The effects of the Vietnam War have long died off here in America. They were vanquished by the Reagan Administration's decision to speak and act with bravado. And that means that we, as the greatest nation ever on earth, can no longer face our mental and moral failures. And so we invaded Grenada, used terrorism to disrupt a new democracy in Nicaragua which came courtesy of the Sandinistas' overthrow of the US backed Somoza regime, and trained military and paramilitary forces in the use of torture to support an authoritarian regime in El Salvador. In fact, that last involvement helped start the creation of the MS-13 gang. Reagan gladly fed our nation's hunger for patriotic pride with his Cold War tirade against the Soviet Union which was tempered a bit when he dealt with Gorbachev.
So what were the effects of the Vietnam War on the nation? According to Chris Hedges in his brilliant lecture entitled, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning (click here for a video of the lecture), our venture in Vietnam 'humiliated' us because it forced us to look into a non-patriotic, non-magic mirror to get a true look at who we were. For we had committed many atrocities in Vietnam in an effort to stop the nation's reunification and instead supported tyrants and proxy leaders. And so our intervention into Vietnam carried with it the potential to help us mature as a nation by forcing us to see our nation's need for self-control. But, again, the Reagan, and even the Bush I, Administrations wanted America to feel about itself like it did before that war.
So now we have Russia led by the tyrant Vladimir Putin. Some of the atrocities directed by his leadership are documented in the works of Anna Politkovskaya as she wrote about what she witnessed in Chechnya. It is, perhaps deservedly, suspected that Putin directed the attacks and assassination of some of his political rivals as well as critics, critics like Politkovskaya who was gunned down.
We could also point out that despite the elections in Russia, there is no real democracy there because Putin controls what candidates and political parties can participate in elections.
And now Putin has unwarrantedly directed Russian forces to invade Ukraine hinting that the nations that would help Ukraine resist the invasion faced possible retaliation with nuclear weapons. Since then, Putin has cooled down his nuclear rhetoric, but the unwarranted invasion of Ukraine and the atrocities that have come with it continue.
So now, Russia has been flailing in Ukraine. And if the invasion and subsequent moving of the goal posts continue to falter, Russia will have a choice. Either it can seek to overcompensate for its humiliation by eventually attacking a far weaker nation than Ukraine, or it can face not just its military failure there, but it moral and intellectual failures that have justified the invasion and its accompanying atrocities.
Which road will Russia choose to travel on? Nobody knows. While it already depends on the final outcome of its war against Ukraine, it might also depend on who follows Putin as the leader of Russia. However, there are steps that the West can take to help achieve the best possible outcome. The first step is to respect Russia's history. Here I am not referring to Russia's history of atrocities, but its history of being invaded. And the best way to respect that history is to neither move NATO eastward nor put advanced weaponry and other strategic technology near Russia's borders.
This invasion of Ukraine has already shown that its military is not able to cleaning pull of a simple invasion of a and advanced nation. Russia is not militarily ready to become the center of world power that it is rumored to desire. We can thank technology for that. Advancing technology gives the underdog nations certain advantages in fending of tyrannical rule--such as the kind of rule Putin has over Russia.
By respecting Russia's history of being invaded, we give any future Russian leaders less reason to be so defensive that it acts offensively against its neighbors.
The second thing that can be done is to have the leading powers in the world, such as the US, follow the rule of law rather than the rule of force. An example of following the rule of force would the US invasion of Iraq. There are many interventions, invasions, and wars that the US has conducted that illustrate a complete lack of concern for the rule of law. So, in other words, wannabe superpowers need role model superpower nation that exercise self-restraint by following international law in its foreign policies.
Hopefully, Russia loses its war against Ukraine. And if they do, hopefully the post invasion time will see Russia's leadership reflects over their aggression and atrocities so that, for at least a little while, Russia changes course with both its foreign policies and its treatment of its own citizens. Hopefully, Russian leadership will see their own moral failures and seek to correct them. We did that for a while after Vietnam, hopefully Russia reflects on the error of its ways for longer than we did.
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