We are all in favor of progress, but Ukraine is not making much these days, at least not on the battlefield. Russian invaders overran Vuhledar yesterday and we don’t know the fate of soldiers attached to the brigade that defended the town for the last two years.
Both articles summarized above exaggerate negative news, of which there has been plenty.
This is not unique moment of history. Imposition of martial law (1981) (Brezhnev’s decision not to invade), shelling the White House (1993), caving to Russia’s demands (1996), forcing Putin’s puppet to flee (2014) come to mind.
But yesterday we loaded the Israel-Iran round into the chamber. Looking on the bright side, merely pulling the trigger more often won’t change the probability of doom, because we need to be unlucky only once.
While the chances of surviving these current catastrophes is less than 1, comparing them to Russian roulette is a false analogy, because the probability of blowing our brains out does not depend on re-spinning the metaphorical cylinder after each turn.
Presumably, with a view to increasing our chances of survival, Uncle Joe, Olaf, Macron and Keir will confer with Z in Ramstein on October 12. What will happen in Ukraine after that will depend in some measure on what they think and do. At least, disaster won’t be random, but in large measure a consequence of decisions they will make (or continue not making).
Until then, we must reject irrationality and:
recruit, motivate more soldiers,
procure, deliver guns, ammo, surface-to-air missiles,
build very strong fall-back defensive positions,
formulate a policy for the unknown (extricate ourselves from the finite bubble of Z’s unexplicability, understand the Victory Plan, etc) and communicate it coherently.
On the Kyiv running jacket, new merch1.