As Unpleasant as It Was in 1968, so Too It Is Today: 'The War Is Unwinnable'

The war in Ukraine will indefinitely remain a very bloody and destructive stalemate.

Courtesy of NYTimes

Walter Cronkite spoke in the final three minutes of a Sunday evening broadcast. The man who so poignantly years earlier wiped tears from his eyes when he announced that the president was dead looked into the eyes of America and informed them without the rhetoric or propaganda we today are so accustomed to: The war in Vietnam is unwinnable. It is a stalemate and will remain so. We did our best, and now it is time to make peace.

Setting aside my disgust for the cowardice and immorality of the majority of the Russian nation and my hatred for the ruling elite in Russia, I, too, say to anyone listening: This war is unwinnable and will remain a stalemate for years to come. The only thing we can guarantee is that many more people will die, Ukraine will continue to bleed, and the possibility of this whole Russia-created tragedy turning into a nuclear war will increase the longer the two sides shoot at each other.

What can we gain?

In many ways, all that we can gain has been gained. While the U.S. and NATO never wanted to isolate Russia, the dog began to act like it was rabid, so it brought isolation upon itself. Average Russians like to pretend that everything is hunky-dory. This tells me that they are comfortable with the current state of affairs. 

Then, let’s make it official. Let’s close Europe and the West off completely to Russia. Let’s close our Asian allies to Russia also. Russians are adapting by traveling to Arab nations, South America, etc. Let them. Sooner or later, they will long for Europe and North America because they always do. As much as Soviet citizens loved Bollywood movies, they loved even more Hollywood movies. Our soft culture always wins out in the end, and it will again. Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union. We can help him, only without the other 13 republics. If the world’s largest economies, minus China, work concertedly over many years, we can recreate much of the intellectual and material scarcity that characterized the Soviet Union.

During that same time, we can rebuild the parts of Ukraine under Ukrainian control. Nato can turn Ukraine into a fortress unlike anything Russia ever imagined so that the next time Russia tries to invade, the tanks will be disintegrated before they can even reach 10 RPMs. Over many years, an air defense system similar to that which protects Israel can be deployed over Ukraine. Ukraine will have time to catch its breath, rebuild its military and cities with the help of the allies — and Russian money — and become a no man’s land for Russia’s military.

By halting the war, Russia too will be able to rebuild, but similarly, we are buying time. Each day we move into the future, we get one day closer to Putin’s death. Each day, Russia remains isolated and more spoiled by rampant corruption and fascist oppression, the closer Russia gets to imploding. I used not to believe that Russia would implode under the weight of its oppressive internal politics, but now I do. I do think we will see another August 1991, but the cowards of this generation need to fade into political irrelevance first. 

Ukrainians are exhausted. The Ukrainians I speak to every week are all psychologically wasted. Their country is off limits for fear that to return with a child is to put that child in harm’s way. Even when our Ukrainian friends are in a good mood, like last week at the beach, every observation they make is tinged with sadness, with an existential acceptance that nothing will ever get better. Their husbands are there fighting and fighting, and nothing seems to be getting better — they, too, are already asking the question: Why?

Volodymyr Zelensky talks about how Ukraine will fight to restore the borders of 1991. I will tell him and anyone listening here: Russia will never give up Crimea. As for the eastern regions of Ukraine, they have now been under the control of Russia for over a decade, and forcing them to go back under the control of Ukraine will, in a sense, be a reverse occupation. Many of the residents of this area have always felt more allegiance to Russia. When it was the Soviet Union, all was okay, but the moment they got “cut off” and ended up in another country, the tensions rose.

Few truly understand these nuances because they have yet to give them much thought in the West. All that hawks see is a blanket need to oppose Putin. I agree with the need to oppose Putin. I agree with a lot more. There is a lot we need to do with (to) Putin, but sadly, we aren’t capable, and the Russians near him who could do something are cowards. 

The overly emotional and historically clueless will consider what I have written here to be appeasement, if not capitulation to Putin. Wrong. Agreeing to a cessation of war and then a decades-long program of refortifying Ukraine both economically and militarily will sooner or later lead to Russia’s implosion — Putin knows this, and he fears this. 

Putin also knows that Ukraine has a sickness that all of the former-Soviet republics have: Corruption is rampant in Ukraine, and it is debilitating. As part of this rebuilding of Ukraine, the West can also force (yes, force) reform upon the country. Ukraine needs a break and a stalemate with a well-ordered plan for refortification can and will both serve the interests of the world and eventually end Russia’s fascist revolution. 

Let’s give peace a chance!