The State of the Union, Ukraine, and Shades of Harambe

Tonight is President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. With the shadow of Ukraine looming over the speech, social media is lit up with support for the nation’s struggle against the Russian invasion. Draping lawns with Ukrainian flags, liking hundreds of posts about Ukrainian patriotism, and posting endless tiles of I STAND WITH UKRAINE do nothing but reify the empty platitudes of myopic Americans, echoing the ridiculous outpouring of support for Harambe back in 2016. Remember that gorilla? The endless Facebook tributes? The zoo shot Harambe. But, liking that Facebook post sure felt good. Will Ukrainians fare any better? Let’s hope so.

Biden has some serious issues on his plate tonight and miles of ground to cover in the SoU speech! The list is quite long:

War in Ukraine, a conflict where human rights violations and a sovereign nation’s response play out on live TV in a dystopic, horrific way as Americans watch removed from the reality of the crisis, a crisis instigated by an aggressor state that just happens to be the US’s old Cold War foe

Inflation at a 40-year high water mark = 7.5%

Gas prices on the rise:
2021= $2.65 a gallon — March 2022= $3.54
Estimated increase = over $5 due to war in Europe (positive note: it’s lower than $8 gas in Italy, Greece and Scandinavian countries)

Rental prices up 40%

National debt = $30 trillion

GDP = $24 trillion

Debt to GDP ratio = 118% (estimated to go higher)

A global pandemic of unresolved origins

A persistent Chinese threat to Taiwan

Border crossing into the US at an all-time high

The world is listening for a powerful message from Biden, aka the leader of the free world. Expectations are high.

The US response to Russia’s aggression will be a key element of the speech and must convey in both words and actions that the US has a plan. With China (Taiwan) and Russia's real threats, a multi-polar world where nuclear powers aggressively undermine national sovereignty of neighboring countries is a new frontier of global conflict that the US must face with strength far greater than red-line posturing and bungled withdrawals.

Unipolarity emerged after the collapse of the USSR when the USA remained the solo global superpower at the end of the Cold War.

Unipolarity is a condition in which one state under the condition of international anarchy enjoys a preponderance of power and faces no competitor states. A unipolar state is not the same as an empire or a hegemon that can control the behavior of all other states.

Scholar Francis Fukuyama argued that the victory of western liberal democracies in the post-Soviet moment represented the universalization of democratic ideals and defeat of socialism. Western democracy prevailed over other government systems, and American exceptionalism grew from the fertile ground of Reagan’s dominion over godless communism.

But, the USA’s unipolar moment was fleeting. In the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, the US adopted an approach of multilateral cooperation with other nations. The subsequent thirty years saw international multilateralism and economic globalization shape US foreign policy, a sharp turn away from economic and political isolationism. 9/11 catalyzed this approach. The War on Terror forged a new landscape of conflict defined by religious ideology, third-party actors, and undefined geographic borders. The post 9/11 military strategy included nation-building and peace-keeping over lethality and a diplomatic approach stymied by antiquated practices of geopolitics anachronistic in a world reordered by the rise of China and global terrorism. On the home front, the US national debt escalated from 5 to 30 trillion dollars in 20 years while the idea of global citizenship replaced nationalism.

The US failed to capitalize on the unipolar moment and let it pass. Instead, a nuclear China emerged, included in the WTO, G20, and World Bank, and forged a one belt one road strategy that, along with Russia, expanded its global footprint and influence. With its claim on Taiwan, China is next on the list of immediate problems for the US (in addition to unleashing a pandemic, theft of intellectual property, and infiltration of US intelligence).

Effective diplomacy hinges on how Ukraine is handled, especially in the wake of the debacle withdrawal from Afghanistan that abandoned billions of dollars of weaponry and infrastructure, blind-sighted allies, and demonstrated to the world what a US strategic blunder looks like. Western reactions to the Ukrainian crisis may embolden China’s Taiwan ambitions sooner than later. This week, China deployed 9 aircraft into Taiwan’s air zone. Russia’s relationship with China is an issue. Western efforts at deterrence of the Ukrainian invasion completely failed. China is watching.

During the Cold War (1947–1989), military spending in the US was 7% of the national budget. Today it is less than 3%, and the US is facing China and Russia (same old enemies, new mustache) in a whole new geopolitical landscape that includes threats from third party actors like Iran, the largest state supporter of terrorism in the world.

Energy is the backbone of Russia’s global trade and currently, the US and western Europe rely on Russian oil and gas (the US in January bought 240K barrels per day). In April 2020 the price of crude oil was negative $37.63/barrel- now, oil today is $108 dollars a barrel, the highest it has been since 2014. This will translate to higher US gas and oil prices, something the Biden administration faces amid rising inflation. Many believe this problem might lead to the restoration of the Keystone Pipeline and US energy independence. Others call foul in the name of climate change.

