Local Opinion: Alas, another war

I was 3 years old when I first laid eyes on my Dad. He was in Navy blues exiting a military transport bringing the troops home to St. Louis. It was 1945, and America was the victor, if you can call it that. For in war, there are only losses, and some lose less than others. He came to us and hugged us all, my Mom, my brother and me. In a flash, he was gone again, and my next image of this tall, handsome man was in a military hospital where he was being treated with electric shock for incapacitating depression.

It took two decades for this talented veteran to find the help he needed, and he went on to become a successful English teacher and comedy writer. Until then, our family suffered through the tyranny of his depression fueled by alcohol. This same circumstance invaded millions of American homes as the taste of victory on VE Day soured when the boys tried to resume normal life.

When I think of what defines my generation, there are many candidates: the space program, the internet, the assassinations of JFK and MLK, the civil rights movement, AIDS, medical breakthroughs, and many more. And yet sadly, I would have to choose nearly 80 years of war as the distinguishing characteristic.

Wars never really end. The shooting stops but the residual wounds are deep and long lasting and often give life to the next conflict. Hitler used the punishing reparations exacted by the temporary victors of World War I to stir the German people into a war of revenge. Sixty million graves testify to the result. Vladimir Putin is similarly bent on recovering Moscow’s dominion over not just the Ukraine but perhaps the entire captive empire it lost in the Cold War. He has become popular in Russia by promising to restore its stature as a great nation, notwithstanding an economy roughly equal to that of Texas. Putin, like Hitler, is a violent sociopath for whom murder is a walk in the park.

In Czar Putin’s defense, it is possible the West went too far in pushing Russia’s nose to the glass after the Cold War. And indeed, there is something called the Monroe Doctrine, essentially a warning to Europe or anyone else to stay out of the American hemisphere or face war. With the notable exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is a policy that has gone essentially unchallenged for two centuries.

But Putin isn’t interested in policy: He is chasing glory. He wants his portrait at the Kremlin to sit level with Peter the Great, Lenin, and Stalin. His Majesty Vladimir thought he picked an easy target in Ukraine. Yet, the courageous resistance once again proves that people who have lived under authoritarian rule and escaped it will fight to the death for their freedom and democracy. Is that not what our founders did in facing down King George III and his powerful military? The Ukrainians of today are the Americans of the past, and they are telling us that we don’t know how great democracy is until we lose it.

That brings me to former President Trump and his acolytes in Congress. Exactly who are they pulling for in this battle between dictatorship and elected government? Now that the whole world has condemned Putin, many are busy deleting old tweets praising the dictator (“Putin is brilliant,” said Trump). The sad and remarkable truth is many leaders of the current Republican Party have become stooges for the Kremlin, which aims to divide America by deploying an Orwellian disinformation campaign. The paradox is that many of the stooges hold degrees from Harvard and Yale.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote the philosopher George Santayana. A few days into this invasion, the map of Europe has been turned on its head. Germany, which was the provocateur of two world wars, announced it will re-arm with the full support of democratic Europe and the Biden administration. The sea change in approach to combating escalating global authoritarianism could remake the Far East as well, with Japan rearming in order to balance the threat of a newly aggressive China.

The shock of Putin’s invasion caused the European continent to reassess their relationship to their own security. America should take the opportunity to do likewise. Fifty one years ago, outgoing President Eisenhower in his farewell address warned us to be wary of the encroaching “Military Industrial Complex.” Unfortunately, we did not take this great man’s advice. The U.S. currently spends more on defense than China, India, Russia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Australia – combined. Even with ostensibly peaceable intentions, our economy is geared for war more than any other in the world. As long as that federal spending pattern exists, every decision made in the Oval Office on conflict situations will naturally lean to military action. Follow the money.

As Germany and its robust economy leads the way in making European security more homegrown and less dependent on the U.S., the time has come for us to reexamine our own priorities.

We could cut defense spending by 20 percent and still take precedence as the world’s most intimidatingly robust military. Prudently reinvesting that money in infrastructure, education and innovation on the homefront could vouchsafe our stature as leaders-by-example in the furthering of liberal democracy for the next century. And it could ease the cycle of traumatizing conflict which has eroded public morale and confidence in government from the grinding nightmare of Vietnam to the failed Iraq and Afghanistan occupations.

Putin’s brazen act of criminal imperialism in Ukraine is a tragedy sure to result in catastrophic destruction and the loss of countless innocent lives. But his fundamental miscalculation about the global response presents a meaningful opportunity to exist in a more peaceful world.

Speaking for myself, I’ve seen enough war for one life.