Although a “Putin had no choice” defense of the invasion never gained much traction, much is still being said about the “provocation” of Putin’s exceptionally brutal and criminal carnage. Why is this still the case? Arguably, some capitulation to Putin may be more achievable if the concept of Ukrainian provocation is more widely acknowledged.
Much is made, in contextualizing that provocation, of comparing this conflict to the Cuban Missile Crisis. That long-ago specter indeed remains a timely teachable moment today.
There is, however, another analogy totally escaping mention: that of the Vietnam War.
That, too, became an unexpected grinding war of attrition, eventually won outright by the implausible defeat of the supposed greatest armed forces in the world. I served during that proxy war, as part of which the U.S. committed countless war crimes, intervening in a civil war that had no direct threat to my own country, where a draft was necessitated to mobilize reluctant American boots into harm’s way. Caught flat-footed, the U.S. carpet bombed to no avail against an enemy that used whatever was at hand to repel interventionist insanity provoked by fears of China’s communist proselytizing.
Ukraine is Russia’s Vietnam.
Except Russia hasn’t invaded and decimated a perceived threat a world away, foreign and ripe for xenophobia, but rather their essentially homogeneous neighbor, an act not even akin to the U.S. invading Mexico, rather Canada.
We lost in Vietnam because Vietnam belonged to the Vietnamese. It was not ours, but theirs. Americans had no real skin in the game. Patriotism couldn’t go that distance, especially when made compulsory. Just imagine how support for the war would have gone differently if North Vietnam had actually attacked the U.S.
Now imagine if Canada supported a French-speaking insurgency within U.S. borders and then used it as an excuse to invade and annex the Great Lakes region and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Then imagine anyone insisting a negotiated peace was contingent on forfeiting that part of our sovereignty because our attacker felt provoked.
Fortunately, Russia’s Cuban Missile provocation did not result in a U.S. invasion of the Soviet Union or World War III.
Unfortunately, U.S./NATO provocation has resulted in Putin’s all-out war against Ukraine. Not against any member of NATO, but Ukraine. Not just a war, but a rampage of terror rationalized by genocidal rhetoric and threatening a first-strike nuclear endgame. A surreal construct of war where Russia is allowed to strike any Ukrainian target, military or civilian, and Ukraine can only attack its attackers on its own invaded soil, not theirs.
For some, provocation is the Holy Grail in brokering peace. Too bad, is the argument, Ukraine must agree to accept Putin’s geopolitical equation at the negotiating table. Zero justice can be the necessary price of a coerced peace.
Before this war, Putin’s protestations against NATO seemed altogether reasonable. Russia’s choice to invade Ukraine, however, now makes NATO’s own fears, and those of an increasing number of would-be members, more justified than Putin’s. He’s no longer an arguable threat but a bona fide Stalin-Hitler-type boogeyman. Putin started this majorly miscalculated war by choice. If he starts a nuclear engagement that will also be by choice.
I remain convinced that real peace can only be secured if justice is chosen as the means to replace enmity with amity. No justice, no lasting peace. Acquitting Putin by citing provocation or previous criminality by other parties will only perpetuate an endless circle of violence. Wars shouldn’t end by negotiation, but by international trial. Hopefully this war will soon end in a geopolitical solution that brings Putin to justice, establishing a long overdue lawful precedent for a truly meaningful deterrent to war.
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