This portrait for the future is bleak, especially the forecast of an unprecedented world food crisis. I think Diane Ravitch makes good points but also wonder whether this could be another Afghanistan with Russia ultimately having to pull out at some future point. Also concerning is a recent horrific threat out of Russia that warns that Europe would "disappear" if Ukraine gets ahold of nuclear weapons from the West.
This shouldn't even be a conversation. Under such a scenario, that's it for humanity, period. With that much radiation in the atmosphere, the question is not whether, but when most people will die together with a dramatically altered existence for plant and animal life that do not align to human-made borders. Even the food we consume will be poisoned.
Even without the use of nuclear weapons, this war is creating stressors around the globe that are helpful to Putin's agenda. In the meantime, the soldiers, families and children victimized by Putin and his military suffer—with harmful spillover effects on families and communities everywhere.
It's unfortunate that the 20th century gave us the possibility of self-annihilation through nuclear weapons. In response, we as community workers, educators, and members of the clergy must continue to cultivate the kind of consciousness that makes this kind of thinking and decision-making impossible.
We must also rid ourselves as countries of such abominable weapons of mass destruction and develop alternative energy sources to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and petroleum production that are so harmful to the environment.
We need as humanity to be differently oriented to the Earth and to each other.
I love this proverb that expresses what I think and feel:
An Ancient Native American Proverb
Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.
Found on: http://www.sapphyr.net/natam/quotes-nativeamerican.htm
-Angela Valenzuela
Putin Believes He Will Win a War of Attrition
June 7, 2022
by Diane Ravitch
The Washington Post reports that Putin feels increasingly confident that he can win a long war of attrition in Ukraine because public opinion in the West will turn against support for Ukraine due to inflation and the high cost of gasoline. By contrast, he controls public opinion in Russia and continues to enjoy the economic security provided by oil and gas exports.
We can expect that Russian propaganda will exacerbate divisions in the U.S. and Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is digging in for a long war of attrition over Ukraine and will be relentless in trying to use economic weapons, such as a blockade of Ukrainian grain exports, to whittle away Western support for Kyiv, according to members of Russia’s economic elite.
The Kremlin has seized on recent signs of hesitancy by some European governments as an indication the West could lose focus in seeking to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially as global energy costs surge following the imposition of sanctions on Moscow.
Putin “believes the West will become exhausted,” said one well-connected Russian billionaire, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Putin had not expected the West’s initially strong and united response, “but now he is trying to reshape the situation and he believes that in the longer term he will win,” the billionaire said. Western leaders are vulnerable to election cycles, and “he believes public opinion can flip in one day.”
The embargo on Russia’s seaborne oil exports announced by the European Union this week — hailed by Charles Michel, president of the European Council, as putting maximum “pressure on Russia to end the war” — would “have little influence over the short term,” said one Russian official close to Moscow diplomatic circles, also speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “The Kremlin mood is that we can’t lose — no matter what the price…”
The populations of E.U. countries “are feeling the impact of these sanctions more than we are,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The West has made mistake after mistake, which has led to growing crises, and to say that this is all because of what is going on in Ukraine and what Putin is doing is incorrect.”
This posture suggests that the Kremlin believes it can outlast the West in weathering the impact of economic sanctions. Putin has little choice but to continue the war in hopes the Ukraine grain blockade will “lead to instability in the Middle East and provoke a new flood of refugees,” said Sergei Guriev, former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The Kremlin’s aggressive stance seems to reflect the thinking of Nikolai Patrushev, the hawkish head of Russia’s Security Council, who served with Putin in the Leningrad KGB and is increasingly seen as a hard-line ideologue driving Russia’s war in Ukraine. He is one of a handful of close security advisers believed by Moscow insiders to have access to Putin. In three vehemently anti-Western interviews given to Russian newspapers since the invasion, the previously publicity-shy Patrushev has declared Europe is on the brink of “a deep economic and political crisis” in which rising inflation and falling living standards were already impacting the mood of Europeans, while a fresh migrant crisis would create new security threats.
“The world is gradually falling into an unprecedented food crisis. Tens of millions of people in Africa or in the Middle East will turn out to be on the brink of starvation — because of the West. In order to survive, they will flee to Europe. I’m not sure Europe will survive the crisis,” Patrushev told Russian state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta in one of the interviews…
With risks growing for all sides, “it is going to be a war of attrition from the economic, political and moral point of view,” the Russian official said. “Everyone is waiting for autumn,” when the impact of sanctions will hit the hardest, he said.
So far, however, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimating Kyiv needs $7 billion in aid a month just to keep the country running, Putin appears to be betting on the West blinking first, the former U.S. government official said. Putin’s “goal of subjugating Ukraine and eventually placing a Russian flag in Kyiv has not changed.”
No comments:
Post a Comment