The stark brutality and inhumanity of Vladimir Putin stares the entire world in the face as Ukraine is being blown apart to satisfy his megalomaniacal ambition. He laughs at our inaction as he threatens us with nuclear war should we dare to interfere with his destruction of a sovereign state.
This is what the world has come down to – one man’s insanity that could result in death and suffering the world over at a level never before seen, the promise of untold nuclear destruction being used to blackmail and intimidate all who would dare oppose him.
Now the world sees what true imperialism and evil is really like, what all countries will be threatened with should such aggression be left unchecked. And the world thought that the U.S. had imperial ambitions?
Russian and Chinese aggression threatens to destabilize a geopolitical order that has allowed the entire world to enrich itself during an extended period of peace, and for what? Trade between countries and regions has flourished during Western guidance and oversight. How will the Russian and Chinese models of unbridled brutality and ruthless centralized control do anything but crush the human spirit?
Corruption exists in all systems of government, but Russia and China practice corruption on a massive scale. They speak of communistic ideals, but the reality is that it is only the ruling class that enjoys the fruits of everyone’s labor.
In the purest sense, capitalism is about rewarding people who are creators, innovators and risk-takers, socialism is about ensuring that every person has dignity and a basic standard of living, and communism is about ensuring that every person works together to create an efficient and organized society.
The shared danger for all forms of government is that they can be bastardized into dictatorships where a strong and ruthless leader or political party achieves total control and systematically eliminates any dissent through propaganda, the police, informants, and the military.
Russia and China have clearly strayed away from the socialistic and communistic ideals upon which they were founded. They have become dictatorships and use their power to systemically control their populations.
As we have seen in Ukraine, people would rather be free than controlled. In theory, freedom is possible within all types of governments. In practice, it seems that only in governments that embrace fair elections, term limits and a peaceful transition of power can truly be free.
It has been a difficult and painful lesson for the U.S. to learn that it is not for us to decide for other countries what form of government they should choose to have. Clearly Russia and China have yet to learn this lesson.
The time of the U.S. acting as the peacekeeper for the world and attempting to create democracies everywhere has come to an end. It is critical now that the U.S. concentrate on the more positive aspects of diplomacy and avoid involving itself too much in the affairs of other countries.
While it is acknowledged that American values as codified by the Bill of Rights and as defined by our democratic system of government represent our beliefs and are worthy of emulation, other countries have their own values and traditional forms of government. The U.S. must learn to accept these differences and withhold moral judgement.
In addition, the U.S. must learn to lead by example and not by coercion. This is made more difficult by the dark money interests that have corrupted our democracy, the thousands of innocent people our military forces have accidentally murdered as part of our peacekeeping missions, and the political and social unrest in our own society that has stagnated our own development as a nation.
If the U.S. continues to be unable to address its own problems and unwilling to acknowledge its own mistakes, it will be difficult for the U.S. to lead by example. Given our hyper partisanship, it is unlikely to see how this is going to be accomplished any time soon.
Even so, it is vitally important that the U.S. reaffirm all our allegiances to our allies and take all necessary actions to strengthen them on an economic and cultural basis.
The U.S. must address our relationships with all countries in the Americas, including Cuba and Venezuela. We need to be perceived to be a friend and a partner who helps and supports without being judgmental or manipulative. Live and let live should be our guiding principle. The Americas are our natural sphere of influence, and we need to concentrate our efforts there.
The U.S. must also learn to accept Islam in the same way that we have accepted the Hindu and Buddhist faiths within our country. We need to become more enlightened regarding other ways of life and points of view, and to do our best to repair the schism between Islam and this country.
With respect to Russia, for as long as Vladimir Putin is alive, the Russian people will suffer from oppression, a substandard quality of life, and the resentment and distrust of countless people of all nations around the world. When he is finally dead, history will judge Vladimir Putin harshly as a man who would be Tsar, a man who cared nothing for his own people, a terrible man obsessed with his own grievances and ambitions.
However, Vladimir Putin is still alive, and arguably the most dangerous man in the world. He is clearly a sociopath that suffers from paranoia, who is isolating himself even from his closest advisors, and all the while he remains in control of the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
One can only hope that the unprovoked atrocities and war crimes in Ukraine will eventually disgust and repel the Russian military to such an extent that they will turn on Vladimir Putin and stage a military coup before Europe and the U.S. decide that they must intervene to stop the carnage.
Just as the Baltic countries, Poland, and Ukraine have flourished by developing closer ties to Western Europe, the Russian people and Russia itself would also flourish by renouncing its Imperial past and simply being a proud nation among many. This is what the world needs now.
If Russian aggression in Ukraine proves to be Vladimir Putin’s downfall, and Russia is no longer an ally of convenience for China, then it makes it more likely that the world can influence China to act in a more reasonable manner.
The world has clearly and emphatically renounced this unprovoked Russian aggression that was based upon a selective interpretation of historical boundaries and claims of past dominion that have no relevance to current geopolitical reality. Russia has been economically and socially isolated from the world community because of its actions.
It remains to be seen if the world would be willing to renounce a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the same manner.