Ukraine V. Mr. Putin. A possible path to resolution
Life is defined as a process of manufacture of opportunity, and all life and their events, follow along concentric and iterative paths to manufacture of opportunity. On occasion, the lives of our fellows, of our animal cousins, or of our plant friends, with whom ours crosses paths at the nodes, compel us to pause, or to iteratively assess and improve our forward march, or even to jump lanes in order to avoid degenerative conflict, debilitating injury and delay, and to further enhance the experiences on those paths for us uniquely-abled all, for our animal cousins, and for our plant friends, young and old, male and female. This inherent value in iteration gives our lives ever greater meaning and satisfaction for their duration. One of the reasons we grew to become the defaultive, nay preferred leaders of life on earth, can be attributable to our more proficient exercise of iteration, in opportunity manufacture processes. Frankly, I believe our tyrannous cousins and saprophytic friends have merely been too busy to keep score, and as we lose proficiency in the exercise of iteration, our superlative gradations in leadership begin to diminish, among ourselves, and between us and the tyrants. As it is with our lives, so it is with the events in our lives. The character and quality of the participants in life therefore, can always be improved upon or transformed at every pause or station before, during, and or after the events. I discuss this more in my book DEMOCRATICA; A Lifestyle Synthesis.
Mr. Putin's seizure with fear of Nato expansion eastward drove him to invade Ukraine as a stopgap measure to ensure the survival of Russia, or at least that was the reason he provided at the time, for what I believe is an ill-advised expedition that would go on to claim uncountable lives and limbs of both Ukrainians and Russians, whether as offensive or defensive casualty. At the dawn of the expedition, it was apparent to us all, including Mr. Putin, that the virtue or success of the expedition would have to rely on bucking the natural iterative process, and to transmogrify that process into a more linear and irreversible trajectory, replete with newer justification and suasion to garner accelerant allies. Although we could not much influence Mr. Putin's justification or suasion calculus given their linear nature, we can, and must be encouraged to influence the quality of calculus and ad valorem of his allies along the way, even amid trepidation of further escalation, because that is also possible with human decision matrices, but we have the nodes of our concentric lives to thank for a modicum of reassurance in benign de-escalation, and even resolution. This is what animates our conflict resolution communities around the world, and we are not short of conscientious leaders among us.
Before we explore a possible resolution of Mr. Putin's seizure with fear, it will be useful to assess the nature of the fear itself, and what his knee-jerk reaction has manufactured.
Mr. Putin's fear of the eastward expansion of Nato led to his conjure of other historic justification for invading, cum pillaging Ukraine. However, Nato is a voluntary security organization of Mr. Putin's equally or more fearful, now independent and sovereign neighbors. They had the same fears of invasion by a prospectively Putinous Russia. Their manner of mitigating that fear was to band together, not to invade Russia, but to ally themselves with a Nato of similarly-fearful, independent and sovereign nations, who have just survived annihilation by Hitler. By default of this affinity for collective defense, Nato grew. So contrary to Mr. Putin's mushrooming fear of Nato expansion eastward, the fraternal organization merely grew out of the fear Mr. Putin was brooding as he expanded his power by eliminating dissenting voices within and outside of Russia. Along the way, more and more nations, and counting, joined Nato. Mr. Putin's manufactured fear therefore only begot more fear, in himself, and in his neighbors, which latter fear led to a commensurate growth in (not expansion of) Nato. The other justifications Mr. Putin would manufacture for invading Ukraine, including the dislocation of Ukraine's unique Tartar community of Crimea, were, though puerile, necessary for him to instill greater fear to overwhelm the prior fright he had instilled in his neighbors, and to garner accelerant allies in his dastardly journey and vision for an ever-imperious Russia, itself meant to manufacture greater fear in Nato, the fraternal and defensive organization. The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself, for fear can only beget more fear.
What we have today therefore, is a war between ever-lethal fears.
Among the allies of Mr. Putin's fears, China is best placed to mitigate his fears, and to end this intractable regime of fears that has needlessly costed too many lives. In one of my earlier essays on this unnecessary invasion of Ukraine by Mr. Putin and his government, I pleaded with China to intervene. I did this with the recognition of China's own history to defend its great peoples against gratuitous invasions, and with the knowledge that China maintained cordial and fraternal relations with Mr. Putin, Russia, Ukraine, and the peaceful and democratic governments of Nato. I was excited to hear that China has pledged to lead a ceasefire initiative, and President Xi Jinping and his government deserve high commendation and appreciation for their gallant effort. China's rising power and influence therefore can be a source of greater peace and harmony for our world as it is currently situated. Although we must be cognizant that China also has its own simmering fears, its historic capacity to manage those fears, and its avowed policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, can be harnessed for our greater salvation. Amid tremendous challenges and difficulty, mankind does also retain formidable acumen for mitigation and resolution of our conflicts, both internal and external.
领英推荐
Today, as in that prior essay, I encourage China to redouble its efforts in the following manner:
Ukraine, Mr. Putin, as well as China and all other nations are free to make bilateral relations with each other, either for their economic or peaceful coexistence interests. The fears that have gangrened the now full blown war between Mr. Putin and his government on the one hand, and the great peoples and government of Ukraine on the other, are irrigated by Mr. Putin's fear of Nato growth. China could mitigate that fear for Mr. Putin by entering into a special and bilateral mutual defense agreement which assures both nations and peoples of their commitment to defend each other against gratuitous invasion by Nato, just as Nato's assurance to defend any of its member nations against gratuitous invasion by any nation, including to help mitigate and resolve member-to-member conflict.
I believe the foregoing will prove the most perennial resolution to these and those manufactured and debilitating fears.
Haruna.
Chairman, Formation Coordinator - The Global Democracy Project, The GDP
8 个月One of my nieces asks: 'Uncle, what if Mr. Putin decides to invade China after they sign a mutual defense agreement?'. I shared with her that Mr. Putin would not think of doing that, and besides, if he does, my niece and her friends would have an opportunity to propose a resolution to that crisis. I firmly believe however, that if that scenario were imminent, Nato would come to the defense of China, with or without a prior mutual defense agreement. Such is the intrinsic value of democratic life.