Tag: Geopolitics

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Communication

Unboxing President Putin: the Emerging Details of Ukraine’s Invasion

Courtesy image: “I am on my way to help Ukraine”

In President Putin’s actions this week, it is either that humanity is regressing or he is a specimen out of World War I and II time-space.

The President must have been disappointed by the response he got from his adversaries when he attacked Ukraine this week.

Clearly, Ukraine was just an excuse for a greater war project. The President is not even able to justify his surprise attack.

The President must have prepared for an all-out global war. If it were not, we would not be talking of Ukrainian civilians taking up arms to defend their government; they would have been whipped to submission in a matter of hours.

The President, assuming he is the one encapsulated in World War time-space, will likely find out that humanity has made leaps on all fronts.

Whereas the President would believe that he is a liberator, all global – political, economic, and social -indices indicate otherwise.

At home, Russia’s enterprises, given the global political ramifications of the President’s actions, are likely to find it hard to compete.

At the global scene, given the interconnectedness, the President will likely face public backlash. His legacy will be irreparably tainted.

Mr. President, FYI, the evolved humanity, as demonstrated by the pandemic experience, has an inbuilt demand for accountability and is global in span.

It would be difficult, even for the President’s traditional supporters, to support him this time.

The President’s curriculum vitae, especially his achievements in the KGB, are impressive.

His story, however, appears to be that of a person stuck in time and space.

Is it not amazing how, for example, people get stuck in the good old days to the exclusion of the glorious present or the hope of tomorrow?

Apparently, President Putin is attempting to relive the good old days in a fast-evolving global village.

Can mental illness affect a powerful President? During the reign of President Donald Trump, this issue was widely discussed. The answer is yes because presidents are human.

Narcissism, for example, an apparently harmless condition in which an individual thinks highly of himself to the exclusion of others, ends up hurting many people – family, friends, and associates – who transact with the victim.

A narcissist may, for example, be convinced of a call to liberate others from all sorts of real or perceived threats.

In President Donald Trump’s case, for example, some believed that his ego needed too much pampering for a person of his stature.

In the case of President Putin, the fear is that he believes that he is responsible for the fall of the greater Russia.

The President has not, apparently, forgiven himself for not preventing the fall of the USSR. Russians could probably love him for that. The world has, however, moved.

Whereas open system societies have mechanisms of checking leaders with extreme views, Russia, under President Putin, is not as open.

President Putin’s Russia criteria for selecting friends are, furthermore, unclear.

The President has, however, shunned relations with the West, preferring to retain much of the cold war rhetoric.

Putin’s African friends – themselves grappling with myriads of social, economic, and political challenges – will find it hard to support Putin’s priorities at a time when the pandemic is easing.

Supporting the Ukrainian people is the best that the world can do. It is said that the way a society treats its most vulnerable people demonstrates the kind of a society it is.

Categories
Communication

Afghanistan is Neither the First Nor, Unfortunately, the Last: Meditations on Global Geopolitical and Cultural Dynamics.

https://www.google.com

There is no way the global powers are convincing anyone that there is nothing to show after twenty years of ‘hard work’ in Afghanistan. Capitalism is designed in such a way that it contains an inbuilt almost singular focus on the concept of return on investment (ROI). The almost casual manner in which the effort put on Afghanistan was folded is suspect.

The last war-inspired plane to depart Kabul airport was celebrated as a mark of the end of a decades-long war. What has missed the global citizenry is where the spoils of the war could be. Although the initial entry into Afghanistan was inspired by the events of 9/11 nothing is being said whether the objectives have been achieved.

Parallels have, however, been drawn of similar historical processes and events, involving the same players that suffered the same demise. Somalia and COVID 19, for example, come to mind because they are ‘active’ but before there was HIV/ Aids, Vietnam, the creation of colonies, world wars, and so on. It is in fact possible to predict with certainty the pattern of global conflict.

The debate on the effectiveness and efficiency of the global approach to COVID 19 is, for example, a subject of concern. The vaccine has become a geopolitical issue with skeptics succeeding in sowing seeds of discord and apprehension. Some of the issues raised – like how do you vaccinate your way out of a viral Flu – are seemingly credible when you consider the inability to eliminate the common flu similarly.

The driving force of these global processes and events has been crowded by an ideological war. The most obvious dichotomy is Marxist in nature pitting the capitalists and the communists represented by the USA and China respectively. The capitalists’ orientation, unlike the collective nature of communism, is individualistic. Interestingly, the USA and China are locked in a debate about the origin of COVID-19.

The individualistic nature of western leaning cultures places greater emphasis on domination and control of resources. No wonder that it is difficult to believe that America and its allies have nothing to show to their taxpayers after spending a fortune in Afghanistan. Are the taxpayers safer than they were before the excursion? Similarly, are the vaccines going to be the panacea for COVID 19? No?

The answer is neither no, nor communism the way out, because past trends have proven so. In any case, nothing has been done differently this time around. However, it is possible to draw some obvious conclusions: one, winning and losing in global conflicts, like any confrontation, are not mutually exclusive outcomes. In other words, both parties win and lose at the same time.

Secondly, investing in the critical mass of people has the greatest potential to solve global conflicts. However, the critical mass offers the least initial ROI in the bank balance and is therefore unattractive. From this perspective, the Afghanistan case could have depleted the cash reserves of America and its allies but could have resulted in enhanced and beneficial social capital in Afghanistan.