No One Whos Really Seen War Want to See It Ever Again
Thomas L. Friedman
We Have Never Been Hither Before
The 7 most unsafe words in journalism are: "The world will never be the same." In over four decades of reporting, I take rarely dared utilise that phrase. But I'm going there now in the wake of Vladimir Putin'southward invasion of Ukraine.
Our world is not going to exist the same again because this war has no historical parallel. It is a raw, 18th-century-style state catch past a superpower — only in a 21st-century globalized world. This is the first war that volition be covered on TikTok by super-empowered individuals armed only with smartphones, so acts of brutality volition be documented and broadcast worldwide without any editors or filters. On the starting time day of the war, nosotros saw invading Russian tank units unexpectedly beingness exposed by Google Maps, considering Google wanted to alert drivers that the Russian armor was causing traffic jams.
Yous take never seen this play before.
Yeah, the Russian endeavor to seize Ukraine is a throwback to earlier centuries — before the commonwealth revolutions in America and French republic — when a European monarch or Russian czar could simply decide that he wanted more territory, that the time was ripe to grab it, so he did. And anybody in the region knew he would devour as much as he could and there was no global community to terminate him.
In interim this style today, though, Putin is not only aiming to unilaterally rewrite the rules of the international system that take been in place since World War Two — that no nation can simply devour the nation next door — he is also out to modify that remainder of power that he feels was imposed on Russia afterward the Cold War.
That remainder — or imbalance in Putin'southward view — was the humiliating equivalent of the Versailles Treaty's impositions on Deutschland afterward World War I. In Russia'south case, it meant Moscow having to swallow NATO's expansion non only to include the old Eastern European countries that had been part of the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, like Poland, merely even, in principle, states that were part of the Soviet Matrimony itself, like Ukraine.
I come across many people citing Robert Kagan's fine book "The Jungle Grows Back" as a kind of shorthand for the render of this nasty and hardhearted manner of geopolitics that Putin'southward invasion manifests. Just that film is incomplete. Because this is not 1945 or 1989. We may exist back in the jungle — simply today the jungle is wired. It is wired together more intimately than ever before by telecommunication; satellites; merchandise; the internet; road, rail and air networks; financial markets; and supply bondage. So while the drama of war is playing out within the borders of Ukraine, the risks and repercussions of Putin's invasion are beingness felt across the globe — even in China, which has good cause to worry about its friend in the Kremlin.
Welcome to World War Wired — the showtime war in a totally interconnected world. This will be the Cossacks meet the World Broad Web. Similar I said, you haven't been here before.
"Information technology'due south been less than 24 hours since Russia invaded Ukraine, notwithstanding nosotros already accept more than data about what's going on at that place than we would take in a week during the Republic of iraq state of war," wrote Daniel Johnson, who served every bit an infantry officer and journalist with the U.S. Army in Iraq, in Slate on Th afternoon. "What is coming out of Ukraine is simply impossible to produce on such a scale without citizens and soldiers throughout the country having like shooting fish in a barrel admission to cellphones, the internet and, by extension, social media apps. A large-scale modern war volition be livestreamed, minute by minute, battle by boxing, death by death, to the world. What is occurring is already horrific, based on the information released but on the first twenty-four hour period."
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The effect of this war will depend in large role on the will of the rest of the world to deter and roll dorsum Putin's blitzkrieg by primarily using economic sanctions and by arming the Ukrainians with antiaircraft and anti-tank weaponry to try to boring his advance. Putin may as well exist forced to consider the death toll of his own comrades.
Volition Putin be brought down past imperial overstretch? It is style besides presently to say. But I am reminded these days of what a different warped leader who decided to devour his neighbors in Europe observed. His name was Adolf Hitler, and he said: "The beginning of every war is like opening the door into a nighttime room. One never knows what is subconscious in the darkness."
In Putin'southward case, I find myself request: Does he know what is hiding in plain sight and not just in the dark? Does he know not simply Russia's strengths in today's new earth but too its weaknesses? Permit me enumerate them.
