Russia, Russia, Russia
I wrote this essay in a newsletter I put together last week for WIG, the political group I’ve been writing about on Wednesdays in this series. The previous WIG newsletter had been dated February 15 — in what we now remember as the “before time.” Before Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded the sovereign state of Ukraine, and before the world shifted on its axis once again.
In 1992, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that with the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, liberal democracy would be more prevalent in the long term (although he recognized the possibility of temporary setbacks). His thesis echoed Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1968 statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
Fukuyama is a respected acadamic, first at Telluride and subsequently at George Mason Univerity, Johns Hopkins, and now at Stanford. The End of History, however, has been frequently misinterpreted and occasionally mocked, and the events of the last two weeks further challenge his argument. Time Magazine’s recent cover image is a nod to Fukuyama.
We all remember that The Former Guy’s first impeachment was stimulated by the “perfect” phone call in which he tried to extort the government of Ukraine in order to get “dirt on the Bidens.” TFG’s cozying up to Putin at Helsinki and other meetings raised serious questions as to whether he had any idea about the history of relations between the United States and Russia. To him, everything was and continues to be transactional — “What’s in it for me?”
In 2017, WIG ran a full-page ad in the Virginia Gazette, spelling out the relationship between the administration of TFG and the Russian government. We read Garry Kasparov’s Winter Is Coming, which presented a stark assessment of what Putin was planning. We knew. We all knew.
But the allies of the Former Guy decided they knew better, and they continued to work on their “America First” agenda, systematically trying to dismantle the western alliance that had brought peace and prosperity to much of the world — although the pockets of violence and desperation were still too large, and there seemed to be little political will to address them.
Now the allies of TFG are claiming that “this wouldn’t have happened in TFG were still President.” They’re probably right; Putin got what he wanted from TFG — a weakened western alliance structure and free rein to demolish Ukraine and other countries in Eastern Europe in pursuit of his goals, which appear to include the restoration of the Soviet Union in some fashion. We have learned in recent days that TFG intended to withdraw the US from NATO if he won a second term. Why would Putin pick a fight when what he wanted was going to be delivered to him in short order? When the Biden administration signaled to Putin that the happy days were over, Putin decided that destroying a nascent democracy in Eastern Europe was well worth the price in human and physical capital. We don’t know what will happen next, but it feels as if the progress made in the last 30 years has been reversed at the point of a gun.
We need only to recall the abhorrent behavior of some Republicans in the House Chamber as President Biden delivered his March 1 State of the Union Address to recognize how seriously TFG diminished the United States in four short years. We still have a lot of work to do.
How To Help the People of Ukraine
I put this information on a later page of the same WIG newsletter:
The humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes in Ukraine calls out for our assistance. If you google “How to help Ukraine,” you’ll see a lot of options. Here’s what the Washington Post suggests:
Click on the website for Care, the international humanitarian juggernaut, and a pop-up window appears. “UKRAINE EMERGENCY,” the alert says, with a photo of a woman holding a child. The group has partnered with People in Need and hopes to build a fund that can reach 4 million people.
Doctors Without Borders is partnering with volunteers in Ukraine to help people travel to health-care facilities and working to ensure people have access to health care and medicine. To support Doctors Without Borders’ Ukraine work, click here.
GlobalGiving, a U.S.-based nonprofit crowdfunding platform for grass-roots charitable projects, launched its Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund page, stating that all donations to the fund will support humanitarian assistance in impacted communities in Ukraine and surrounding regions where Ukrainian refugees have fled. You can donate here.
The International Rescue Committee helps those impacted by humanitarian crises and works in more than 40 affected countries. The IRC is on the ground in Poland and working to help displaced families. The site offers suggestions on how you can assist Ukraine. You can donate here.
Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross provides assistance for victims of armed conflict and has been working in Ukraine since 2014 to supply emergency assistance and support hospitals with medical equipment. To support the ICRC’s efforts in Ukraine, you can donate here.
Journalists with the Kyiv Independent have done tremendous work covering the war. The Independent has started a GoFundMe asking for support, but they’ve also promoted a separate GoFundMe — for journalists around the country who have received less international attention.
Project Hope, an international health-care organization founded in the United States in 1958, works to empower health-care workers facing health crises. For the Ukraine invasion, the organization’s emergency teams in Europe are sending medical supplies and standing by to provide health screening and care for refugees. You can donate here.
Razom for Ukraine was founded in 2014 and has since launched efforts to build a stronger democracy in the country. Now, the nonprofit is “focused on purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medicine items. We have a large procurement team of volunteers that tracks down and purchases supplies and a logistics team that then gets them to Ukraine.” Razom — which means “together” in Ukrainian — posted a list of the lifesaving supplies it has already purchased and is asking for more support here.
Save the Children is blunt about the grueling nature of its work: “We work in the hardest-to-reach places, where it’s toughest to be a child,” its homepage says. The organization says it is “gravely concerned” for the children of Ukraine and Afghanistan. Its donation page says that $50 can prevent three children from going hungry for a month, $150 can provide warm blankets for 30 children, and $300 can furnish masks to refugee health workers on the front lines.
Sunflower of Peace is a small nonprofit with ambitions to help Ukrainian orphans and internally displaced people. It has launched a fundraiser for first-aid medical tactical backpacks. Each backpack can save up to 10 people. They’re packed with bandages and anti-hemorrhagic medicines, among other critical items. The group works mostly off its Facebook page, where it’s accepting donations.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs oversees U.N. Crisis Relief, with donations going toward UN efforts to fund work in humanitarian crises. Goals include supporting lifesaving activities, filling funding gaps and expanding assistance in hard-to-reach areas. You can donate here.
Voices of Children, a charitable foundation based in Ukraine, has been serving the psychological needs of children affected by the war in the country’s east since 2015. The group’s psychologists specialize in art therapy and provide general psychosocial support with group classes or individual sessions. Many of its psychologists are based in the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, areas that have long been controlled by Russian-backed separatists and that are on the front lines of the current, wider conflict. Now, Voices of Children is providing assistance to children and families all over Ukraine, even helping with evacuations. You can donate here.
At its meeting last Sunday, WIG voted to send a letter to all of its members (we have 200 people on our email list) to ask for donations to the International Rescue Committee (listed above). The daughter of one of our members works for this organization, and she will make sure that our donation goes exactly where we want it to go. The email went out yesterday, and we have already heard from a number of members who are planning to send checks or donate through the website. In the past, our members have responded generously and quickly to urgent needs such as this. We expect the response to the request to be similarly generous and quick.