Last night I was up until 2:30am, watching the news coming from Ukraine. It was a very cold, dark night.
Putin has unleashed the dogs-of-war on a peaceful people. This moment has been coming for years, a gathering gloom on the eastern horizon. Now it is here and with it, the shadows from the past. From the past, I hear whispers telling me, we are about to be tested.
Some of my earliest memories are of watching the news with my dad. I was 6 and riding on a red and white rocking horse. The Korean War appeared as a grainy, black and white blur on a small TV screen. Even though I didn’t understand what I was seeing, I remember my dad’s grim expression, and knew that something was wrong.
Later, again with my dad, I watched the Cuban Missile Crisis and then the assassination of President Kennedy. After that came the Vietnam War along with numerous Fascist coups in Central and South America. All presented at dinner time on the national news. Iraq was the theater for 2 wars with the second, Shock and Awe, setting the standard for immediacy. It was the first, front seat war. I remember watching the live coverage while on the phone with my buddy Tom. We’d ordered pizzas and drank beer, while hell was televised in full color. Who can forget Wolf Blizter and the CNN team hunkering down while buildings nearby blew up?
I watched 9/11 from the first Breaking News. It was a beautiful day in Minneapolis, and warm sunshine lighted my home office. My wife, Becky, was in rural southern France, running our bicycle touring business. I called her to see if she was okay. She didn’t have a TV and didn’t know anything had happened. So, as I watched the horror in New York City, I talked to Becky, 7 time-zones and 4,300 miles away.
The War on Terror dragged on for 22 years, with coverage ever more immediate and intimate. On the Internet, military and cellphone videos brought a video game perspective to the slaughter.
And now, there is Ukraine and Putin’s Imperial War. Ukraine is a friendly country that has been woven into our national awareness over the last 6 years. Both us and the Ukrainians share the desire to live in a democratic nation, ruled by laws, and rid of the corruption of Corporations and moneyed Elite. In Ukraine, the legacy of the bloody Soviet Union leaves a stain and full knowledge of what Russia is capable of.
In every confrontation I’ve witnessed in my life, the media has become more technically sophisticated, with the result that I have become an ever more intimate observer. At the same time, the tactics and weapons have become more diverse and sophisticated. We now face Hybrid Warfare, a mix of hardware and software. Cyber-warfare is now in the arsenals of Russia, China, the United States and others. This makes Putin’s Imperial War different. We are no longer protected by our Oceans or the distance between the U.S. and the rest of the world.
We are already feeling the effects of the war in Ukraine. Today’s stocks and energy markets are volatile. World-wide, commodities such as wheat and corn, major exports of Russia and Ukraine will be disrupted causing inflation and instability in Africa and the Middle East. Likewise, here, inflation will be driven by higher fuel prices and their ripples through the rest of the economy.
The future has further risks, particularly to our infrastructure. We’ve already experienced limited cyber-attacks against individual companies and business and government networks. In April 2021, the Colonial Pipeline Company, the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S., was hacked. This resulted in the 29,000-mile pipeline shutting down for a week. The East Coast experienced gasoline shortages and higher prices at the pump. Colonial had to inspect it’s entire system to see if there had been any physical damage, there wasn’t, but it was a very real threat.
Inexorably, the turmoil we have seen on our screens has moved closer and closer. Now it is here.
This is the most profound test our nation has ever faced. Greater than WWII, we are now just behind the front-lines and potential targets of damaging cyber-attacks. And like in WWII, we will need to make personal sacrifices if we are to prevail against Putin and his anti-democracy mob.
Sadly, as in Ukraine, there is a Fifth Column in the US. Putin sympathizers who are attempting to undermine our efforts to defend Ukraine and Democracy with disinformation and obstruction. As in Ukraine, these people are traitors.
As I said, we are about to be tested.
Judoka is a person who practices Judo, a martial art that emphasizes discipline and the application of a specific force to a particular point.
Photo, Vladimir Putin, Judoka, is by Vasvas (Vassilis Sgs) and is covered by (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 2.0 International License.
Text, Les Phillips, is covered by (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 2.0 International License.