I’m not on Russian or Ukrainian soil, but even all the way here in the US I feel the land boiling. Like a heating up prior to a lava explosion, there’s the prelude to war that is felt.
Putin consistently says he doesn’t want all out war with Ukraine, yet our Western media just as consistently paint a picture of imminent disaster. The current administration recently declared all Americans must depart Ukraine within a 24-48 hour period. There’s an anxious sense of, war awaits. It could be a matter of days. Maybe, hours.
After witnessing the shockingly swift Afghanistan takeover by the Taliban, still fresh in our memory, there’s this sense of everyone sitting at the edge of their seats, as though the scenario can repeat itself, just this time with the city of Kiev being taken in lightening speed.
We are all tracking the troops’ movements. Moving in. Moving out. Will there be an invasion? Will there not?
Putin took Crimea, which Russia had long considered her own. Also, considering Crimea’s naval base, one can rationally see a strategic motivation for Russia taking Crimea.
Ukraine? I’m not sure how invading Ukraine would benefit Russia. I’ll leave that to the experts. What is clear, though, is that Putin has said he doesn’t want Ukraine to be part of NATO, since that would undermine Russian security interests. All these Russian troops on Ukraine’s border might be posturing, simply to increase his leverage in keeping Ukraine out of NATO.
No one knows for sure. I certainly don’t.
But this whole atmosphere — we’re facing a war — makes one pause and wonder. We pray this time will turn out to be along the lines of parabellum as in the Latin phrase of “si vis pacem, para bellum, if you want peace, then prepare for war.”
How many times were wars prepared for, that never came to be? Conversely, how many wars whose origin date we know exactly — for example, WW II, Sept. 1, 1939, do not tell us anything about the mounting tensions and collapse of life as it was known in the period leading up to the war?
People are anxious from the news, but it can’t compare to the situation of the people residing in a country where you the ominous threat of war closing in on you, with thundering skies of airplane drills above.
I shall never forget those crucial Jerusalem days of Rosh Hashanah and the Ten Days of Repentance that followed, that fateful year 2000, when the second intifada broke out. Like then, there is now a sense that we are on the brink of something. The bloody intifada lasted five years.
I hope this pre-war possibility in the air will pass us by, and will in fact turn out to be one of those pre-war times after which the war never came to be.
Sounding alarms of war is no simple matter. Is the US posturing, mirroring the possible posturing of Putin?
All I know is, we are still reeling from and dealing with the aftermath of the stunning takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. I hope war with Ukraine is kept at bay, with, if not peace, at least a state of tense non-conflict.
Putin wants to ensure that Ukraine is not part of NATO. Perhaps here lies a possible solution to the threat of impending war. Does NATO really need Ukraine?
Let these weeks turn out to be a time when there was preparation for war, yet ultimately, for a war that never came to pass.
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