Diddling, While the World Looks On
I've been away from writing for the past ten days, and I hope you noticed. There was a colision between me, my computer, and a small glass of red wine. It didn't turn out well. We are now back...
To diddle, for those unaccustomed to the term, is to “spend time ineffectually; to procrastinate,” and that’s what we are doing in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and (potentially) Iran and Russia.
The United States is currently the world’s Pax Americana (following Pax Romana and Pax Britannica, both earlier world powers). We inherited that position in the world after the end of World War II in 1945, when America became the world's dominant economic, cultural, and military power.
Pax is a heavy load to carry, and we haven’t done all that well with it
Rome was an Empire and England a Monarchy, but the United States is a Republic, and the rules of engagement are quite different. We are incumbered, as well as graced, by a political system in which supreme power lies in a body of citizens who elect others to represent them, supported by a written constitution. Those ‘others’ may be incredibly purposeful or stupid as logs, yet we stumble through.
That’s our magnificent obsession and overriding strength, but it makes damned hard work out of being the world policeman. Rome and England ruled by their overwhelming military power, armies against armies, in the days when that meant something. But WWII was the last of its kind in that regard. Not the best of times to be rewarded with a Pax, thank you very much…
One need only observe Russia and Israel in their current military adventures
Ukraine simply will not allow the Russian invasion to prevail. Should Putin’s army ultimately overwhelm the Ukraine resistance, its occupation cannot possibly succeed in a nation that despises the occupier. Russia was deprived of this salient truth in its earlier, and largely successful, 2014 invasion. But times have changed. It’s one thing to conquer, but quite another to occupy. Currently, Putin’s enormous force advantage is being nibbled to death by a far smaller, but more dedicated, resistance. That’s what’s called ‘having skin in the game.’
If the NATO nations and the United States continue their support, the invader is doomed to failure. But NATO and the U.S. are political as well as military powers. Politics eventually tires of war; thus, the future is not guaranteed, and Putin has no such restraints.
In the case of Israel, its outrage following the Hamas attack against civilians has turned from a punitive strike to the very definition of genocide. The entire world looks on with horror, and it is not lost on those observers that the destruction of Palestinian cities is being carried out with American bombs, rockets, tanks and airpower.
Pax Americana is left with blood on its hands, as an unintended consequence of support. It could be stopped in a moment, by withholding armaments. But the moment in question has its own unintended consequence—that of an impending presidential election.
It's an inescapable truth that, when politicians play at diplomacy, hostilities are never worth their societal costs
Hospitals were destroyed, schools closed, 50,000 civilians dead, including women and children, and who knows how many missing? Survivors include those whose only ambition was to put their arms around their family and stand in the doorway as they watch their kids sleep in peace, and now there is no doorway. It’s not so much to ask.
Who will rebuild what Israel has destroyed? Who can put a price on mothers huddled with their children for three years in Ukrainian basements?
Has it been worth the cost?
Under any conceivable circumstance, if a private individual transgressed in such a way, they would be imprisoned for life, if not hanged
But nations are not private individuals, even though we purport to hold their leaders accountable.
So, we diddle, and the bands play on…