Subscribers, Readers, Friends
This is the 100th post in my Conflict Mitigation Newsletter. Ever since Putin invaded Ukraine, I have been writing about his brutal vanity war, about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s amazingly courageous leadership efforts, about the hesitant and then more effective efforts of Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, and others to assist Ukraine and stand with Zelensky for freedom and liberty. I have described and written about the war as an existential combat, the outcome of which will define our era and eras to come.
I have also written about Putin-like despots in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America, about nations across the globe immersed in cascades of civil conflict, and have emphasized the extent to which our own United States has its underlying dangerous anti-democratic elements. Democracy, civility, and tolerance are at risk everywhere, even at home.
I have written about the big lies, about creeping fascism, about war crimes and possible prosecutions; about corruption and kleptocracy; about China, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. I hope at least some of those posts have informed, and touched nerves.
But now that this Newsletter has turned 100, and intends to keep going, I need to know of what you want more and less. Please tell me (by leaving a comment below or by using my direct email: rirotberg@gmail.com) what you like and what you don’t like. What kinds of subjects would you wish me to write about that I have not discussed so far? In what areas and on what topics would you like me to double down? Do you want more personalities? More statistics? More color? Are their particular countries that are of interest? Have I been covering the Ukraine war adequately? And so on.
Please let me have your thoughts so that the next 100 posts will inform, enlighten, and excite you as much as, or even more than have the first 100.
A luta continua -- “the struggle continues” -- was the slogan of the Angolan resistance movement.
Now back to commentary:
The title of this 100th column returns us to the very first post in my Newsletter. It was entitled “World War III is Coming: It is Imperative to Stop it Now.”
I argued that President Biden, NATO, and Europe needed to speak powerfully “to counter Putin’s threats, lies, and purveying false tales.” His invasion, I wrote, harms democracy and freedom everywhere, “not only in beleaguered Ukraine.”
Despite Putin’s threats in late February and early March that he would “extinguish” Ukraine as a state, I urged the United States to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine (as we did in Kurdish Iraq). Doing so would widen the war but, I argued, would ultimately save thousands of lives and forcefully halt Putin’s attempt to march not only into Ukraine but into the Baltic Republics, Moldova, and Poland to install him as czar of a greater Russia.
Fortunately, Ukrainians have fought far more effectively against the Russian juggernaut than anyone expected in February; Zelensky’s leadership (as I have written) has been exemplary and emboldening. The West, especially the United States, Britain, France, and Poland, has provided critical materiel to weaponize Ukrainian forces. And Putin’s more numerous and better equipped troops – fortunately – have been poorly commanded, very much too cocky, and crippled by corruption. Most of all, many of the Russians knew that they were fighting for goals that served Putin only, not Russia. So morale on the front has been abysmal, and is worse now that the Ukrainians have re-captured territory and Russia has been compelled to call up raw recruits. Losing 80,000 combatants hardly strengthens the resolve of others on the front line.
All of these developments in the eastern and southern sections of Ukraine mean that Kyiv and Washington have held off, even beaten back, the Russians without the imposition of a no-fly zone. Enforcing one with Western aircraft would, however, cement the Ukrainian advance and bring us closer to the cease fire that everyone needs, and only Putin and a few profiteering cronies oppose.
Obviously, as the first column in this series discussed, Putin still has nuclear weapons. Backed firmly into a corner as autumn slides into winter, he may be tempted to invoke them to turn hostilities around - he might think – in his favor. But President Biden’s response would be swift and firm, and much more decisive than it might have been in early March. President Biden has persistently promised not to put American boots on Ukraine’s ground, but any deployment of chemical or nuclear weapons would immediately place such boots in the war zone. Then World War III would have arrived, but with Russia greatly disadvantaged. Even near-neighbor Kazakhstan announced this week that it opposed Putin’s invasion.
At the end of my first Newsletter post, I wrote that “Unless Washington…acts [forcefully] Putin will conquer and conquer and plunge the globe into wider conflict….And the United States will forfeit its [global] role as the protector of freedom and democracy.”
Fortunately we did act forcefully and well, and Ukraine today remains free. For the sake of world peace and individual and national freedom and liberty, the U. S. and Europe must continue to stand for those existential values. Doing so may mean even now securing the skies over Ukraine, taking the war deeply into the Donbas despite the fake referendums there, and persuading Germany to send its surplus tanks. There must be no let up. A luta continua.
Could you please talk about why Germany has been dragging its feet in providing military equipment to Ukraine. It looks like are they afraid of Putin. Considering as to how Putin and Russia as a whole is being perceived by Nato and other countries what is Germany's reluctance.
Fabulous essays. Deep insights. Masterful grasp of complex situations, and hugely impressive understanding of geopolitical landscape. Your writing has become a relied-upon source of intelligent commentary and wise analysis. I very much hope you continue, and look forward to the next hundred Newsletters! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom!