When it comes to the Russo-Ukrainian war crisis, we are witnessing a strange mixture of indignation and apathy in both Europe and the USA.  Why are so many people concerned about Russia's winning, yet at the same time no one is wishing to enter the fighting to challenge the bully?  The crude and cruel power-grab by Russia is offensive, yet, at the same time, there is fear about challenging Putin and his cruel KGB mindset.

The indignation is because (1) the sovereignty of the Ukrainian nation-state is denied by launching an aggressive military campaign; (2) the right of Ukraine to enter the E.U. community is challenged; (3) the freedom of a sovereign Ukraine to distance itself from its historic connection with Russia is viewed by the world not as a Slavic betrayal of "Mother Russia," but as a lawful action; and (4) Putin, the bare-chested macho-man dictator of Russia, is seen as a perverse and unyielding authoritarian personality by countries who value compromise and gentle exercise of power.

The apathy is driven by fear of escalation to nuclear fighting; visions of the Nazi incursions into Czechoslovakia and Poland, which eventually led to WWII; a sense that fighting in Eastern Europe is hundreds of years old and thus an ineluctable historic reality; and lastly the Rodney King spirit that has taken over much of the Western world since 1995 — namely, "can we all get along?"

There is a false view alive and well in the West that all differences can be harmonized if we only want hard enough.  Thus, just as we do not have to portray the "gender-fluid" as being abnormal, which has been the case since the beginning of human history, there is the view that we do not have to designate differences of political ideology or nation-states as being intractable.  We just need to get into the right harmonious mindset for peace to prevail.  This is one of the stupidest and most naïve mindsets on planet Earth, yet it is prevalent in the West.

We cannot forget that conflict over Ukraine and various invasions of Ukraine by Russia and others have been going on for hundreds of years.  I'm not saying that to justify Putin, but only to say there are many longstanding, sensitive issues in play.  One can only wonder if the Bidenites (a little like termites that eat away at foundations) are sensitive to the interplay of these historical issues or if the European globalist-leftist clique is sensitive to those issues.

As I know from my own life and from various institutions where I have worked, personal issues often distract from our objectivity and create unnecessary confusions and sensitivities.  This writer worked for an exporters and importers association, where we had a representative in Washington, D.C. whose initials were H.M.  My boss based here in NYC had the initials G.R.  G.R. hated H.M.'s guts, and I believe that the reason simply was that H.M. in his role as liaison with Congress was constantly interacting with more important people than G.R., his boss.  But because H.M. had so many congressional contacts, he could not be fired as other employees could be.  He had a unique and necessary role to play in operations, and someone with his connections could not be pushed out.  The only way G.R. could show his hate for H.M. was not inviting him to sit at the head table at the annual banquet when U.S. senators were in attendance.

G.R.'s jealous hatred had to be suppressed except for small-minded, perverse expressions of hostility like removing him from the head table.  Born in envy, petty power struggles like these are a norm in many institutions and can go on for decades.  When the parties give in to these longstanding hatreds, the company or institution can be severely disrupted.

When you have Slavic peoples with their excessive macho and ethnic pride, sometimes the power stalemate (such as I saw in my former job) is broken, and all hell breaks loose.  Factions form.  Sides are taken.  The superficial working relationship is shattered, and disintegration, death, destruction, and disaster follow.

Ukraine has been saying, "We do not have to play in the ancestral Slavic playground anymore.  As a legitimate sovereign state competing, growing, and maneuvering in a new world where global identity and global economic realities are more determinative of a country's status than in the past, we reject continually playing footsie with Russia.  We shall step freely into a West European–centered reality."  For Putin, this was unacceptable.  He is a 21st-century clone of the communist commissars and apparatchiks of the 20th century, with only a veneer of post-KGB civility and reasonableness.  Recent moves by Ukraine toward greater independence from Russian influence have broken through that veneer, and a raging demon has emerged.  Putin is reported to be insanely bombing orphanages and even nuclear plants that can poison the atmosphere for centuries.

Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, seems to be wisely walking a balanced and fine line between defying this monstrous collapse of civility and compromise and at the same time expressing his willingness to negotiate with Putin to restore some semblance of the status quo ante.  It remains to be seen if a restoration of peaceful coexistence with underlying hatreds can be restored or if the demonic outburst now unleashed will continue unabated.

Image via Public Domain Pictures.