Gary Anderson: Mapping the senselessness of war

Russia, the largest country in the world, is twice the size of the U.S. with less than half the population. Comparatively, although having only four times its populace, Russia is 28 times larger than Ukraine. Once being the principal component of and, to all intents and purposes, the Soviet Union, Russia lost a lot of human and natural resources when Ukraine gained autonomy. No wonder Putin sees Ukraine as the essential revanchist objective in restoring Russia’s former Soviet greatness.

Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe, is about the size of Texas, America’s second largest state. The U.S. is 14 times larger than Texas with 11 times its population. Before Putin’s invasion, Ukraine had just a quarter more people than Texas. Google search “Map of Texas Compared to Ukraine” for an illuminatingly visual juxtaposition.

Envisioning Ukraine in that geopolitical light makes this war all the more relatable, as well as all the more divorced from rational comprehension. Why would one attempt to achieve reunification via all out destruction of the desired goal? What U.S. state would ever willingly give up its sovereignty and submit to complete federal domination via violent coercion?

Imagine the U.S. territorially disavowing Texas’ statehood, overrunning its borders and then actually being unable to win an outright military victory after a year and a half of heinous aggression. Imagine 1/5 of Texas, from Dallas to the gulf coast, in ever increasing Alamo-esque ruin, yet still being defended against all odds by those who chose to heroically stay and fight or simply carried on in defiance knowing that even civilians, even civilians too impaired to flee, wouldn’t be spared.

Whether contemplated as fact or fiction, whether heroic or ignoble, given its increasingly poor performance record how is war still ever thought to be a tenable answer to conflict resolution?

It remains almost impossible to comprehend how such “advanced” weaponry continues to be such a near inexplicable failure by purely tactical metrics. How can such magnitude of munitions manage such little success? How can repetition after repetition of such unproductive brutality not be seen as a delusional denial of war’s abject madness? Seeing it’s senselessness wouldn’t necessarily end its practice, but it just might begin questioning as to whether there’s a more practicable approach to redefining coexistence. That fundamental pivot needs to fully acknowledge aggression, whatever the provocation, as morally wrong and indefensible. Otherwise, superior might continues to be the go-to answer to “righting” perceived wrongs, whether offensively or defensively, and any “negotiated peace” remains morally bankrupt.

It’s been widely argued that neither side can triumph militarily in Ukraine. Hard to say that assuredly without hindsight. Wars of attrition are alternatively won reliant on superior commitment waiting out the other combatant’s eventual fatigue and capitulation. That likely remains Putin’s best long shot despite much Armageddon posturing. If Ukraine’s support can be undermined or abandoned, Russia could prevail, at least enough to offset an increasingly risked internal political reckoning.

Putin’s best means of achieving that best shot is disinformation. The best way to achieve disinformation within Russia is by continued authoritarian control of its media. The best way to manipulate the narrative outside Russia is to rely on witting or unwitting accomplices seeming to be truth-tellers exposing the West’s Russophobic falsehoods. Any means of confusing or distrusting the truth greatly aids and abets Putin’s objective of disunity, especially within U.S. leadership and its electorate.

Dismantling NATO, ending sanctions, defunding Ukraine’s defense and absolving Russia’s criminal annexations is the repeatedly recommended to-do list by a current consensus within credentialed peace/anti-war activism. A credentialed opposition to the war that, despite its seemingly Putin penned demands list, repeatedly denies apologist support for Putin’s side of the conflict. Putin, nevertheless, could hardly have more stalwart allies if they were actual Kremlin directed assets.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s pro-NATO affinity and anti-West victimization clearly elevates public support for this latest U.S. interventionism. That identification with Ukraine could and should be an exceptionally opportune anti-war teachable moment. Russia’s NATO-provoked geopolitical overreach is a perfect proxy lesson for bringing home the takeaway that all geopolitical gamesmanship is unconscionably unpredictable, war is always a devastating choice, and war, all war, should always be opposed.

Remaining fixated on blaming U.S./NATO causation, the peace movement appears hopelessly confused in its objectives and incapable of formulating a winning prime time nonviolent sales pitch, one reaching out beyond a graying echo-chambered idealism to actually engage a misguidedly militaristic status quo in remapping the boundaries of patriotism, nationalism and humanity.