Just a reminder of the events that brought about the conflict.

When it comes to international relations there is more to any situation than the reports of the MSM…..this applies to the war in Ukraine as it does to any conflict.

There is more than Putin is a ‘mad man’….Zelensky is a ‘hero’….but let’s look into the past …a short trip for those that have an ‘inquiring mind’ (not as many people as you would think)

Today is the one year anniversary, 24Feb22, of the start of the Russo-Ukraine war….a war that has created massive refugee crisis, many civilian and military deaths and of course the spending of billions of billions of US dollars on this proxy war.  (My views on this situation is well know and published)

It has been one year–yes Irene it has only been one year but I know it seems much linger than that–all the ink that this war has gotten and very few people show any knowledge of what started this whole thing and why.

Though they are being fought in the confusion of a single catastrophic conflict, there are four closely related, but distinct, wars being fought in Ukraine. The first is the war within Ukraine. The second is the war between Russia and Ukraine. The third is the proxy war between NATO and Russia. And the fourth is the direct war between the United States and Russia. Deconstructing this single conflict into its four real wars may be necessary to understand the issues that must be resolved if a negotiated settlement is to be possible.

The latent domestic problems that have been ripped open by this war are not new. They are the torn fabric of the Ukrainian nation. They go back long before the war, and the war will not be safely resolved before they too are finally resolved.

Ukraine has always been a nation divided: northwestern and central Ukraine, which had once been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, have always faced west to Europe; the southeast, long part of the Russian Empire, has always faced east to Russia. Historically, western Ukraine has voted for presidential candidates with European-oriented policies, and eastern Ukraine has voted for presidents with Russian-oriented policies. It is a national tug-of-war that always risked ripping the country in two.

The tug-of-war became overt during the 2004 election between Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian-leaning eastern base and Vikto Yushchenko and his American and European-leaning western base. When Yushchenko was forced to appoint Yanukovych as his prime minister, the nation and its government was being dangerously pulled in opposing directions.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/who-really-started-the-ukraine-wars/

So many see this as a possible end game for civilization….

“To defend civilization, defeat Russia.” Writing in the unfailingly bellicose Atlantic, an American academic of my acquaintance recently issued that dramatic call to arms. And lest there be any confusion about the stakes involved, the image accompanying his essay depicted Russian President Vladimir Putin with a Hitler mustache and haircut.

Cast Putin as the latest manifestation of the Führer and the resurrection of Winston Churchill can’t be far behind. And, lo, more than a few observers have already begun depicting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the latest reincarnation of America’s favorite British prime minister.

These days, it may be Western-supplied missiles downing “kamikaze drones” rather than Spitfires tangling with Messerschmitts over southern England, but the basic scenario remains intact. In the skies above Ukraine and on the battlefields below, the “finest hour” of 1940 is being reenacted. Best of all, we know how this story ends — or at least how it’s supposed to end: with evil vanquished and freedom triumphant. Americans have long found comfort in such simplified narratives. Reducing history to a morality play washes away annoying complexities. Why bother to think when the answers are self-evident?

Tanks for Nothing: Is Civilization Really at Stake in Ukraine?

Many have written and said that this war could be the end of civilization as we know it….

The name of the game in Ukraine seems to be escalation, not just in the fighting (with a major Russian offensive expected soon), but in weaponry, too. Only recently, after initially refusing, President Biden agreed to send advanced American M-1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine (partly to push Germany to dispatch its own advanced Leopard 2 tanks and other European countries to do the same). And that, sadly enough, represents just another step up the ladder to… well, who knows quite what.

The Ukrainians are now demanding that the U.S. (and so, as with those tanks, other NATO allies) supply its air force with F-16 jet fighters. In an unsettling analog to the German tank accord, the Polish government seemed to agree to deliver some of its F-16s to the Ukrainians, with one proviso: that NATO (that is, the U.S.) agree to do the same. In Washington, those planes had been considered a “red line” not to be crossed and not so long ago President Biden offered a flat “no” to the very idea — as he had, once upon a time, with those tanks, too. In other words, in a phrase now in use at the Pentagon, he “M1-ed” the idea. As it happens, sentiment at the Pentagon already seems to be shifting, suggesting that the president’s F-16 position may soon prove to be so yesterday. Only recently, in fact, the U.S. agreed to send Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs that would double the range of that country’s rocket batteries, though like the tanks and possible planes actual delivery remains in an undefined future.

Is Civilization at Stake in Ukraine?

The end of civilization?

Damn good question that has no damn good answer at this time.

The best I can say is….it is not looking good for civilization….and Ukraine is the center of this concern.

But let’s say the two parties find common ground and come together and sign a ceasefire and ultimately a peace agreement….what then?

Not to worry China is waiting in the wings to replace Ukraine.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”