic rules of play, the Republican Party has quietly and methodically changed the political landscape by taking control of State and local legislative and executive bodies and by filling the judiciary bench with adherents to an originalist interpretation of the law, mostly members of the Federalist Society. Now that the GOP itself has, at many levels, been hijacked by the populist and authoritarian movement which has its tentacles also in the federal judiciary, America’s democracy is at risk. The American Republic, in contrast to most other world powers, has since its inception been able to pride itself in a peaceful transfer of power based on free and fair election outcomes. That is no longer guaranteed if partisan officials, be it governors, State legislatures, or Secretaries of State, are allowed to overrule the popular vote in appointing the members of the Electoral College. This is what is at stake with the 2022 and 2024 national elections.

The dark side of the moon has come plainly into view during the primaries for the November election. It threatens with the prospect of dictatorial control of our lives, including a ban on abortions, an end to the separation of church and state, dictates on what we can and cannot read and teach in schools, institutionalized inequality, a halt to immigration, and disrespect for the rights of non-white, non-heterosexual, non-Christian, minorities. The dark side of the moon is where we are heading unless we deny the bigots their platform, come out in droves in the upcoming elections, and unequivocally defend democracy.

BLOODLANDS

 ‘Bloodlands’ is the title of a book professor Timothy Snyder wrote in 2010 about the East European territory that took the brunt of the titanic 20^th century struggle between Stalin’s communism and Hitler’s Nazism. A struggle that, in Snyder’s estimation, took fourteen million lives in twelve years of killing policies unrelated to combat (with Russian and German combat casualties estimated at another eleven million).

The bloodlands in which this struggle took place are comprised of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, and Western parts of Russia. Ukraine was at the heart of it and, together with Poland, took some of the hardest blows. When the Second World War finally ended in Europe, there was a strong worldwide sentiment of ‘never again’ that resulted in the formation of the United Nations and economic cooperation between the former European opponents which, in stages, resulted in the European Union of today. The Western allies chose for a joint security arrangement by creating NATO and the Soviet Union responded by combining force with their East European satellites in the Warsaw Pact. These two huge military blocks, both equipped with nuclear power, kept each other in balance by the threat of mutually assured destruction, and by all these means an uneasy peace was kept in Europe for almost eighty years, with only one exception of the Balkan wars of 1991-1992. As FDR, Churchill and Stalin redrew in the final stages of the Second Word War  the map on European borders and spheres of influence, a norm against territorial conquest developed and was enshrined in the UN Charter. With the fall of the Soviet Union, rapid globalization of the world economy, and the unprecedented growth of technology and prosperity in Europe, there was a reasonable expectation that the big European wars were behind us, forever.

But now we know it was not to be. And it is again the bloodlands that are getting brutally hit after seventy-seven years of uneasy peace. For the time being, the bloodshed is limited to Ukraine and its adversary Russia, but the conflict has every chance of expanding to the bloodlands beyond the Ukrainian borders. In fact, Poland is already significantly affected by the influx of 2.6 million refugees from Ukraine, and the people of Russia are feeling the pain of the war in large numbers of military casualties and a collapsing economy under the pressure of economic sanctions leveled by the West. But the conflict is only seven weeks old and can, at any time, conflagrate into a much wider war. All it takes is a spark that crosses over into NATO territory.

In the meantime, the world is helplessly watching Vladimir Putin flaunting all the norms and rules of international law by invading Ukraine and indiscriminately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in his conquest to restore a part of the Soviet empire that broke apart in 1991. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was right on target when he asked the UN Security Council in a virtual address on April 5 what the purpose was of having a security council that proves incapable of maintaining the security of the members of the United Nations. His plight has surfaced the uncomfortable truth that the current UN Charter is deficient in several respects, including the fact that Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, can block a referral of its transgression to the International Criminal Court. If a permanent member of the Security Council violates the rules of the UN Charter, it should be barred from voting on UN action against such transgression. In the UN as the guardian of the international order, no single member should be above the law. As professor Tanisha Fazal states in a great article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs magazine titled ‘The Return of Conquest?’: “If the global community allows Russia to subsume Ukraine, states may more frequently use force to challenge borders, wars may break out, former empires may be reinstated, and more countries may be brought to the edge of extinction.” Her article has the appropriate subtitle ‘Why the Future of Global Order Hinges on Ukraine.’

