https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
The first link is the one I'll focus on, the second mainly says that Russia became religiously orthodox after 1991, and is not woke, while wokenss is the new religion of the West. A quote from the 2nd article:
As early as 2005, scholars Ira Straus and Edward Lozansky remarked upon a pronounced negative coverage of Russia in the US media, contrasting negative media sentiment with largely positive sentiment of the American public and US government. As Russia displayed increasing signs of a Christian revival, so the media reporting in the West became increasingly hostile. Only rarely however did journalists openly attack Russia for its “Christianization”; normally, columnists, conscious of the fact that large numbers of people in the West continued to describe themselves as Christian, portrayed their anti-Russian commentary as a result of Russia's “aggression,” “corruption,” or “lack of democracy.” All that however changed with the new abortion law of 2011. Now the attacks against Russia became explicitly ideological. The Russians, we were told, were oppressing women and turning their backs on “progress.”
The 2nd linked article is worth the read, but it is mainly going to make the point that from the Western POV, Ukraine is "woke/progressive", and Russia is in the social dark ages, converting to radically backward and dangerous Christian values. This quote from the second article agrees with the first, but then the article goes deeper.
On March 24, a month after Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders, the Biden White House summoned America’s partners (as its allies are now called) to a civilizational crusade. The administration proclaimed its commitment to those affected by Russia’s recent invasion—“especially vulnerable populations such as women, children, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTQI+) persons, and persons with disabilities.” At noon that same day, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted about the “massive, unprecedented consequences” American sanctions were wreaking on Russia, and claimed Russia’s economic “collapse” was imminent.
I tend to compare the highlighted with my observation that the following headline would not be a surprise to me if such a disaster happened:
"Three fourths of planet destroyed by meteor -- vulnerable populations like women, children, etc ... the worst affected".
My belief is that Biden, Putin, etc could care less about pretty much anything but their power and personal pleasure, so nearly 100% of their attention is focused there. In the event things go bad, "the vulnerable" will be sacrificed with no reticence, especially the sort of vulnerable that are in red states in the case of the US.
Pretty much everyone right and left is convinced that the US is currently, and will remain "top dog", no matter how much debt we have, how weak our woke military gets, and how clueless the "leadership" that we (or they) "elect" is. So why worry?
The attempt to isolate Russia from the American world system has had a striking unintended consequence—the possible founding of an alternative world system that would draw power away from the existing one. Twenty years ago, under George W. Bush, the United States removed the Iraqi deterrent from Iran’s neighborhood, transforming Iran overnight into a regional power. This year, under Joe Biden, the United States has made China a gift of Russia’s exportable food and mineral resources. We are displaying an outright genius for identifying our most dangerous military adversary and solving its most pressing strategic challenge. The attention of China is now engaged. Joe Biden argues that any wavering in the cause of obliterating Russia will be understood by China as a green light on Taiwan. He may have a point, but the U.S. management of the Ukraine situation over the past decade has constituted encouragement enough.
We have managed to get to a place where we are likely to end up in a shooting war with Russia, while China absconds with Taiwan. The article does a great job of explaining the complexity of the situation in a fairly simple way ... although not all that concisely. (I'm nearly as qualified to throw stones about failure to be concise as I am about failure to be skinny)
Those with a passing familiarity of history realize that underestimating Russia, while definitely a Western tradition, has not always turned out as everyone was certain it would.
Reducing Russia’s dimensions appears to be America’s overriding war aim. It is a risky one. Those Western leaders with the ambition to bring Europe to the gates of Moscow have sometimes brought the warriors of the Eurasian steppes onto the streets of Paris and Berlin.Certainly nuclear weapons change the strategic chessboard, but I really suspect that the vast majority of the West just folds without electricity and fossil fuel. The Western energy grids are so vulnerable that taking them out with some exploding drones would be a snap. Tactical nukes? 80% of the Western population will surrender if their cell phones and internet are removed.
The whole CRB article is very much worth the read. The financial risks, even if the war risks come to nothing, are very significant.
Why does nobody in the West care? The usual reasons ... arrogance, distraction, complacency, decadence, selfishness, ignorance of history, and maybe most of all, nearly total ignorance of reality. largely because the narrative they are spoon fed constantly wants them to be mindless drones.
I leave you with this ... a point I've been trying to make to many people, only to watch their eyes glaze over in total incomprehension.
The Ukraine war is special, though. American immunity from danger may be illusory. The progress of technology has imperceptibly eroded a longstanding distinction between supporting a combatant and entering the fray as a combatant oneself. In June, the U.S. began providing Ukraine with M142 HIMARS computer-targeted rocket artillery systems, and these present the problem in an acute form: the role of technology in the lethality of a weapon has grown to the point where the role of the human warrior is, relatively speaking, rendered negligible. An encounter with a sword is an encounter with a swordsman. An encounter with an arrow is an encounter with an only slightly more distant bowman. But an encounter with an M31 rocket fired from a HIMARS launcher is an encounter with General Dynamics. And it is the human warrior who is the repository of all the longings-to-be-vindicated and the sacrifices-freely-undertaken that consecrate war as a cause. With advanced weaponry, the soldier operating it almost doesn’t need to be there. Which is to say that, in this proxy war between Russia and the United States, Ukraine doesn’t need to be there. In these HIMARS artillery strikes, in the assassinations by drone of Russian officers, in the sinking of naval ships with advanced missiles,
Nobody seems to get this. If I hire you to kill my wife, you do, and it is discovered that I hired you, I get tried for murder one, just like you do. Is this really that hard to understand?
Apparently so.
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