This: "Taking the easy way out — choosing immediate comfort over long-term commitment, short-term prosperity over long-term peace, alleged judiciousness over genuine justice — would only condemn everyone to more violence, more suffering, more death. .... [A] resounding military defeat is the necessary condition for the cycle of impunity in Russia finally to be broken."
Our instinct/compulsion to look away from - to not listen to - inconvenient truths, imho, is one of the greatest threats to our nation and to classical liberalism. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a wake-up call re this in foreign affairs: too many US-Russia resets, too many delusions about integrating Russia into the global economy being a bulwark against bad behavior (ditto our delusions about China), too much NOT "call[ing] things by their names — their real names."
The cycle of impunity describes not only our failure to check Putin, but also our failure to hold to account those in the US who betray us - who foster injustice - every day by not confronting inconvenient truths re climate change, our national debt, gun deaths, the impending implosion of SS/Medicare, the lawlessness of a former president, and many other instances of willful neglect. So much whistling past the graveyard; so little doing the hard work of fostering some measure of justice around the globe and here at home.
I'm hoping that the US and NATO's resolve to help Ukraine resoundingly defeat Russia does not waver, though I fear that it will. If our resolve holds on this critical matter, perhaps it will strengthen our resolve to address other hard issues. One can always hope ....
This: "Taking the easy way out — choosing immediate comfort over long-term commitment, short-term prosperity over long-term peace, alleged judiciousness over genuine justice — would only condemn everyone to more violence, more suffering, more death. .... [A] resounding military defeat is the necessary condition for the cycle of impunity in Russia finally to be broken."
Our instinct/compulsion to look away from - to not listen to - inconvenient truths, imho, is one of the greatest threats to our nation and to classical liberalism. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a wake-up call re this in foreign affairs: too many US-Russia resets, too many delusions about integrating Russia into the global economy being a bulwark against bad behavior (ditto our delusions about China), too much NOT "call[ing] things by their names — their real names."
The cycle of impunity describes not only our failure to check Putin, but also our failure to hold to account those in the US who betray us - who foster injustice - every day by not confronting inconvenient truths re climate change, our national debt, gun deaths, the impending implosion of SS/Medicare, the lawlessness of a former president, and many other instances of willful neglect. So much whistling past the graveyard; so little doing the hard work of fostering some measure of justice around the globe and here at home.
I'm hoping that the US and NATO's resolve to help Ukraine resoundingly defeat Russia does not waver, though I fear that it will. If our resolve holds on this critical matter, perhaps it will strengthen our resolve to address other hard issues. One can always hope ....
Just wanted to highlight this comprehensive study of modern Russian diplomacy by the BBC News Russian. https://open.substack.com/pub/bbcrussian/p/how-russian-diplomacy-lost-influence-on-putin?r=1lu5tg&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Horrific, reprehensible Putin trying to turn Ukraine into Syrian rubble.
Apologies for posting twice, but I forgot to wish you a restorative break, Prof. Greene, and to compliment you on your excellent FP article - very moved and in agreement with your points: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/13/ukraine-deserves-the-nobel-peace-prize-russia-needs-it