As it is, blood is flowing in rivulets again in the bloodlands and the global community has no tools to stem the flow. The conflict resembles a heavyweight boxing match that bloodies both sides but will not end until one of the combatants throws in the towel. Putin speculates that it will be Ukraine, which is why he will not stop hitting Ukrainian cities and people from the air with missiles, artillery, and bombers. The West rightly accuses him of committing war crimes, if not genocide, but must admit that it used the same tactics to bring Nazi Germany to its knees. Unfortunately, there is nothing new under the sun. The only difference is that the Allies in the Second World War were fighting to defeat the aggressor and this time it is the aggressor who flaunts the rules of war.

Contemplating all this, I can’t help but wonder how this new chapter of the bloodlands tragedy will end. And I dare to look back at the American Revolutionary War for guidance. That too was a fight of David against Goliath and I see more similarities: First, motivation and popular belief and support. Just like the American Revolutionaries fought for their independence, the Ukrainians know that they are fighting for the right of their nation to exist. The belief to be fighting for a just cause is a powerful motivator for the Ukrainians and one that the Russians, despite all Putin’s rhetoric, miss. Second, the strong support of the Ukrainian military effort by the use of diplomacy. Just like Benjamin Franklin tenaciously courted the French to support the American cause with financial and military assistance, so does President Zelenskyy do a phenomenal job on rallying the support of the free world for his cause. In both cases, part of the diplomatic message is the unshakable conviction that the cause is just, and the fight can be won. It is not hard therefore to predict that ultimately Ukraine will win. The question is at what price? The Revolutionary War took six years to be decided because the British had to concede in the end that they could not continue to take the losses of life and treasury in a fight on foreign territory. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that even if the British had fought the war to a stalemate, in the end they would not have been able to deny America its independence and sovereignty. Whatever happens next, I do not believe that Putin can make good on his belief that Ukraine is not an independent country and has no right to exist other than as a part of the Russian empire. But, in the meantime the bloodlands are living up to their name again.

OR ELSE

Tomorrow it is exactly four weeks since Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine, a sovereign country bordering Russia and long considered a friendly neighbor. It was so predictable. Putin had systematically positioned a massive military force all along the Russian border with Ukraine and yet most of us refused to believe that he would make the fateful decision to cross the border and start a war, even though he had previously done so with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008 and Crimea and Donbas in 2014.

Putin took months of preparation and amassed a formidable force of more than 160,000 troops on his border with Ukraine in plain view of the world and his point of the spear was positioned a mere 236 miles from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. It is abundantly clear that Putin’s speculation was that he would capture Kyiv in a matter of days, decapitate the Ukrainian government, install a puppet regime, and then proceed to force the Ukrainian military into surrender. And it is equally clear that he speculated that, despite US warnings of severe repercussions, the West would not seriously impede his ambitions. After all, it had allowed him to get away with all his transgressions in 2008 and 2014. Four weeks later things look a little different.

War is horrible and this one is no exception. We get minute by minute images of human suffering and material destruction inflicted by overpowering weaponry in a deliberate attempt to pound fearful defenseless civilians into submission. There are reports of more than 10 million displaced persons out of a population of 44 million Ukrainians, including 3.3 million refugees who have sought safety in the bordering states of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova. And the death toll, although shrouded in the fog of war, is measured in tens of thousands. The Ukrainians are paying a terrible price for the defense of their sovereignty and, indeed, the protection of a democratic world order.

And yet, the democratically elected Zelensky government is still in place and in control in Kyiv. The Ukrainian parliament is able to vote, the central bank is working, trains are running, local governments function, groceries, if they are not bombed by the invaders, are open, and the Ukrainian people are heroically defending their freedom. Putin has evidently been unable to disrupt the Ukrainian command and control. His ground troops, hampered by material breakdowns and supply shortages, are finding themselves in a quagmire, and are reportedly taking heavy casualties. And he has yet to establish complete control of the airspace over Ukraine. 