Russia is in the process of forcibly taking over a free land with a population of 44 million people, which is a little less than one-tertiary the size of Russia'south population. And the majority of these Ukrainians have been struggling to be office of the democratic, free-market West for xxx years and have already forged myriad merchandise, cultural and internet ties to European Union companies, institutions and media.
We know that Putin has vastly improved Russia's armed forces, adding everything from hypersonic missile capabilities to avant-garde cyberwarfare tools. He has the firepower to bring Ukraine to heel. Just in this modern era nosotros have never seen an unfree land, Russian federation, endeavour to rewrite the rules of the international arrangement and have over a gratuitous country that is as big equally Ukraine — particularly when the unfree land, Russia, has an economy that is smaller than that of Texas.
Then think almost this: Cheers to rapid globalization, the E.U. is already Ukraine's biggest trading partner — non Russia. In 2012, Russian federation was the destination for 25.7 percent of Ukrainian exports, compared with 24.ix pct going to the E.U. Just six years subsequently, afterwards Russia's brutal seizure of Crimea and support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine and Ukraine'due south forging of closer ties with the E.U. economically and politically, "Russian federation's share of Ukrainian exports had fallen to just 7.seven percent, while the E.U.'s share shot upwardly to 42.vi per centum," according to a recent analysis published past Bruegel.org.
If Putin doesn't untangle those ties, Ukraine volition go along drifting into the arms of the Due west — and if he does untangle them, he will strangle Ukraine'southward economy. And if the E.U. boycotts a Russia-controlled Ukraine, Putin will accept to use Russian federation'southward money to go along Ukraine'southward economy afloat.
Was that factored into his war plans? It doesn't seem like it. Or as a retired Russian diplomat in Moscow emailed me: "Tell me how this war ends? Unfortunately, in that location is no one and nowhere to ask."
But everyone in Russia will be able to watch. As this war unfolds on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Putin cannot closet his Russian population — let alone the residue of the world — from the horrific images that will come out of this war as it enters its urban phase. On only the first day of the war, more than than 1,300 protesters across Russia, many of them chanting "No to war," were detained, The Times reported, quoting a rights group. That'due south no minor number in a country where Putin brooks little dissent.
And who knows how those images volition impact Poland, particularly equally it gets overrun past Ukrainian refugees. I especially mention Poland because it is Russia's cardinal land span to Germany and the residual of Western Europe. Every bit strategist Edward Luttwak pointed out on Twitter, if Poland but halts truck and track traffic from Russia to Germany, "as it should," information technology would create immediate havoc for Russia'south economy, because the alternative routes are complicated and need to get through a now very unsafe Ukraine.
Anyone up for an anti-Putin trucker strike to forbid Russian goods going to and through Western Europe by fashion of Poland? Watch that space. Some super-empowered Polish citizens with a few roadblocks, pickups and smartphones could choke Russian federation's whole economy in this wired world.
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This war with no historical parallel won't exist a stress exam merely for America and its European allies. It'll also exist 1 for China. Putin has basically thrown down the gauntlet to Beijing: "Are y'all going to stand with those who want to overturn the American-led order or bring together the U.Due south. sheriff's posse?"
That should not be — but is — a wrenching question for Beijing. "The interests of China and Russia today are not identical," Nader Mousavizadeh, founder and C.Due east.O. of the global consulting firm Macro Advisory Partners, told me. "Prc wants to compete with America in the Super Basin of economics, innovation and technology — and thinks it tin can win. Putin is fix to burn down the stadium and kill everyone in information technology to satisfy his grievances."
The dilemma for the Chinese, added Mousavizadeh, "is that their preference for the kind of order, stability and globalization that has enabled their economical miracle is in stark tension with their resurgent authoritarianism at domicile and their ambition to replace America — either by China's strength or America'due south weakness — as the world's ascendant superpower and rules setter."
I accept little incertitude that in his heart China'southward president, Xi Jinping, is hoping that Putin gets away with abducting Ukraine and humiliating the U.S. — all the better to soften up the globe for his desire to seize Taiwan and fuse it dorsum to the Chinese motherland.
