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Sometimes you have to do what needs to be done
“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner
Op-Ed Commentary
Not since David met Goliath have we seen anything like this.
The midget is beating the giant! At least for now. And all the vodka in Russia can’t hide the fact that the war that was supposed to be over in 72 hours is now in its second month and the stumbling ‘Soviet’ forces are being held off and even being pushed back in some places by a tenacious Ukrainian army and an inspiring leader determined that for this time at least good is going to triumph over evil.
But it won’t be easy. The savage Russian bear has enormous advantages in weapons, artillery and sheer numbers to devour anyone in its beastly way.
Phosphorous bombs, Kinhzal (Russian for “dagger”) hypersonic missiles, cluster bombs, fixed-wing bomber planes, short-wing ballistic missiles, huge infantry forces and lots of lumbering tanks like the ones that beat Hitler in World War II.
But despite thousands of casualties on both sides, so far it’s not working. At least not very well.
In the fog of war, accurate casualty figures are almost impossible to determine. But according to the New York Times, more than 7,000 Russian soldiers had been killed by the end of March. Almost 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in the same period and 1,189 Ukrainian civilians slaughtered by March 29, including 108 children.
But don’t tell that to Putin and his government who resolutely insist there is no war, just a “special operation” to “denazify” the Ukraine.
As someone once famously said, the first casualty in war is truth.
Well, if “truth” is the subject here, let’s have some more. Sad to say, Russia may yet win this bloody contest as its advantages are so overwhelming. Russia’s population in 2009 was 144 million while Ukraine’s population in 2022 was only 41.6 million, not much bigger than Canada.
Russia is 17.1 million sq. km in size while Ukraine is only 603 thousand sq. km., about the size of Texas. Let’s face it, the numbers are very lopsided.
But there is more in this vale of tears than size and numbers. Remember who won the war in Vietnam. Not the US! The same for the Six Days War in 1967 when tiny Israel defeated Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq who launched a surprise attack.
In other words, might and military advantage doesn’t always win wars. Intangibles like the will to fight, belief in what you’re fighting for, creative tactics, and maybe most of all, the inspired and visionary leadership like the Ukrainian forces are getting from Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian. All I can say to that is if I was ever in a war I’d rather my leader come from the arts and creative class than a ruthless apparatchik from the KGB.
And what about weapons? Vladimir Putin, grounded in the former glory of Russia’s “Great Patriotic War” when Stalin’s tanks defeated the Nazis in World War II, seems to think he’s fighting World War II all over again. Well, Putin is no Napoleon as many of his lumbering tanks sit stuck in the mud north of Kyiv being picked off by Ukrainian missiles. And remember what David was carrying when he slew Goliath those thousands of years ago? He was carrying a sling, the high-tech weapon of the day. And with that sling and a well-placed rock, he brought down an unbeatable giant to the ground like a heavy sack of cement. As for today’s Ukrainian fighters, they’re not using slings but using sophisticated armed drones they’ve received from the US and Turkey that have proven deadly against Russian fighter-planes and tanks.
So, what can we conclude about this dire conflict and slaughter of innocents? It was started by Putin and Putin only, a demented old warrior dreaming about the false “glory” of the former Soviet Union and his crazed desire to recreate it with him as the supreme oligarchical leader. When US President Joe Biden implied last week the only way to end the war would be through “regime change,” he was roundly criticized.
But Biden was right. The only way to end this calamity is to get Putin negotiating at the table or replaced. There are ways this could be done. Dark ways, but the situation demands it. Otherwise, the most likely outcome is Putin will win the war through sheer attrition while at the same time destroying Russia by provoking more Western sanctions than what have almost destroyed the Russian economy already.
No one said it would be easy.
Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a believer in doing what’s necessary to be done.