For too long we have been held back by the assumption that NATO intervention would create an unacceptable risk of triggering a full-blown European war. It kept us from telling Putin: “You stop the aggression, or else”, because we were unsure how we could credibly fill in the ‘or else’ part. We should now capitalize on the Russian failure to execute its war plan, by turning the table on Putin.

When it comes to the West, Putin has fatally miscalculated. His unprovoked aggression has met with a determined, unified, response from NATO and the EU and the sanctions imposed on him by a unified front are crippling his economy. In an impressive show of defiance of Putin and solidarity with the Ukrainian case, the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia visited last week with President Zelensky in Kyiv while it was under attack from Putin’s military. Most damaging to Putin is the determination by the West European countries that they made a strategic mistake in thinking that Russia, under the Putin regime, could be depended upon for the supply of a substantial part of their need for oil and gas without jeopardizing the security balance in Europe. The whole idea that by establishing strong economic ties between Russia and Western Europe, the Putin regime could be held in check and the peace in Europe could be maintained, is now out of the window. The mood in Western Europe has changed. Confronted with naked aggression from an authoritarian Russian regime, it has accepted the need for increased military spending, and it realizes better than before the value of the NATO alliance. Sweden and Finland that have sit on the sidelines and stayed out of NATO are now rethinking that position.

President Biden’s efforts to restore the Western alliance have been boosted unexpectedly and immensely by Putin’s folly. As of this writing Biden is on his way to visit Brussels and Warsaw and we should not be amazed if he would risk arranging an unannounced meeting with President Zelensky in Lviv or even Kyiv. It would give the Ukrainians an invaluable show of support and it would demonstrate for the whole world to see that Putin does not set the rules of engagement.

The risk, of course, is that in the face of such ongoing humiliation Putin will double down on the course he already has been forced to embark upon by the failures of his ground troops to capture territory: The indiscriminate targeting of Ukrainian civilians, infrastructure, and property from the air and from the sea. The near total destruction of Mariupol and Kharkiv gives evidence of his disregard for the rules of warfare, and we should take him seriously when he threatens the use of nuclear weapons in the face of continuing resistance by the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian people. US intelligence has warned of the probability that Putin will resort to the use of chemical or biological weapons if he can’t prevail using conventional means. Either way, the devastation in the Ukrainian cities, in only four weeks, is already of biblical proportions and the real question is: How long will NATO stand by and allow these atrocities to go unanswered. That question is likely to be the centerpiece of the talks later this week in Brussels and Warsaw.

What can the free world say or do to stop Putin from continuing his path of destruction? Is there a credible red line that the free world can draw and say to Putin “to here and no further” without triggering WWIII in the process?

I hope that the NATO leaders will agree this week to tell Putin that, if he continues to attack non-military targets in Ukraine with artillery, missiles, and bombs he exposes himself to NATO retaliation against Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. NATO should be prepared to target the invader with the same weapons that are used by Putin, but only if and to the extent the invader is present on Ukrainian territory. The justification for such intervention would be found in prevention of further crimes against humanity. The United Nations could show its continued relevance by having its General Assembly authorize such NATO intervention.

Others have written, and I agree, that it is high time that we deny Putin the right to dictate the rules of the game. He is the aggressor and should be stopped. And if sanctions alone don’t get the job done, we need to have the courage to resort to even more punishing action. We simply cannot stand by idle while he flattens one Ukrainian city after another. President Obama drew a redline in Syria and then backed off from enforcing it against Assad and Putin. President Biden should not make the same mistake. He should cash in on his credit with other Western leaders and get NATO to draw the line for Putin, preferably with a UN mandate. Putin should be told “stop here, or else” and he should be left under no illusion as to whether the ‘or else’ part will be enforced. Once the violence against civilians has ended, negotiations about the future of security arrangements in Europe can start.