But 11 is nobody's fool. Hither are a couple of other interesting facts from the wired globe: Offset, China'south economy is more dependent on Ukraine than Russia's. According to Reuters, "China leapfrogged Russia to go Ukraine'southward biggest single trading partner in 2019, with overall trade totaling $18.98 billion last year, a nearly lxxx pct spring from 2013. … China became the largest importer of Ukrainian barley in the 2020-21 marketing year," and about 30 pct of all of China's corn imports terminal year came from farms in Ukraine.
2d, Prc overtook the United states as the European Union's biggest trading partner in 2020, and Beijing cannot beget for the E.U. to be embroiled in disharmonize with an increasingly aggressive Russia and unstable Putin. China'southward stability depends — and the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party rests — on Eleven's power to sustain and grow his already massive centre form. And that depends on a stable and growing world economic system.
I don't expect Prc to impose sanctions on Russia, let alone arm the Ukrainians, like the U.S. and the East.U. All that Beijing has done so far is mumble that Putin's invasion was "not what we would hope to see" — while speedily implying that Washington was a "culprit" for "fanning up flames" with NATO expansion and its recent warnings of an imminent Russian invasion.
So Cathay is obviously torn, but of the 3 fundamental superpowers with nuclear weapons — the United States, China and Russian federation — Cathay, by what it says or doesn't say, holds a very big swing vote on whether Putin gets abroad with his rampage in Ukraine or not.
To lead is to choose, and if China has any pretense of supplanting the U.Southward. as the world leader, it will have to practise more mumble.
Finally, at that place is something else Putin will find hiding in plain sight. In today's interconnected world, a leader's "sphere of influence" is no longer some entitlement from history and geography, only rather it is something that has to be earned and re-earned every solar day by inspiring and not compelling others to follow yous.
The musician and actress Selena Gomez has twice every bit many followers on Instagram — over 298 1000000 — as Russian federation has citizens. Yep, Vladimir, I can hear you lot laughing from here and echoing Stalin's quip near the pope: "How many divisions does Selena Gomez accept?"
She has none. But she is an influencer with followers, and at that place are thousands and thousands of Selenas out there on the World Wide Web, including Russian celebrities who are posting on Instagram about their opposition to the war. And while they cannot roll back your tanks, they can make every leader in the Westward roll up the red carpet to you, so yous, and your cronies, can never travel to their countries. You are now officially a global pariah. I hope you like Chinese and North Korean food.
For all these reasons, at this early on stage, I will venture only one prediction about Putin: Vladimir, the first day of this war was the best twenty-four hour period of the residue of your life. I accept no doubt that in the most term, your military volition prevail, but in the long run leaders who try to coffin the time to come with the by don't do well. In the long run, your name will alive in infamy.
I know, I know, Vladimir, you don't intendance — no more than you lot care that you started this war in the middle of a raging pandemic. And I accept to acknowledge that that is what is most scary about this World War Wired. The long run can exist a long way abroad and the rest of us are not insulated from your madness. That is, I wish that I could blithely predict that Ukraine volition be Putin's Waterloo — and his alone. But I tin't, considering in our wired world, what happens in Waterloo doesn't stay in Waterloo.
Indeed, if you lot ask me what is the virtually dangerous aspect of today's world, I'd say it is the fact that Putin has more unchecked ability than any other Russian leader since Stalin. And Xi has more unchecked power than any other Chinese leader since Mao. But in Stalin'south day, his excesses were largely confined to Russia and the borderlands he controlled. And in Mao'south mean solar day, Cathay was so isolated, his excesses touched only the Chinese people.
Non anymore — today's earth is resting on two simultaneous extremes: Never accept the leaders of two of the iii almost powerful nuclear nations — Putin and Xi — had more than unchecked power and never have more than people from one finish of the world to the other been wired together with fewer and fewer buffers. And then, what those ii leaders decide to do with their unchecked power volition impact well-nigh all of the states directly or indirectly.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine is our offset existent taste of how crazy and unstable this kind of wired earth can get. It will not be our last.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/opinion/putin-russia-ukraine.html
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