Why We Don't Talk About the Non-Ukraine Conflicts
Hint: "racism" only keeps you from understanding what's really happening
The knee-jerk answer for why the Ukraine invasion seems to be all anybody in the mainstream and social media (which, let’s face it, is the new mainstream at this point) as opposed to the conflicts in Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, Venezuela, Colombia, etc. is that the world is Euro-centric (read: white) and these other conflicts are not.
While this is partly true and has been for at least the last two centuries of world history, it doesn’t fully explain why we actually care so much about this conflict more than, say, the annexation of Crimea or the oppression of various white peoples by their white leaders.
It’s easy to point at race and then go about our day feeling privileged or oppressed. True, it’s debilitating because it makes you think there’s nothing that can be done—that what the world cares about was decided before you were born based on what color you were born. But the truth is, it’s not about race so much as it is about geopolitics, which means you’re not off the hook.
First, it’s about the Nukes
The Ukrainians and Russians both have nuclear armaments. A war like this isn’t supposed to happen to countries with nukes. The damn things are supposed to be deterrents—the main justification for keeping them around has been so that bigger countries don’t just roll across your borders and try to kill your president. The last time a country went after another that had such capabilities was in 2003, and it turned out the invaders didn’t really believe they had functional nukes anyway (btw, the invaders were us, and it didn’t end so well). Chernobyl, which was the big nuclear meltdown before the big one in Japan, happened to be in Ukraine. And parts of that region are still uninhabitable. So just the fact that two nuclear powers with the power to wipe the rest of us out are going at it is worth commenting on. If China and Pakistan started invading each other, we’d be hearing a lot about it even though they’re both predominantly nations of color.
Also, it’s about what we did
Perhaps another major reason why Ukraine’s getting coverage is that we had a vested interest in it not happening. And in our efforts to make it not happen, we somehow made it happen. This was how a bunch of imperial powers caused the First World War, but also how a strategy of appeasement ultimately led to the second one.
And about what Russia needs
Perhaps Putin isn’t just a monstrous power-hungry warmonger but a man who thinks Russia has no choice. Ukraine has been trying to join NATO for years and can strike Moscow with missiles faster than Cuba could hit Washington during the Kennedy administration (and when the Soviets tried to set up missiles in Cuba back then, we very nearly ended the world over it).
What Putin was maybe thinking
Perhaps Putin also thinks that he has no choice. To let Ukraine join a network of alliances that would not only point nuclear weapons at his people but guarantee WWIII if he ever needed to invade Ukraine in the future would mean the end of his run as president. You might not think that’s such a bad thing, because you live in a country that has weathered its fair share of terrible leaders and come out okay and you probably think Putin is a tyrant anyway. But Putin lived through 90s Russia, with its economic depression, gangster-oligarchs, and American incursions into national sovereignty under alcoholic pushover Boris Yeltsin. He knows there are worse things that can happen to Russia than a strongman leader. Much worse. And so he’s willing to risk so much.
So for geopolitical reasons, world-destroying capability reasons, self-preservation reasons, “Great Man of History” vs “trends and forces” reasons, we care that this is happening.
Not that we shouldn’t care about the other injustices going on in the world, but we should definitely keep an eye on this one. It has all the hallmarks of a conflict that really could spiral out and destabilize the order we’ve enjoyed for so long.
Obviously, war is wrong. Even when war is righteous, countless people suffer. Even when the cause is right, there is no guarantee that the right people will win. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Thucydides records this coming out of the mouths of the shining democracy of Athens, who were 16 years into a war that would go on for a decade more. By then, the city with the greatest philosophers and moral men had been worn so thin by plagues and the savagery they’d suffered and committed that they no longer needed a reason beyond “might makes right” to compel another city of free people to do what they demanded.
Not that what Putin or anybody is doing is “right”, it’s just sadly understandable. What I’m seeing is not all that different from the endless conflicts and vicious politicking of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War or those that gave rise to the Tao Te Ching. Until we understand this, care enough about the sufferings of everyone we share this precariously nuke-able planet with to investigate the nuances, we will not be able to get involved with any certainty that our actions won’t make things worse.
Things can always be worse. We have to strike a balance between not overreacting—and moving decisively to stop the carnage. All I know is that you have to stand up against the wicked. The cost may be great, but being defeated or being destroyed is unacceptable.
No, Ukraine doesn't have nukes, old Soviet nukes were returned to Russia under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. And what the fuck do you mean "if he *needed* to invade Ukraine in the future"???