RUSSIA and the United States are reported to be nearing a peace agreement with regard to Ukraine, though nothing is certain yet.
Rumors hint that Putin wants East Ukraine, or at least those parts that the Russian army has conquered.
This isn’t the first time this has happened in the 21st century. Borders have changed before, but these changes have been small, anomalies to be ignored.
But if Putin gets his way, this will be a tremendous moment. Ordinary people will not be able to shrug and ignore its implication for their own lives.
That implication is that borders can change, and if they can change in one country, they can change elsewhere.
For a long time, there has been an implicit acceptance that borders should not change because of conquest or war. Those things should have ended in the fires of the second World War. Asia and the West know the devastation of such wars.
And yet here we are. Russia taking a chunk out of Ukraine reminds us that borders and sovereignty are not free, that they must be fought for, in order to retain.
But more than it presents us with a more important but difficult lesson: In geopolitics, there is no good and evil.
The reason why a lot of people are so anxious about the Russian and Ukrainian War is that it touches on the moral sensibilities that Russia is evil and Ukraine and its supporters are good.
The thing is: Russia and its supporters (BRICS-aligned groups) think the same: They are the good guys and Ukraine is a puppet of the West. So who is right and who is wrong?
That question is irrelevant. The real question in geostrategy is, what will it take for you to win?
For some, this is a bitter thing to consider, but history shows that moralizing only leads to catastrophes./PN