One tool that can cripple the Russian economy is to open the US Keystone Pipeline, restore US energy independence, supply Europe with US gas and oil, produce enough to drop the price of oil on the global market, and in turn, cripple Russia’s economy. Oil, mining, and mineral production are critical to Russia’s economy. The US with other G7 nations has imposed sanctions against Russia that continue to unfold. There is talk of seizing Russian assets in the US, over $1billion dollars of property in NYC alone. Deterrence of a larger conflict is the objective of US sanctions, but the SWIFT shut down impacted less than 50 of the over 350 Russian banks, and the USA continues to buy Russian gas. If these are sanctions, sanctions do not work. Russia will level Ukraine at this rate, and the global community sits and watches. Remember, there is a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Now the US again watches as a European country is destroyed as a result of what some call Putin’s Pan-Russianism. Paying lip service support does nothing to stop this war.

The crisis that this Russian invasion presents is tied to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization established after WWII to resist the expansion of communism — the Warsaw Pact was its communist counterpoint). If Putin crosses the borders of any NATO nation, it will trigger Article 5 of NATO that calls for collective defense. One significant issue under the previous administration was the pressure on NATO nations to pay 2% of their GDP to support the organization to offset the US shouldering of a large percent of the cost. This conflict reveals the importance of that effort. Right now, the US is part of the NATO effort to support the Ukrainian refugees (today 700K but estimated to go higher- the nation has 44 million people) and protect NATO border states. The US deployed over 3000 troops from Ft. Bragg to Poland and Romania with an additional 7000 on alert. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s in exchange for some assumption of western protection. As bombs destroy the country, it’s clear counting on protection was a mistake.

As a student during the Cold War, I traveled through Hungary, parts of eastern Europe and Germany in 1986 and again in 1992. I took a picture at Check Point Charlie in Lubeck, Germany with the towers of East German guards behind me, armed and ready to shoot anyone crossing the border between what was known as East and West Germany at the time. Today the German Border Trail is an 865 Km trail that passes through Lübeck along the former site of the Iron Curtain and stretches south to the German city of Mödlareuth. A few years later when I drove across Germany and Austria to Budapest, Hungary, the nation was just emerging from years of communism. Everything in the city was covered in coal dust and the people very wary of discussing communist leadership. My sublet apartment was a cubicle that was a room in a former mansion. When the communists seized Hungary, they expropriated all property and divided it among the people, allocating cubicles to families in these urban mansions. The room I rented had a propane heater, a one burner oven, a toilet on the edge of the room with a hand held shower that required the water be heated by the propane and a bed. It was about 15 x 15. Today, Budapest is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, but in 1992, it was a tragic landscape of Soviet shabby apartments and coal dust. I had a friend there who was in his late seventies named George Perjazi. He attended Davidson College in Charlotte in the 1940s before returning to Hungary and resisting communist occupation. When he was captured, he lived under house arrest for almost two decades. He gave me a box of coins when I left. One was a Soviet coin made of nickel.

This invasion of Ukraine is historically significant as Stalin in 1932–33 starved the Ukraine when his attempt to collectivize grain from the Ukrainians led to a horrific famine that killed approximately 4 million people. The Ukrainians were highly localized people at the time, and their rural villages were governed by tribal mirs. Communist collectivization was resisted by Ukrainians willing to burn their crops rather than give them up to the state. This was complicated by a drought. Stalin reacted with a campaign of de-kulakization, sending wealthier peasants to the gulags across the USSR. Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine is an incredible book on the topic and explains in part the willingness of Ukrainians to resist this invasion. Also, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago is a must read.

One thing is certain: Ukraine is fighting back and begging western nations for assistance. Ukraine is fighting the third largest military in the world. Last year, the US spent $778 billion on military spending (#1 in the world), China $252 billion (#2) and Russia $61 billion (#3). Unfortunately, the US is the only one of the three that has a GDP less than the national debt (ratio-118%) and less than ½ of its population income tax payers and fully employed (about 125 million of 332 million), and of the three, China has more human beings (1.4 billion people) and a debt ratio of 50%- Russia just 145 million people and a debt ratio of 12%. These are important economic considerations. And, Russia will destroy those who resist. This is not a movie, it is an invasion with real human casualties.

The human cost and displacement in the wake of this invasion are unprecedented in recent European history. Below is an email from a former student from Ukraine. I attended her wedding, met hundreds of her family and observed the bridge between her country of origin and the rituals of music, religious practice and clothing retained by her family once settled in the US. Please read her note and consider the human dimension of the Ukrainian struggle that US citizens watch from afar without experiencing the horrors of no water, basic necessities and living through the real consequences of war- death, destruction, occupation and oppression to name a few.

From Svitlana:

I grew up in Ukraine, and I have a powerful connection to the country and its people, many of whom are my family and close friends.

This insane war forced my family to flee Kyiv, leaving everything behind. Even though they are safe now, they desperately need critical supplies.

Other family and friends that I have, who live in a small village called Rodnikova Huta and the city Uzhhorod in west Ukraine, are currently taking in refugees and helping them out with shelter, food, and any other way they can. The small school in my village is full of women and children that need jackets, sweaters, and other much-needed supplies.

After saying their goodbyes, the men in the family went to war to fight on the front lines.

A disabled aunt who lived alone in Kyiv is still there in her apartment, hoping that her building won’t be destroyed, praying that she can live through the night. A pregnant friend, just days away from giving birth, tried to get out of Kyiv, could not escape, and is stuck in the basement of her building, not sure what to do. There are too many stories to tell.