The Ukraine Mess: Points to ponder about narratives, criteria, possible responses and effects
The Ukraine Mess: Points to ponder about narratives, criteria, possible responses and effects
Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky 03.07.2022
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/03/07/the-ukraine-mess-points-to-ponder-about-narratives-criteria-possible-responses-and-effects/
Many years ago, I was visiting with some construction workers. I asked one of them about his views on the war in Iraq. He responded that he would favor the war if the President would risk his own family members. As we consider the Russian invasion of Ukraine and apply just war principles, we should also ask if we would be willing to risk the lives of close family members in the cause of Ukraine’s defense.
The war has launched a cacophony of media-driven soundbites that undermine moral and strategic analysis. Hence, an irenic consideration of motives, events, and possible responses is necessary for all of us, especially for parents with children in the military. The method of Saint Thomas Aquinas honestly depicts arguments. It provides us with a dispassionate means to evaluate conflicting points of view.
Here is a summary of traditional just war criteria based on the precepts of Natural Law through the lenses of Church teaching:
A just war can only be waged as a last resort.All non-military options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority.
A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered.
A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success.
Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace.
The force used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered.
The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants.
Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians.
Here is a sampling of narratives explaining the Russian invasion, subject to rigorous analysis (from Russian aggression to the U.S. and globalist duplicity). The spectrum extends from strong criticism of Russia to Russian behavior associated with Western/U.S. culpability in the lead-up to the Russian invasion – all of which have persuasive dimensions, minus a broader context. Few responses in the U.S. media address nuclear weapons, an important factor in Russian military doctrine, especially the use of nukes at theater or tactical levels:
Russia is expansionist. The invasion of Ukraine is part of Putin’s (an old KGB hand) overall plan to restore the old Soviet Union, including eventual annexation of all of Eastern Europe.
Russia wants to consolidate its natural borders that have been validated by hundreds of years of history, with Putin invoking Soviet history and Russian Czarist history (with Orthodoxy as a central and unifying element).
Tribal warfare: Russia is merely reclaiming its historical interest and ethnic heritage in Ukraine. The tribal conflict is an internal matter for the ethnic Russian portions of Ukraine, although the conflict crosses recognized national boundaries.
Russia is paranoid and self-protective: Putin wants to conquer the eastern part of Ukraine where the population of ethnic Russians is high and establish western Ukraine as a neutral buffer from NATO members. Other than large expanses of land, no natural barriers protect Russia from attack from the West.
Russia is merely following the war-making template of the US and NATO in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan to secure its national self-interest.
The U.S. shares responsibility. Putin invaded before Ukraine (and other former Soviet-bloc countries) joined NATO. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia was not a military threat to the West. The U.S. and NATO shouldn’t have postured as a military threat to Russia.
Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and NATO are unwitting pawns of globalist conspiracies for the “Great Reset.” The machinations explain the interest of prominent globalists encouraging Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, is a puppet of Western globalist interests who stands to profit handsomely as a figure of “heroic” (but ultimately safe) resistance to Russian aggression.
Here is a summary of possible Western responses to the invasion (from resistance to virtual Ukrainian surrender). The principles of just war must provide the context for analysis:
Send U.S. and NATO troops, and military equipment to Ukraine.
Arm Poland and other countries that border Russia with nuclear weapons.
Establish “no-fly” zones over Ukraine and shoot down Russian aircraft as necessary.
Assassinate (or plot the assassination of) Putin and other Russian leaders.
Destroy the Russian gas lines.
Send substantial military aid – including fighter jets – to support the Ukraine resistance.
Indirectly send U.S. military equipment through NATO proxies.
Send low-level military assistance (guns and ammo).
Use intelligence services to fund and maintain a Ukrainian resistance movement during the Russian occupation.
Impose economic sanctions of various gradations: freezing assets of prominent Russians, canceling trade agreements, placing an economic embargo on Russian gas.
Send humanitarian assistance only.
Engage in secret cyber-warfare to disrupt Russian logistics and communications.
Negotiate a peace settlement. Be prepared to compromise. Identify Ukraine (and the Baltic states?) as neutral demilitarized zones (akin to the special “neutral” relationship Finland had with the USSR for decades).
Encourage Ukraine to give up resistance to prevent further bloodshed.
Keep out of the conflict completely because it’s none of our business.
Let’s consider possible military and geo-political effects:
Ukraine halts and rolls back the Russian invasion.
The national boundary lines on maps are redrawn with a Russian takeover.
The corruption of Russia’s oligarchs replaces Ukrainian oligarchs. After a chaotic transition, ordinary citizens return to the same way of life before the invasion, with a new bunch of corrupt leaders.
Russia pacifies Ukraine and effectively abolishes the Ukrainian language and culture.
The war becomes extended with increasing bloodshed on both sides.
A protracted counterinsurgency bleeds the Russians and the Ukrainian economy.
Russia becomes more brutal in an urgent attempt to bring the war to an end before sanctions cripple their efforts.
Russia becomes a firm ally of China, and as a result, China invades Taiwan.
Russia uses tactical nukes in Ukraine or East Europe, i.e., Poland.
Russia launches one or more ICBMs to selected U.S. military targets. The U.S. may escalate with a nuclear response.
WWIII (following the Russian use of tactical or strategic nukes – or an EMP attack taking down our electrical grid and all means of communication).
The effects in the U.S. also need our consideration:
The war comes to a quick end with Ukraine on the Russian side of the ledger of economic and political power. Long-term effects are negligible.
A protracted war bumps the U.S. into another extended period of international entanglement that calls for troop deployments, Special Forces operations, covert action, and economic assistance. (However, few are addressing the diminished state of the US military following decades of wasteful foreign wars, the Afghan debacle, and the imposition of woke cultural indoctrination of the rank and file by a leftist, woke senior officer and political class.)
The leftists use the invasion to disguise responsibility for hyperinflation and gas shortages.
The leftists advance the “climate change” green agenda as gas prices rise.
Economic pressure on the middle-class increases. The dislocations drive more families below the poverty line, and more people become dependent upon the government.
Government spending grows out of control and expands socialism and globalist Marxism.
Oligarchs continue to run Russia and Ukraine.
The U.S. enters into another era of endless war and economic ruin.
Ordinary Americans need sober expert analysis, historians, and statesmen. However, our rulers should respond to our provocative but legitimate, intelligent, and informed questions. The history of American intervention over the past forty years reveals that the experts are often wrong and captive to political and corporate interests that have a stake in never-ending wars. A healthy hermeneutic of suspicion – especially in the post-COVID pandemic world of disinformation – helps.
The risks are high. With every foreign intervention, the lives of our children are at risk. We would do well to consult the common sense expertise of that thoughtful construction worker of yesteryear.
