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Synopsis: scorpions, Swiss chocolate, King Herod the Great, the Opium Wars, dictatorship, neocons, and a possible way forward.
In the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog, both animals perish because the Frog succumbed to wishful thinking. The Frog chose to believe that the world is something other than what it is, and that the Scorpion would not act in accordance with its true nature.
Some nations are great powers; the USA, for example. Some nations are regional powers; Iran comes to mind. Some nations are in transition: Russia went from being a great power (as the leader of the USSR) to a regional one, while China is advancing from a regional power to a great one. The Netherlands once made a bid for great power status; however, their main recent contribution to world politics was to serve as Nazi Germany’s backdoor into France, bypassing the Maginot Line.
And some nations are none of the above. Switzerland is not a power; it is a small and unaligned multi-ethnic confederation of bankers, chocolatiers, and clockmakers, and it is perfectly happy just the way it is. Some lesser nations imagine themselves as powers, or wish they were.
Not all non-powers have Switzerland’s vaunted independence. Some are client or buffer states between regional or great powers:
King Herod the Great’s Judea was a client state of the Roman Empire. In return for keeping his part of the Empire’s eastern flank secure, Herod received significant local power and autonomy. While his rule was not kind (to say the least), it was also fairly successful as these things go; for example, he rebuilt the Second Temple.
Belarus is a buffer state between the Russian Federation and NATO / the EU. While closely linked to Russia, including through the “Union State” joining the two countries, Belarus pursues its own interests. Lukashenko routinely extracts significant favors and concessions from Putin by maneuvering skillfully between his western and eastern neighbors.
Key to their relative success is their recognition of their proper place in the world:
Herod never made demands of Caesar. Nor did Herod expect Roman assistance in Judea’s wars with the Nabateans; Rome expected Judea to handle their own affairs. And Herod didn’t ask for Roman funding to finance his government or bankroll his construction projects—in fact, he collected taxes and sent them to Rome.
Lukashenko doesn’t make grand speeches at the UN. He doesn’t make demands of countries in Europe or Africa, scolding them about human rights or the environment. He sticks to ruling his own patch of dirt and to making the best of what he’s got, while figuring out the best way to get the most benefit out of all his neighbors—big and small.
A nation that fails to recognize its place in the world is bound to miscalculate and make mistakes.
For example, 19th century China thought of itself as the “Middle Kingdom”: the center of the world and the unassailable ancestral seat of civilization. In their arrogance, they did not take European nations seriously. The Opium Wars shattered this delusion, started China’s Century of Humiliation, and spurred massive reforms.
The Emperor failed, or refused, to see the situation as it was. Instead, he chose to believe his subordinates’ reports about ever more spectacular military victories even as the Europeans approached the Forbidden City. By pretending that the world—and his place in it—was as he wanted it to be, rather than as it really was, the Emperor led his nation into disaster.
In February 2022, Russian troops openly invaded Ukraine. The primary responsibility for that lies with Putin; he made the proximal decision to launch the war. However, some responsibility lies with the US. Don’t take my word for it—ask Scott Horton. Or, as another commentator put it: every time the world had an opportunity to choose a course that would decrease the likelihood of war, the US worked diligently to ensure that we didn’t.
Former President Zelenskiy, whose term ended in May 2024—now Dictator-until-Further-Notice Zelenskiy1—failed, or refused, to see the situation as it was. He viewed Ukraine as a regional power, one at least on par with Russia, if not greater. And he viewed (or at least portrayed) himself as Churchill 2.0, heroically leading the proud and free people of a first-rate European nation to shield Europe, NATO, and the rest of the world from Putin’s Hitler 2.02. He pitched the war as a struggle between good and evil, with the Ukrainians “elves” battling against the Russian “orcs”. He may be forgiven for believing that the West, especially the US, would supply Ukraine with endless money and war materiel—primarily because the US had said, explicitly and repeatedly, that they would.
What Zelenskiy failed to realize is that Ukraine is not a power; it is a buffer state. Not necessarily a client or a vassal, but a buffer state nonetheless.
Ukraine’s value to Russia, in addition to being an historical and natural ally due to cultural and economic links, is as a cushion between Mother Russia and the explicitly and increasingly aggressive and expansionist NATO to its west. The same NATO that Putin had asked to join lo these 20 years ago, and was rebuffed.3
Ukraine’s value to the West is as a tool for undermining Russia—an entry point, a chink in the armor. The US has no desire to bring Ukraine into NATO; this would require massive reforms and a huge infusion of money, technology, and training to make Ukraine’s military compatible with NATO’s. Furthermore, the West does not view Ukraine as some paragon of democracy and Western values (although that’s how Ukraine is portrayed in order to sell the war to the domestic population); Ukraine is thoroughly corrupt and still carries massive baggage both from Soviet times and the wild post-Soviet 1990s.
The West in general, and the US in particular, do not view Ukraine as a kindred democratic spirit that needs to be rescued from Russia and brought into the Western fold. The West’s goal is to weaken Russia. SECDEF Austin himself said it, publicly and explicitly.
As one sharp-tongued commentator put it, the US is prepared to fight against Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Zelenskiy is leading his nation as if he is the vanguard of the free world, fighting against the encroaching darkness, with the might of the collective West behind him and his righteous cause. In fact, Ukraine is nothing more than a pawn; or, more accurately, a battlefield on which Western power can be used, plausibly deniably, to attrit Russian power.
It is true that Former President Zelenskiy now finds himself in a tough situation: as soon as the shooting ends, he will run out of reasons to keep deferring elections. What will happen to his political career after that, is not in doubt. What will happen to him personally is what he’s primarily worried about at this point.
It is equally true that Zelenskiy brought this on himself through his egregious misreading of the situation and his country’s place in it. He allowed the West to sweet-talk him into being precisely the anti-Russia tool they needed him to be.
But what is most tragically true, is that the outlook for Ukraine is only getting worse with time. And it will not improve unless and until Zelenskiy stops lying to himself and to his country, acknowledges reality—unpleasant though it may be—for what it is, and acts accordingly.
Talk about “refusing the peaceful transfer of power”…
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: every single element of that sentence is incorrect.
I include this to highlight the fact that it could have been otherwise—Russia and NATO did not have to be enemies. When Putin was just starting out, the West could have added Russia as an ally, or at least as a partner. That we would turn our noses up at Putin’s Russia in 2002, but support Erdogan’s Turkey today, is clear evidence that morality and human rights and all the other twaddle have nothing to do with anything.
Putting aside reasons for the dispute, if you’re not in a great position to defend your land with your own military and monetary coffers, the logical choice is to bargain. While Zelenskyy could have made the choices he did on his own, I suspect he still would have made the smarter choice had certain western whispers not pushed him to fight back.
That’s not to say his position isn’t his fault. Whether power, greed, or threats led him to make these choices— they’re still his—but it doesn’t make me any less disgusted with the powers that have thrown money his way and prolonged the suffering of his people.