his daily experience on the ground is: this
attack on the West will not end until Russia retreats to pre-invasion boundaries and Putin is removed from office, because threats deterred today will become new threats tomorrow. Putin is a terrorist, leading a terroistic state. He needs to go. America must not, therefore, relax its posture, even though, as some suggest, the United States could come out the big winner in
this game given gains made by the western
alliance and what market rewards could come through increased sales and profits from sale of oil and gas and other commodities.50
Short-term gains cannot and should not be America’s endgame. The US needs to keep the pressure on Putin and his cronies so to disrupt his regime through sanctions, through military support of Ukraine, through further strengthening the western alliance, through support of Russia’s internal opposition. But, most importantly, the US must ready itself not only for a larger scale war but to provide infrastructure support and political reform inside Ukraine once the war is over. It must also be ready to support, from this moment forward, regime change and democratic reforms in Russia.
The invasion of the Ukraine reveals the fragility of human beings: individuals and groups are not just denying people their rights, but they are isolating and killing them for specific ends. As Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the Orange Revolution who twice became Ukrainian prime minister, has recently stated: Putin “acts according to his own dark logic” and the Kremlin’s objective is to “depersonify” Ukraine, stripping it of its language and culture, and leaving it weak and “atomised.”51 And as we have seen, once Putin and the Kremlin accomplish that, he and they will only become further emboldened.
Yet, the invasion of the Ukraine also reveals the strength of human beings: people stand and
fight for their rights, as well as the rights of others, in community and across the globe. It is for this reason the West must address this issue head on. It must stand strong. As
Tymoshenko argues: “This is a unique battle for our territory and our freedom. It’s a historic chance for the free world to kill this evil.”52
In short, the invasion of the Ukraine reveals and confirms the fundamental underlying premise of totalitarian regimes and totalitarian leaders: it is the destruction of human dignity, again identified by Arendt as the endgame of terror. And thus the invasion of the Ukraine also reveals and confirms the conditions required to live a dignified human existence: the ability to engage in independent thought, free speech, and self-determination; basic access to water, food, housing, health care, and education; the right to assemble, to create, to receive a fair and living wage, and to live in a clean and diverse and sustainable environments; and the right to live in freedom from terror, unjustified aggression, and assault. These principles support real people, real actions, real decisions, and real consequences.
We can also use this foundation and these principles to justify forming a new government and entering into global partnerships: as Arendt was to say, “human dignity needs a new guarantee which can be found only in a new political principle, in a new law on earth, whose validity at this time must comprehend the whole of humanity while its power must remain strictly limited, rooted in and controlled by newly defined territorial entities.”53 Until then we can also use these fundamental principles to determine and judge whether a state or other organizational form is just. It is just when it promotes human dignity and living a dignified existence.
Some things are just worth fighting for.
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