There is good news from Ukraine. The Ukrainian resistance has been quite effective in putting a damper on Russia's advances. What some would have thought might be a David and Goliath matchup, has turned into a stalemate of sorts and that is good news for Ukraine, Europe, and the world.
There is another piece of good news regarding Russia's invasion of the Ukraine. It seems that Putin is backing off his implied threat to use nuclear weapons over his invasion of the Ukraine. Putin's stated policy now is that he would only consider using nuclear weapons if Russia's existence were threatened. Of course, we might caution against celebrating too early here because at least some of the economic sanctions being employed by the West, especially by the U.S., could eventually be seen as threatening Russia's existence.
The above is the good news, there is bad news as well. The bad news is not news, but it is bad. This non-news is that Putin still hangs on to the sense of entitlement that gave him permission to invade Ukraine. That is right, he felt entitled to direct Russian forces to invade and conquer Ukraine. And therefore, not only will this invasion continue until it is considered no longer feasible to do so, future invasions by Russia into other European nations could be on the table.
Of course, Russia is not the only 21st century nations that feels entitled to try to seize control of land that belongs to others. The U.S. invaded Iraq under false pretenses and Israel continues to take land away from the Palestinian people.
So just perhaps the worst cases of feeling entitled to take what is not theirs doesn't have to do with either the poor acquiring material wealth or the incompetent being protected at the work place. Rather, the worst case examples of any entitlement culture involves the leaders of one nation using force to take what they claim is rightfully theirs from other people. Of course, when conservative sources complain about an entitlement culture, they are referring to the business world either in terms of employees or the market place. That is what conservatives target when complaining about any supposed entitlement culture. Thus, conservatives, more often than not, are complaining about either the poor or those who struggle at the workplace.
It's not that conservatives either don't care or believe it is ok when a leader of one nation feels entitled to attack another nation or group of people. They just never seem to describe the aggressor in terms of feeling entitled to take what is not theirs. And that might be because conservatives tend to favor authoritarianism and thus tribal loyalties might cause them to either be blind to or rationalize a favored leader's feeling entitle to take land or wealth from another nation. And thus conservative analysis of a given war tend to be based on those tribal loyalties rather than to focus on delusions of entitlement by an authoritarian leader like Putin.
The biggest problem that occurs when one leader feels entitled to direct their military forces to attack another nation is this: losing battles and the war they started will seem unfair to them. Why? It is because they attacked a nation or group of people because they felt entitled to. Thus losing a given war or even battle only serves to make these aggressive leaders angry because they feel cheated. And the anger that results from feeling cheated only prolongs the wars they started. It can also cause them to take out their frustrations on the the victims of their attacks.
Putin's reasons for feeling entitled to invade the Ukraine are varied from historical, ethnic, and religious reasons. In that sense, there are some similarities between what makes Putin feel justified in attacking the Ukraine and what enables Israel's leaders to continue with the Occupation and the confiscation of Palestinian land. For the U.S., what makes us feel justified in invading any nation are our delusions of moral superiority. We presumptuously assume the right to be the judge, jury, and executioner of international law But that often results in us turning a blind eye at the actual violations of international law carried out by allies while we do not allow for any international due process when accusing enemies of violating those same international laws.
So that is what we currently have in the Ukraine. We have a Russian leader who feels that the Ukraine rightfully belongs to Russia. And Putin believes that regardless of the loyalties of the Ukrainian people, he has the right to invade and conquer them. So he will have his military vent his anger for him at those who most effectively resist his advances until the war is no longer feasible to fight. And he will feel morally justified in doing so. And that is what we are witnessing in Russia's invasion of the Ukraine.
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