Ukrainian resistance, though, has put the backbone into "never again." Where Ukraine holds territory, and that is most of the country, people are saved. Ukrainians have shown that a genocide can be halted -- with the right kind of help. When we cut off that help, as we have done, we enable genocide to proceed. This is not only a horror in itself, but a precedent.
A great fear of our age is nuclear war, and Russia has used nuclear blackmail against Ukraine. Russians want Ukraine (and the rest of us) to give up because Russia has nuclear weapons. Russian propaganda instructs that a nuclear power cannot lose a war. This is of course untrue. The U.S. lost in Vietnam, the USSR lost in Afghanistan. Nuclear weapons did not hold the British and French empires together, or bring Israel victory in Lebanon. Had Ukraine submitted to Putin's nuclear blackmail, this would have incentivized every country to build nuclear weapons: some to intimidate, some to prevent intimidation. Ukrainian resistance has saved us from this scenario -- thus far. Should America abandon Ukraine, we can expect nuclear proliferation and nuclear jeopardy.
Another traditional worry has been a Russian attack upon a European country that triggers the collective defense provision of the NATO alliance. For now, Ukraine is making this all but impossible. Ukraine has absorbed an attack by Russia. At horrible cost, Ukraine is fulfilling the entire mission of NATO, thereby sparing all other NATO members any risk of loss of territory or of life. The NATO economies are about two-hundred and fifty times as big as the Ukrainian economy. If they exploit a tiny fraction of their economic power, they could easily sustain the Ukrainian armed forces. Unfortunately the largest by far of these NATO members, the United States, is doing nothing. Should this continue, and should Russia win its war in Ukraine, then further war in Europe becomes not only possible, but likely.
For the past two decades, the main concern in Washington, D.C. has been a war with China in the Pacific over Taiwan. Never was this concern more pressing than in February 2022, when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin had just received China's blessing for his adventure. Had Ukraine fallen, as so many expected, it would have been a signal that other such adventures were possible. Ukraine's endurance has made clear that offensive operations are unpredictable and costly. Ukrainians are achieving what we could not, as Americans, achieve ourselves: sending a counsel of caution to China without in any way antagonizing the Chinese. Of course, should Ukraine be abandoned by its allies, and should Russia win, our earlier fears would return, and rightly so.
Russia is testing an international order. The basic assumption, since the Second World War, is that states exist have borders that war cannot alter. When Russia attacked Ukraine, it was attacking this principle. Russia's rulers expected that a new age of chaos would begin, in which only lies and force would count. The consensus in Washington, we should remember, was the same. In the beginning, the American leadership expected the Ukrainian president to flee and for the country to fall in three days. Every day since the fourth day is one in which Ukrainian blood has bought for us a future that we ourselves did not think we had. After two years, too many of us take this for granted. But if we decide not to help the Ukrainians, disorder will ensue, and prosperity will collapse.
For the past half century, people have been rightly concerned about global warming. Whether we get through the next half century will depend upon a balance of power between those who make money from fossil fuels and lie about their consequences and those who tell the truth about science and seek alternative sources of energy. Vladimir Putin is the most important fossil fuel oligarch. Both his wealth and his power arise from natural gas and oil reserves.
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