500 Words — Day Thirty-Eight: Today’s Overview
Sleep is good, but writing 500 words is better, so I guess that is what I am doing tonight. Hopefully, this is the last real busy week before I can transition towards something that feels a little bit closer to normal. I think I have driven over a thousand miles over the last week or so with the trip to Illinois and the trips I have been making to Columbus prepping for the new job. Things are getting exciting, but perhaps external to me, the world is in a more somber mood.
I got the notification last night before going to bed that Russia was invading Ukraine and effectively declaring war on them. This is the first time since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 that we’ve had a major large scale invasion of another country. I was eight years old when that happened. Twenty years later, it seems Russia is making a similar commitment with a much more stronger nation in military strength (compared to Iraq). America’s wars in the Middle East are judged today to be massive policy mistakes and at a first glance, it appears that the same fate could be in store for Russia.
The economic consequences from this action will also be interesting to watch. Western countries seem to be signaling massive sanctions towards Russia, but given Russia’s position as a major energy exporter, some energy vulnerable countries like Germany may be rather reluctant to actually follow through with them. As I have discussed in other posts, the economic conditions appear to be transitioning from artificially favorable conditions to harsher conditions more in-line with free markets and reality. With inflation already putting pressure on prices and now potential nuclear level sanctions on the table, there seems to high degree of economic chaos that could result from this geopolitical chaos.
As for the concept of war, I have always tended to be a pacifist. I understand that there may appear to be very good times and justified times to use force, but those justifications change from person to person and anyone can find a good enough reason to impose their will on others. In a true state of war, there are no rules, just optics. Hopefully, this conflict will resolve itself in the next few days and doesn’t turn into a drawn out brutal conflict that takes months or years of destruction and bloodshed. There’s also the worry that the conflict could expand beyond Ukraine’s borders, but hopefully any conflict that needs to occur is localized and this whole thing can be resolved diplomatically.
The world needs less people that want to control it and needs more people that can empathize with their fellow members of the human race. Rather than build empires with coercion and fear, we should build communities with compassion and cooperation. We don’t need another dictator to try and win some iron throne in a game of geopolitical musical chairs, we need builders and creators to create more chairs and more music. We need to stop fighting and arguing. Life can be good if you let it.
