Ukraine: A Bend in our Road

With apologies to the Bob Dylan classic and a certain 2008 campaign theme , the times they are a changin' but not necessarily in the manner we hoped.  Change is, of course, unavoidable but it does not always unfold as the optimists promise, pessimists fear, or self-certified experts imagine.  Those of us in the trenches should recognize their words as statements of intention or estimation. We get the same from car salesmen.

Today two Ukrainian helicopters were shot down.  Grassroots protesters with shoulder fired anti-aircraft weapons?  Ri-ght.  No one doubts that Russia is taking advantage of the mis-steps of a demographically ignorant EU and American alliance.  Western mistakes of the past two decades do not excuse Russia's contributions to the destabilization of Ukraine, but context is important.

However we got here, a fight is brewing.  The French contributions to the rise of German fascism did not negate the need to respond to the destructive military force it unleashed on Europe.  The failures of Czarist Russia does not make right the Stalinist gulags or the Ukrainian Famine.  We live in the present and at the present troops are moving.  A later generation will have the luxury to apply the lessons of recent history's mistakes.

If willing to suffer the cost, Russia can dismember Ukraine.  I doubt they'd swallow the whole thing history has seen those boundaries change many times before.  The biggest cost would be to the nation's standing as a member in the world community.  The expense of this cost is uncertain.  As China seeks to remake Asia, and Iran and Sunni Islamists each seek to alter the status quo of the Middle East to their own design, the world community could look a lot differently in the decade to come.

The past is outside of our control.  The future is yet to be made.  Today troops are moving and this Washington Post graphic illustrates.




Nature is change.  It is natural that we should change with it and today that requires accepting the possibility that Europe, like much the rest of the globe, is becoming a dangerous place that we must meet with wisdom, resolution, and courage.