In observing events unfold in Europe over the last week, it struck me that there was a moment after 9/11 when the U.S enjoyed the world's sympathy as Ukraine enjoys it now. We squandered it, though, in the name of vengeance and Neoconservative, hubristic adventurism. And in doing so the U.S. squandered its credibility and the world's good will toward it.
Eighteen months later the streets of the world's capitals filled to protest the U.S.'s imminent invasion of Iraq as they've been doing nineteen years later to protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I'm not saying the situations are equivalent. What was most remarkable was the shift within that eighteen-month period from the U.S. being the good guys to being the bad. At least it's possible for us to be the good guys--we have that potential, even if under blundering, "we-don't-do-nuance", Republican leadership we almost always never realize it. Russia under Putin has never been and can never be the good guys. But for us, there was a lost opportunity then, and we've been paying the price ever since. Iraq was such a foolish disaster on so many levels.
Events since then in the U.S. have further eroded the world's confidence in the U.S. to be a beacon of sane order and democratic values. I'm not surprised at all that Europeans and the Ukrainians themselves didn't trust the U.S.'s warnings about the impending invasion. Liberals should not assume that even though we have with the Democrats' current control of government a short interregnum of sanity, that after Trump the world reverts to its pre-Trump relationship with us. Already the world is making plans for when this sane interregnum is likely to end in the next few years. Already what Americans say or think is not something to be taken seriously in the way that it was. The world looks at America as a fragile democracy, a society in a death spiral that has all but lost its mind with a government that cannot be relied on.
That American intelligence turned out to be right was a surprise, and then compounding the surprise was the unexpected valiant and effective Ukrainians resistance of the Russian invasion. And so now we find ourselves in a world that even a week ago nobody expected that we would be in. Americans telling the truth, Europeans putting their economic interests on the line, and Ukrainians their lives on the line to defend themselves against a psychopathic bully. Who'd have thought?
What the Ukrainians are doing makes no sense according to any utilitarian calculus. The more sensible thing would have been to let the Russians take the cities without flattening them, to have the military retreat to the west or to whatever territory best affords mounting an insurgency, and then to hope that an economic stranglehold on Russia along with continued Western military and economic support for the insurgents will make a Russian occupation unsustainable.
But instead we are seeing the Ukrainians refusing to be sensible in this utilitarian sense and shaming the rest of the world for its utilitarian mindset. Instead we are inspired by their willingness to sacrifice themselves for values that the rest of the so-called free world doesn't really care that much about so long as their standard of living is maintained. That's been Putin's calculation, and he hasn't been proved completely wrong yet--but mostly he has. Two weeks ago I would have never thought that we'd be educated by this relatively obscure, corruption-saturated, nascent democracy in what democracy and self-determination means. I hope their sacrifices will not be wasted on us.
If they had just lain down, they would have quickly receded into the rear-view mirror as Afghanistan has done. But instead they have chosen not to lie down but to pay the price they are paying now and will pay even more dearly going forward. It's both appalling and inspiring. And while I have no idea how this will turn out, it shows that surprising things can happen and how that can inspire sensible people to do what is not in their sensible, short-term interest. Germany and Switzerland, countries run by accountants, are not prone to do the un-sensible thing, and yet we see how the utilitarian calculus of self-interest can be overridden and how quickly things can change when people are inspired to do something other than the sensible thing.
Will it make a difference in the long run? I don't know. The appalling could very well smother the inspiring and return us to our numbed-out stupor. But it's heartening to know that the leaders in the liberal, North Atlantic societies can respond in unexpected ways when they are confronted with situations where a cynical real-politik does not entirely crowd out other considerations. We in the North Atlantic world are still capable of that. I wasn't sure we were. The probable is not inevitable. Good surprises are possible, and looking forward, I'm counting on them.