Think Russia Wouldn't Start WWIII? A New Map Suggests Otherwise.
It is our duty to defend democracy wherever countries struggle to maintain it, not just for their own survival but ours as well.
Mark Twain supposedly said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
Those of us old enough and paying enough attention to appreciate the interesting times in which we live have been hearing a lot of rhymes the past few years where century-old geopolitics is playing out again right before us in real time.
No more is this more apparent than in the conflict between Russia and Europe’s largest democracy, Ukraine.
While there are voices, conservative, and, sadly, progressive calling for “a negotiated peace,” other nations’ autocrats are watching how the United States reacts to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Some, like Pope Frances, argue that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should have “the courage” to sit down with Putin and accept defeat and its consequences.
Others understand that allowing Russia to run roughshod over Ukraine is giving Putin a green light to march into any other country he wants. After all, if Western allies abandon Ukraine, why shouldn’t they also abandon other European democracies under the guise of “peace”?
Two weeks ago our answer came in the form of a new map.
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman and head of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev (who played musical presidential chairs with Vladimir Putin until Putin rewrote the Russian constitution), ruling out peace talks, presented a map on which “Ukraine is definitely Russia,” altering the borders of other countries, including Poland and Romania.
In a speech, Medvedev asserted:
Our geostrategic space has been indivisible since the time of the ancient Russian state. This concept must disappear forever. Ukraine is definitely Russia.
Taking a dig at the United States and Ukraine’s other allies, he added:
Had Ukraine escaped the stupidest trap set by the United States and its allies in order to counter our country with Ukraine’s assistance and use this very “anti-Russia entity,” things might have been different.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1764598144497512613
What “tankies” (those calling for Ukraine’s surrender) fail to realize is that supporting Ukraine is preventing world war three.
Chinese president Xi Jinping just met with Putin in October to ostensibly discuss trade at a time when there is growing concern China may invade Taiwan. Like Putin’s claim Ukraine is really historically part of Russia and not a separate country — and the largest democracy in Europe, not coincidentally — Xi claims the island democracy of Taiwan is really part of mainland China and should be “united by force” if necessary. He’s already asserted he is prepared to go to war with western powers over it.
We’ve seen this before. Its old trope tin-pot despots trot out to try to gin up nationalism and justification for aggression against a politically fragile and less militarily advanced target, like Adolf Hitler claiming Austria and Czechoslovakia were historically part of “greater Germany.”
The main thing preventing Xi from going ahead with it is international condemnation of Russia. If Ukraine’s western allies take their eyes off Ukraine’s fight for survival, it will provide Xi and other dictators permission to follow suit with their own invasions. If we just stay out of it, as many insist we ought to do, it will be emboldening autocrats all over the world at a time when more democracies are backsliding toward authoritarian regimes.
Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to express North Korea’s “steadfast will” to expand Russian ties. Those ties consist of Un’s support of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, for which US officials assert North Korean weapons are being shipped to Russia.
Russia, China, and North Korea.
All strong-man autocracies.
All united against democracy.
Are these the new axis powers?
What should concern us here at home is the fact that our very own Republican party is equally united against democracy.
We had Hitler apologists in American government during WWII just as we have fascist apologists in government now.
In a speech at the National Defense University in Washington, DC this week, Ukrainian President Zelenskiy asserted:
Putin must lose. You can count on Ukraine, and we hope just as much to be able to count on you.
He added recently after Ukrainian forces were forced to withdraw from Avdiivka in February, its first major loss in a year:
Our actions are limited only by our strength. Dear friends, unfortunately keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war.
Blaming allies’ delay in air defense supplies, he admonished:
Delaying the supply of weapons to Ukraine, missile defense systems to protect our people, leads, unfortunately, to such losses. When lives are lost, and partners are simply playing internal political games or disputes that limit our defense, it’s impossible to understand. It’s unacceptable.
Ukraine isn’t just a country. It’s a democratic nation struggling to survive in a world where more democracies are disappearing in favor of strong-man autocracies.
This is the outcome the American GOP wants, for Ukraine and for the United States.
Russia will not stop at Ukraine unless it is stopped.
It is our duty to defend democracy wherever countries struggle to maintain it, not just for their own survival but ours as well.