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The War Is Lost
While we gaze in horror at the events in Ukraine, we fail to notice the outcome of the battle within our own societies
There’s something majestic, even perhaps perversely glorious, in the relentless obtuseness and stupidity of the West. Nearly eighty years of peace have ensured that our purported leaders are incapable of dealing with any problem greater than re-arranging words on a communique that no one will read. And so, naturally, when Russia invaded its peaceful neighbor Ukraine, Western leaders resolutely made speeches and applauded wildly when conducting videoconferences with Ukraine’s embattled leader, and… did precisely nothing of value whatsoever.
All sanctions to date have been intentionally weak so as not to upset Europeans who import 40% of their energy needs from Russia. All sanctions to date have been intentionally weak so as not to upset Russian debt payments (that much-vaunted disconnection of Russian banks from SWIFT was in reality a disconnection of a few minor banks that merely now use the five major exempted Russian banks as intermediaries). All sanctions on individual Russian oligarchs have been toothless because rich people hold assets in trust, not personally, and so sanctions can’t touch them.
