If (When) Russia Invades Ukraine…

It seems virtually certain that Russia will invade Ukraine in the immediate future. The global media is trying to assess this impending horror with the utmost care and an even-toned sangfroid that is mostly a put-on. A hidden panic grows everywhere. The tacit understanding in the softer forms of condemnation we are hearing is that nobody wants another world war. Everyone knows how easily these things can spill over and achieve an unstoppable momentum.

It disgusts most of us to hear our president admit that war is inevitable and to hear him deliver a speech that basically amounts to his expostulating with Putin to please invade only so far into the country necessary to annex the allegedly pro-Russian parts of the Ukrainian population. This is basically Biden’s “Just the tip, please!” speech. Putin will say “Sure, okay,” meaning “No, I don’t think so.”

While it appears this might be a quick war due to how unevenly matched Ukraine and Russia are in weapons and numbers of forces, it will still be affectingly ugly. All war is. I wonder if Putin has considered how this is going to play out in the world theater. Because in the age of social media, some horrible images of the dead and dying are bound to get out. Some of these images might be of dead Ukrainian children. We will see that where before a peaceful democracy enjoyed self-determination, there is now terror and death, soldiers in every street abusing their power with men, women and even children.