Daily Archives: January 15, 2022

Revisiting the World in 1950

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The red line on the map of Eastern Europe below shows the peak of USSR dominance in 1950. For decades the West has known that Vladimir Putin’s dream is to restore Russia to its largest expansion that was created by the Warsaw Pact. Evidently Vladimir thinks it is time to begin restoration.

The Russian aggression has pushed out of the news the inflamed issue of Pacific Ocean dominance vis-à-vis China. Today the issue is Ukraine and Crimea, which are immediately to the east of Poland and Romania, bordering the northern shore of the Black Sea. Crimea, already forcibly annexed by Russia, is the island at the north end of the Black Sea

One of the intellectual victories that came out of WWII negotiations, and one which sustained national independence through the Cold War, was an agreement that national boundaries cannot be changed by brute force.

Ukraine was part of Russia until it officially declared itself an independent country on August 24 1991, when the communist parliament of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine would no longer follow the laws of USSR and only the laws of Ukraine, de facto declaring Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. For the likes of Russian plutocrats, this has remained a thorn in the side. Vladimir surely believes that Ukraine and Crimea have always been part of Russia and should remain so.

Economically, Russia is hurting the way dictatorships usually suffer: Government sucks every dollar it can (not unlike American private equity firms) leaving too little for the citizenry to survive comfortably. The one thing Russia cannot tolerate is to be cut off from international trade via intensely restrictive sanctions – the strategy Biden and the EU have been touting. The problem that throws sand in the gears is that the EU is dependent on Russian oil and natural gas.

What Putin is banking on is that an invasion could be accomplished in a few days before opposing nations could respond to Russia’s execution of overwhelming military force, borrowing Syria’s strategy which is to level everything without regard for future functionality; Ukrainian leaders, like the opponents of Adolf Hitler, would be summarily executed.

On paper this has merit since Ukraine is not part of NATO and is not automatically protected.

The 1950s question is whether nations will be able to enforce the idea that boundaries cannot be changed by brute force without using brute force themselves.

All eyes are on Vladimir Putin.

Ancient Mariner

The Planet is a player

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Around the entire planet, presidents, prime ministers, dictators and monarchs struggle to maintain a positive image to their subjects while fighting nature’s infectious army. Science struggles to keep up with nature; politics struggles to keep in step with the march of new, deadly viruses and destructive weather; human confusion increases as social media misrepresents the issues; the economy struggles to sustain order in the marketplace as employees abandon jobs in fear; education is brought to its knees by conflicting policies and solutions; financial support by the government is shutting down as party politics block national responses to national pandemics and weather.

Let’s face it. Nature is slapping humanity around as if humans were a bunch of namby-pambies. Societies and their power structures have ignored global warming since its first documentation in 1853. Societies and their power structures have ignored the disruption and raping of the planet’s Eco structure until the planet had to put its foot down and doubled the rate of global warming. The ratio of planetary resources to population is on an increasingly negative curve toward inadequacy for humanity in general.

In the day-to-day life of humans, these issues seem vague and ill defined. Finding the next meal or the next income source is more important. Keeping one’s wealth as storm clouds gather obstructs the big picture.

Unlike moments in history when some element of reality suddenly brought change, e.g., electricity, automobiles, TNT or artificial intelligence, today the planet is a player; it can make changes, too. Genuinely destructive weather has become commonplace; volcanic eruptions are becoming commonplace; the oceans, by human interference, have grown so warm as to create massive extinction of the sea’s Eco system and will disrupt weather for many decades.

Yet the political environment speaks of petty wars and egotistical posturing. Mariner is reminded of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

This must be a movie. Mariner has been drawn into a metaverse environment. No, not really. Our times today are difficult and many answers are unknown. All a person has left is a stable ethic and what factual information may, or may not, be at hand.

Ancient Mariner