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Item one: Vladimir Putin’s wretched anniversary

It’s the one-year anniversary of Putin’s war. Rather than review the past year, let’s look forward to the next one—and, perhaps, the next one and the next one.

Writing today in the Financial Times, the Ukrainian writer Yevgenia Belorusets asserts (subscription): “Now I see that international experts are stretching the war’s timeframe, saying that it will probably last another year, two, three or five; for as long as Russia has sufficient ‘resources’ to continue. The world has allowed a war that affirms barbaric law: violence and crime can last as long as the criminal has enough energy, will, and strength to commit it.”

She is right. But the world has had little choice in the matter, and this is the problem in any contest between people constrained by certain rules and people who are utterly unconstrained. “The world” doesn’t want World War III. “The world” tries, more or less, to respect certain boundaries set in place by international law. (I know, I know—Iraq. I don’t defend it for a second, but I would like to think that it was a temporary madness that we won’t soon repeat.) And so the world, as Belorusets argues, affirms barbarism.

And yet, it doesn’t. Joe Biden’s trip to Kyiv this week was perhaps just a political gesture, but it was as dramatic a political gesture along those lines as I’ve ever seen in my life. It said to the world that the United States is emphatically on the right side of history here, and that you should be too. The U.S. is sending Abrams tanks; Germany, Leopards. So the West is putting its money, which amounts now to many billions of dollars’ worth of aid and materiel, where its mouth is.

We have little choice. We have to stand against barbarism. At the same time, we’d be foolish not to acknowledge the risks, not to acknowledge that we have blundered our way into war (notably in Vietnam) when all of our wise men said no, no, war was undesirable and impossible.

So what will happen? Here’s an interesting BBC article in which five experts were asked to weigh in on the future of the conflict. They differ in emphasis, and two of the five are optimistic about Ukraine’s chances, but the overall picture is one of stalemate.

One writes: “For 2023, the key determinant will be the fate of Russia’s spring offensive. Putin had admitted that about 50,000 of the newly mobilised troops are already at the front; the other 250,000 of those just mobilised are training for next year. There is no scope for anything but more war until the fortunes of those new Russian forces are settled on the battlefield.”

Adds another: “The winter will be difficult, as Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure will try to break the morale and endurance of an already shattered population. But Ukrainian resilience has proved to be remarkable. They will stand firm. The war will drag on. And on. The prospects for negotiation are bleak. For a potential peace deal the core demands of at least one side need to change. There is no evidence that this has happened, or that it will happen soon.”

Another real concern has to do with what is happening inside Russia. Luke Johnson, the Berlin-based American journalist who wrote some terrific dispatches for TNR in the war’s early days, paints a vivid picture of what has changed in Russia over the past year: “In the past, Russian state television spewed propaganda as a patriotic sugar high; now, the Russian state is mobilizing hundreds of thousands of men to the front, many of whom die within hours or days of arriving in Ukraine. The propaganda has also become extreme; children are being indoctrinated with slogans like ‘War is love. War is a friend. War is the future.’” That will only get more extreme. Putin knows that the only domestic foes that he needs to fear are those to the right, who’ll depose him someday because he’s losing the war and refusing to nuke Kyiv.

Oh, and one more note on the future: Imagine that Donald Trump somehow returns to the White House. The United States of America will openly join the side of fascist authoritarianism, NATO will crumble, Putin will be popping champagne in Zelenskiy’s office.

There are of course more hopeful scenarios. Maybe Biden will win reelection, keeping our country on its current correct course. Maybe Ukraine can actually beat Putin’s ramshackle army. Maybe Putin will be deposed by a set of actors with more humane priorities and Russia will move toward democracy. It isn’t impossible. But history instructs us that happy outcomes are rare.

Item two: Trump and the (East) Palestinians

So Donald Trump went to East Pales-teen Thursday and, while he didn’t repeat the Great San Juan Paper Towel Toss, he did bring Trump Water. Can’t make it up.

Trump of course blamed Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, mocking Biden for going to Ukraine and Buttigieg for not showing up yet. I’d say most people think it was pretty important for Biden to go to Kyiv; whether he should have gone to Ohio earlier in the wake of the February 3 derailment, maybe. Buttigieg should have; he happened to go there the day after Trump. Lower-level, non–cable news grade administration officials have been there since the event.

There’s no direct smoking gun yet to link Trump-era deregulation to the derailment, but as TNR’s Tim Noah and Prem Thakker have written, Norfolk Southern has won key deregulatory decisions over the years while spending $100 million in the political sphere since 1990. The Obama administration tried to impose better braking systems on freight trains. Most of them didn’t even install them, and the Trump administration reversed the rule. The preliminary determination of the cause of the crash was an overheated wheel bearing.

This Politico piece has a detailed rundown of the rules and regs the Trump administration rescinded. The administration killed or watered down numerous rules having to do with chemical storage, transport, and monitoring.

Hey, Democrats in the U.S. Senate: How about some hearings? Delaware Senator Tom Carper chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee. Actually, one hearing has been announced (though is not yet scheduled). But this seems to cry out for a series of hearings, and by more than one committee. Senate Democrats have the power to put Norfolk Southern, and the freight-rail industry generally, under the microscope for months. They want to show they’re on the side of the working class? Exposing the conditions under which Wall Street is making freight-rail employees work would be one very good way to do it.

Item three: Israel’s “Weimar moment”??

I check Haaretz whenever it seems like things are heating up in Israel, and I did a double-take at this headline Wednesday on a column (paywalled) by the excellent Alon Pinkas: “Israel’s Opposition Parties Must All Resign in Protest at Netanyahu’s Judicial Coup.”

Pinkas argues that all 56 opposition Knesset members should soon resign en masse. When, exactly? “The moment the Netanyahu government, in the savage throes of destroying democracy, defiantly ignores a Supreme Court ruling striking down one of their antidemocratic laws. And that moment is coming soon.”

He continues: “This isn’t a fervent policy disagreement that divides the public. This is about whether Israel remains a liberal democracy that cherishes the rule of law, respects and encourages checks and balances and an independent judiciary. Or whether Israel, as this government is intent on transitioning into, becomes an illiberal, authoritarian theocracy.”

And finally: “Two fast trains are headed toward each other on an inevitable, horrifying collision. Israel is on the verge of a paralyzing constitutional crisis. Calling this regime-altering scheme ‘judicial reform’ is like calling an armed bank robbery ‘financial reorganization.’ This is Israel’s very own ‘Weimar’ moment. A crystal-clear point of inflection, after which it will not be the same in any respect. The opposition has one doomsday weapon: mass, simultaneous resignation.”

Friday’s Haaretz reports that the current demonstrations have spread now to include military reservists. Note these excerpts from their petition: “We will not volunteer for reserve service while a giant black flag flies over the government’s actions”; “The legislation in question will destroy all that we have served and fought for. We won’t let that happen.”

Ukraine’s government is fighting for its democratic future. Israel’s government is fighting to defenestrate its remaining democratic guardrails. Where both are a year from now will tell us much about our shared human condition.

This week’s quiz: We are what we eat … a quiz on the history and popularity of various foods around the world

A few surprising answers here. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com. 

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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