[Note for TomDispatch Readers: A last reminder that a signed, personalized copy of To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change, Alfred McCoy’s already classic history of empire from the 16th century to this moment, is still available at the TomDispatch donation page, as is John Feffer’s Splinterlands trilogy of dystopian novels and his latest work of nonfiction, Right Across the World. It’s the perfect chance to stock up on summer reading and, while you’re at it, keep TomDispatch rolling along. Tom]
Consider two odd realities of the Ukraine war in this country. The first is that a Congress otherwise seemingly incapable of agreeing to spend money on issues that would truly matter to so many Americans — like easing child poverty — has proven remarkably eager to repeatedly fork over striking sums in military and humanitarian aid to the embattled Ukrainians. By mid-May, such aid had hit $54 billion and another billion will soon be heading out. Yes, indeed, the Ukrainians deserve support against the brutal Russian invasion, but so, you would think, do embattled American children.
The second is that the war that ate the news when Vladimir Putin’s invasion began in February — that seemed unavoidable if you turned on your TV or simply opened your computer — the war that every news outlet wanted to cover nightly at length with its top journalists or even anchors, is if anything, fiercer and more devastating now. Yet, on most nights, it’s little more than a footnote in the news. Still, whether headlined or footnoted, it rages on, all too near the heart of Europe and — from the continuing overuse of fossil fuels on a heating planet to the possibility of widespread starvation across significant parts of our world thanks to missing Ukrainian and Russian grains — all too dangerously for the rest of us.
At this point in our history, such a war is a kind of madness, even if that madness has largely become a footnote in our lives. With that in mind, TomDispatch regular Rajan Menon (who was, I believe, the first person to reveal how the Russian invasion might induce starvation across significant parts of the planet) considers a subject that should be of importance to us all: How might the Ukraine war actually end someday, for end it must, mustn’t it? On this planet at this time, it can’t happen fast enough, although the Biden administration seems in no hurry to begin working diplomatically to try to hasten its end. Tom
Ending the War in Ukraine
Three Possible Futures
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, I was easing my way into a new job and in the throes of the teaching year. But that war quickly hijacked my life. I spend most of my day poring over multiple newspapers, magazines, blogs, and the Twitter feeds of various military mavens, a few of whom have been catapulted by the war from obscurity to a modicum of fame. Then there are all those websites to check out, their color-coded maps and daily summaries catching that conflict's rapid twists and turns.
Don't think I'm writing this as a lament, however. I'm lucky. I have a good, safe life and follow events there from the comfort of my New York apartment. For Ukrainians, the war is anything but a topic of study. It's a daily, deadly presence. The lives of millions of people who live in or fled the war zone have been shattered. As all of us know too well, many of that country's cities have been badly damaged or lie in ruins, including people's homes and apartment buildings, the hospitals they once relied on when ill, the schools they sent their children to, and the stores where they bought food and other basic necessities. Even churches have been hit. In addition, nearly 13 million Ukrainians (including nearly two-thirds of all its children) are either displaced in their own country or refugees in various parts of Europe, mainly Poland. Millions of lives, in other words, have been turned inside out, while a return to anything resembling normalcy now seems beyond reach.
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