![]() ![]() China is committing systematic cultural genocide against an entire people group, the Uyghurs. The people of Yemen also are being starved by a proxy war between Iran and our “ally,” Saudi Arabia. Millions of newly re-enslaved Afghans face starvation after our abandonment of them to the Taliban, the latest and perhaps most shameful example of America’s habit of “ending” a war before it’s over. Ukraine isn’t even the worst human tragedy unfolding at the moment, just the most dangerous. While it might not repeat itself, it relentlessly rhymes with the foibles of humanity writ large: the struggle for power, tribal hatred, exploitation of the weak by the strong. History isn’t “one damn thing after another,” as the saying goes. How naive.ĭemocracy is the exception, not the rule. ![]() I used to make such predictions myself after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So are confident predictions of the inevitable spread of liberal democracy and human rights. The triumphalist “end of history” nonsense written in the 1990s about one superpower, the United States, bestriding the globe is long gone. The future of world order hinges on (their) decisions - and on the Ukrainians’ success in thwarting Putin’s war of choice.” Back to the future is to maintain the tottering liberal order, which has sustained peace and prosperity for decades, it needs willing partners in Europe and Asia …. “Putin’s military aggression plus China’s rise and renewed ferocity form a concerted effort to reshape the global order, not at the margins but at the core, (and) they are willing to use force to do it,” Lipson warned. “The shaky post-Cold War peace in Europe and beyond has been on life support for years.” The shaky post-Cold War peace in Europe and beyond has been on life support for years - fatally weakened by Western complacency and hubris, costly regional conflicts, Russian aggression, Chinese expansionism and the explosion of little dictators everywhere. Lipson, founder of the Program on International Politics, Economics and Security at the University of Chicago, stated the obvious, of course. Rather, he idolizes the czars of the old Russian empire and dreams of restoring Russia to its imperial glory, with him as its ruler. Stalin would be proud.īut as we’ve learned from recent analyses of Putin’s state of mind, his real heroes aren’t the Soviet dictators of the 20th century - although he readily employs their murderous methods of conquest. The declaration came from Charles Lipson in The Spectator at the end of February, as Vladimir Putin displayed his utter disdain not only for international opinion and Ukraine’s sovereignty but for the idea of individual freedom. ![]() The matter-of-fact finality of these words startled me: “The post-Cold War order, which began in 1989, ended in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and said it had no right to exist as an independent nation.” ![]()
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