When the dust settles in Ukraine
Zelenskiiy, the Ukrainian government, and the Ukrainian military have said from the day the Russian invasion began, that it will be over when every bit of Ukrainian territory is free of Russian control. Some, even knowledgeable political and military analysts, assumed that was a negotiating tactic, propaganda for domestic morale, etc., and that ultimately Ukraine and Russia would negotiate an end to hostilities that would leave Russia in control of some part of Ukraine.
It now seems more likely that a) It will be over when every bit of Ukrainian territory is free of Russian control; and b) that may happen a lot sooner than the knowledgeable military and global geopolitical analysts imagined it could be accomplished.
Slava Ukraini, indeed.
So the world better begin planning now, for the aftermath of this war.
The rebuilding of Ukraine is the most obvious challenge. They have been literally bombed back to the Stone Age in large parts of their Eastern territory. Population has been massively displaced, almost all resources will be depleted, agricultural production capacity substantially diminished, infrastructure destroyed and/or seriously degraded, and economic and social capabilities across all sectors significantly reduced.
The Ukraine government, to the extent it can spare capacity right now to think and plan ahead for the massive rebuilding that will be required, has signaled a desire to reconstruct as a "green state" - implementing environmental reconstruction and building stewardship and sustainability into everything from infrastructure to economic development. This is an important goal, but without support from the rest of the world its achievement could be delayed or even denied in some respects.
Those parts of the world that value principles of human progress, civilization, and cooperative/collaborative models of geopolitical interaction have promised help to Ukraine, and that's wonderful. However, as anyone who's ever run a disaster reconstruction effort knows, there's meaningful assistance with regard to the needs, situation and future well-being and sustainability of what's under reconstruction, and then there's truckloads of surplus and unwanted junk landing on top of you, messing up your logistics and requiring a lot of insincere thanks and appreciation for the donors' noble sacrifices.
If we want Ukraine to become an anchor for positive progress in a key region, we need to be prepared with the first kind of help, and very generously. And while it may look like an expensive and possibly risky investment, it will pay off much bigger in the long term. If Ukraine is able to develop and pilot new technologies that the rest of the world can build on as we all address climate change together, it'll be a win-all-around.
Then there's the other challenge: Post-Putin Russia
It's just a guess, but an additional agenda for Bill Richardson's recent very low-key diplomatic visit to Moscow was as much to scope out the potential players in a post-Putin Russia as to negotiate specific hostage resolutions. As a good many analysts have pointed out, the Putin-precipitated collapse of Russia into a mid-tier nation in global power and influence still leaves them with "spoiler" capability in the form of their enormous nuclear arsenal, U.N. veto, and positional value as a client state and resource pipeline for China.
And that's just how they'll end up, if whatever leadership remains in Russia continues to be oriented toward a kleptocratic oligarchy. It's an Awful Warning of what happens when a nation's leadership values kleptocracy, via strongman autocracy, direct oligarchy, or a weak autocrat fronting for an oligarchy. Russia should be making every kleptocracy-enabling nation with any remnant of a broader self-governance structure seriously rethink the risks and costs of their downhill slides, based on that vivid, technicolor Object Lesson.
Whether any kind of assistance could help Russia pull back from its own depths of kleptocratic degradation and reshape itself with a government focused on building a functional, broad-based economy with broadly-distributed benefits and a robust middle class, I don't know. They're pretty far gone. Stubbornness and resilience cut both ways, in pushing through or avoiding difficult change.
I think it's worth a try. In low-key ways. There may be cracks in the facade that honest, well-crafted offers of assistance might hammer some wedges into. If any leadership remains with the potential to work toward a vision of a genuinely strong Russia with a broadly-based, sustainable economy producing population-wide benefits and building increasingly-robust self-governance into their future, we should be finding them and providing them with some help.
None of this will be easy.
But it's essential, if we want to keep this planet habitable for our grandchildren.
presciently,
Bright
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