Is Putin deceiving us in Ukraine? If so, what’s next?
When I was younger, I played racquetball. I remember one opponent particularly well. Against my power game, he returned mostly lobs that allowed me to deliver brutal stinging volleys. In four games it was clear, he could not keep up. Then in the next game those high lobs found their sweet spot in the back corners of the court, most landing within a foot of where the floor and two walls met. Those volleys were impossible to return. I lost the next game by a couple of points. As his volleys got more exact, my point count went down. In the next two games I scored 3 points total. I lost because I was playing a power game while he was playing a strategic game.
“What does this have to do with Putin?’ you may ask.
What if Putin and the West are playing two different games? What if Putin is playing chess while we are playing the hit-or-miss game, “Battleship”? What if Putin has been sacrificing wartime infrastructure to study our weaknesses, while locating the volley that is impossible to return? What if his first serve, annexing Crimea, was a test of how the West would respond?
Russia and America have approximately the same size military (as of 2019 — America: 1.39 million; Russia: 1.45 million). Russian forces and equipment expended so far in Ukraine are only a fraction of what is known to exist.
What if that stalled invasion in the beginning was not an accident? It was shocking. Surely, those forces were not his “A team,” that equipment was old surplus? If their purpose was to inflict as much damage as possible on people and infrastructure, they succeeded.
Let us examine this conflict from this distinct perspective.
Putin’s nuclear threat at the beginning? Strategic. By threatening the use of nukes, he bet that Europe and the U.S. would send weapons not troops. Another success and another test designed to reveal the sophistication of Western weaponry, deplete armament supplies, and weaken our economies. Success, success, and success.
The U.S. led West applied extremely stringent economic sanctions to cripple Putin, his inner circle, and the Russian economy. How could Putin not know this would happen? Russia produces more oil and wheat than they can use. Shortages of those two specific commodities are driving global inflation. Is it possible that the Russian economy is more resilient than Europe’s and America’s? Do you really think losing McDonalds and other tinsel of capitalism would affect the Russian economy? Does it matter what the global value of the Ruble is if a loaf of bread and a liter of petrol still costs the same in Moscow? Record this as a miss.
He recently called for 300,000 conscripts to replace the original ill-equipped invading contingent. That leaves over a million military personnel unaccounted for. If Putin wanted to take Ukraine in a week, wouldn’t better trained, better equipped troops have been a wiser choice? Where are those troops?
The oil and gas embargo in Europe, the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, Putin visiting allies and frenemies seeking weapons, citizens fleeing to avoid being conscripted are all moves recorded by the West as ‘partial hits’ or ‘misses’ in our game of “Battleship.” Should we smugly pat ourselves on the back for a job well done? Or are these strategic moves to bolster our continued belief in imminent victory?
That brings us to the latest developments in this war.
We prize letting people vote on their fate. Were the sham elections in occupied territory nothing more than Putin poking Western democracy in the eye or is he using this ‘legal annexation’ with its televised ceremony and celebration to ‘legitimize’ his next move?
At the end of the rainy season with heavy snow to arrive soon, Ukrainian gains are likely to grind to a halt. They will dig in and fortify. Significant advances by either side will stop until the first thaw of spring.
Is what appears to be a Russian retreat in the face of recent Ukrainian advances another sacrifice bolstering the illusion that Ukraine is winning?
Now OPEC+ at Putin’s behest has cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. This move will only make winter in Europe colder, darker, and more uncomfortable while straining their resources and weakening economies.
When grumpy, cold, financially strapped Europeans begin to see the first signs of spring, some Ukrainian unit, in the wake of another unexpected Russian withdrawal, will push deeply into ‘annexed’ territory. Russian ‘sovereignty’ will be ‘breached.’ Since Putin has shown us his nuclear card twice now, isn’t it highly likely that a tactical nuclear weapon will be deployed to Kyiv and/or Odessa? Putin aims to possess Ukraine vacant and a pile of rubble at his feet as an example to other countries.
Putin has expressed a desire to restore the former Soviet Union. He already has Georgia, Belarus, and strong ties with Victor Orban in Hungary. He has the enclave of Kaliningrad and troops stationed in Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. He has strong ties with Syria and Turkey. How many former Soviet states are to be absorbed?
Will we be surprised or prepared when Kyiv evaporates under a mushroom cloud? Whether or not we are prepared may make the difference between global conflict and nuclear Armageddon.
We, the Unchosen
We did not grow up to be the President. We did not become pro sports legends, movie stars or astronauts. We have not won Nobel Prizes. Those dreams of greatness faded with adulthood and responsibilities. We chose families and the work-a-day life. We are the Unchosen. We are America.
My father belonged to the Greatest Generation, the one that saved the world from totalitarian rule by defeating Hitler and the Nazis. World War II claimed the lives of 419,000 Americans (60 million worldwide). All but a sliver of those were also Unchosen.
The perilous threats we face today overshadow those of my father’s generation. The global cost of worsening Climate Change, in lives and property, continues to mount. American oligarchs like Charles Koch are lining the pockets of Trump Republicans to make certain their income streams are uninterrupted by mitigation measures. Other oligarchs, likewise, make similar investments to avoid being taxed, thereby, assuring government coffers are too empty to take effective action on this extinction level event that is climate change.
The conservative U.S. Supreme Court, having diminished women’s control over their own bodies, blunted government efforts to allay our climate crisis, reduced efforts to control deadly weapons, and opened a breach in the wall between church and state, are prepared to vacate rights to contraception and same sex marriage, while allowing wholesale discrimination against certain minorities.
A re-elected Trump would hold Putin and Xi in such high esteem that, one could easily imagine him ceding Ukraine to the Russians and gifting Taiwan to China in exchange for one-third of the world pie, the triumvirate of nuclear nations, crushing democracies and ousting tinhorn dictators around the world along the way.
In November of 2020, we, the Unchosen, manned the polling ramparts and turned out in record numbers to fight for our seat at the table. We carried the day and took our seat.
Again, the forces of darkness are amassing for the next battle, armed with legalities and loopholes meant to strike down as many of our voting numbers as possible, while scaring up more opposing voters with inflation, immigration, and socialism.
Whenever Trump endorsed candidates declare that the 2020 election was stolen, they are not promoting the Big Lie. They are sounding a dog whistle to publicly acknowledge their ongoing seditious conspiracy and commit to installing Trump or a protégé as President following election 2024, by whatever means necessary. If his candidates are elected this November, they will be poised to install their candidate regardless of the outcome at the polls. If they succeed, 2024 will be the last free election in America.
We must defeat them all, even if it means escalating the civil war that may have already begun.
If we are victorious in this November’s election, we will further advance the transformation that will save us all. If we persist, triumph after triumph in election after election, through the darkness in the decades to come, we will reach the dawn of that better day, a democratic America, having averted the climate catastrophe. We, the Unchosen, will be hailed as the Greatest Generations to have ever lived.
If we fail, there will be no one left alive to notice.
We, the Unchosen, are the only heroes we have. We the are the heroes we need! You may not be a Democrat. You may not like what the Democrats stand for, but this November, they, alone, stand between us and the abyss. Choose wisely.
Vote!