For a certain type of conservative, the man currently riding the rampaging Russian bear though the sovereign state of Ukraine is…well not all that bad really. From what I can gather, their reasoning is along the following lines: ever since the fall of the Soviet Union the West has been needlessly provoking Russia with its expansion of NATO – a defensive alliance that should have ceased to exist the day the Berlin Wall came down.
The possibility of Ukraine joining such an alliance makes Putin feel insecure and is hurtful to Russian pride, especially considering Ukraine has been a part of a greater Russian empire at various points in its history. Plus the Zelensky government is corrupt and their parliament contains real Nazis, not the mythical kind that live in Michael Wood’s head. Ergo, Putin’s invasion was completely understandable and the West should just let him get on with it. Oh and also the US invades/bombs countries all the time so something, something HYPOCRISY.
This is rational as far as it goes, although I would offer several counterpoints, the most fundamental being Russia or Putin’s sense of what Ukraine is, or should be, must never trump what the Ukrainians themselves wish it to be. It’s a fundamental principle that holds true from the Falklands to Croatia to East Timor; regarding a nation’s destiny the wishes of the majority who actually live there are paramount. It may not be perfectly applied but we surely wouldn’t want to be on the other side of the argument? That way lies all sorts of insanity – China gobbling up Taiwan, India marching into Kashmir, Mexico taking back Texas…
It’s the unspoken but often hinted at assumptions of these Putin apologists that worry me most. Repulsed by the excesses of western liberal democracy they have begun making eyes at Putin-style autocracy. A widely-shared meme just prior to the outbreak of war was a comparison of military recruitment videos: The US pitch for more LGBTQ+ individuals versus the macho Russian glorification of hard men. I get the point. If I ever need rescuing by the US marines I’d prefer they didn’t arrive in skirts and high heels. But I still find the country that suffers from too much freedom (including the freedom to call yourself a lady when you are demonstrably not) infinitely preferable to the one that regards freedom as dispensable in the interests of ‘the nation’.
Does any conservative, mindful of the raw deal our opposition parties get if they don’t bow to lefty nostrums, really want to line up with the guy who, if he isn’t imprisoning his own opposition is putting poison in their Earl Grey? Do those outraged at Labour’s ‘public interest’ fund really want to go easy on a leader who controls his country’s entire media? Do those dismayed at cancel culture really want to side with the guy who banned his countrymen from making ‘offensive remarks’ on the internet?
In the type of pincer movement Putin probably wishes his forces in Ukraine could pull off, liberal democracy is also currently taking a shellacking from the Left. Covid was a gift from the God of creepy big government advocates. Despite the facts (see Johns Hopkins University’s report on the efficacy of lockdowns), government action is being given all the credit for ‘getting us through’ Covid. The table is now being set for the government to ‘get us through’ the climate ‘crisis’ by an expansion of state power. Lefty idol and blackface enthusiast Justin Trudeau has already spoken of his ‘admiration’ for the Chinese dictatorship’s ability to ‘go greenest fastest’.
Where this leads to when there are no constitutional limits on the state could be seen last week in Shanghai: millions were held prisoner in their homes while thousands were forced to leave theirs in order to create a quarantine district for Covid positives. Such action couldn’t happen in the US without serious resistance from an armed populace; in New Zealand with the recent gun law changes, it could well be successful.
Attacks from the Left also focus on a fundamental of liberal democracy – free speech. Supposedly the horrors of Covid ‘disinformation’ or people tweeting out fat jokes and Hitler memes mean we need the government to decide what we can and cannot see. Hopefully, by the time this column is posted the Randian superhero, Elon Musk will have bought Twitter and done a lot to see off this particular threat to our freedoms.
Alternatives to liberal democracy are grim. I’ve seen proposals from online loons ranging from neo-liberal corporatist fantasies to reinstating absolute monarchy to giving communism (yet another) try. All display a basic ignorance of either history or human nature. Theoretical spit-balling is one thing. Openly despising our democratic system and cheering on forces that would seek to destroy it either here or thousands of miles away is quite another. We used to have a word for that. It’s an old-fashioned term that perhaps needs a bit of resuscitation.
Treason.