Thanks for Markos, the Kos staff, and Kos community for all of your posts on Ukraine. They are frequently mesmerizing.
This post is a purely about my personal thoughts on the war, suffering, and personal action. It is also a bit about prediction and perspective. It is probably self-serving and is, no doubt, a ridiculous privilege.
For some personal background, I never served in the military though my father did (he rarely spoke about it). I analyze data for a living, and I have done so for many years. For the most part, I consider it a job I have been very fortunate to do. I've had the chance to help design and analyze clinical trials for novel therapies and life-saving products which feels valuable even if someone else could have done same job. Of course, when you are working on a product that is saving lives then survival is usually the primary measure of success in the study, so people are dying in those same studies. To the extent that I am supposed to be “professionally dispassionate”, it is good to be able to abstract that to a survival time or time to censoring in the analysis (e.g., someone did not die). However, each of those deaths happened to a family and, perhaps, after great suffering. Since I'm not that young, I've been around long enough to experience the aftermath of loss and see what it is to deal with disability.
Fully leaning in into or completely imagining the suffering is Ukraine is likely beyond my capacity. That is not because I think I am an unsympathetic person or I have not experienced loss, but because the scale is beyond my personal suffering. Many peaceful people were living their lives and their homes have been destroyed, their families lost, or their bodies torn apart. Even if I have on a one-off basis suffered some things worse than some individuals there, the war compounds that suffering a hundred thousand or million times. There is no way that any one individual can help all of those people or make it right. The only path out of the war inherently involves the joint action of many nations and the willingness of many people to help others. Even that cannot erase the bad, but it can stop the bleeding and bind the wounds, so the survivors at some point can begin to heal. This basic fact justifies the need for government and society - so long as it serves the will of the people. (Sorry GOP and Ronald Reagan, government is not the problem, just how you want to use it).
This is not to be pollyannish about my own emotional involvement in the war in Ukraine, Russia already did the same stuff in Chechnya and Syria. China continues its persecution of minorities. US history involves slavery and wars on Native Americans. Horrible stuff will happen after Ukraine. We just feel closer to Ukraine because of smartphones and the internet. Of course, I have to also mention being exposed to their amazing courage, the civility of their population under duress, and battlefield ingenuity probably makes most people a supporter, especially in the face Putin's evilness.
Stepping back to a less personal place, I do understand something about process and large numbers. I am not an epidemiologist but take a new COVID variant and stir in holiday travel over Thanksgiving and Christmas travel; and, of course, you will have a wave. Do not bother to quibble with me about the effectiveness of social distancing and masking when hospitalizations and per capita death rates told us the story. Science and statistics were the grim bearers of the truth.
In Ukraine, Russia has ground to a stop for now. The West is imposing a recession or worse likely to affect most Russians for a long time to come. War is extremely expensive. Russian has objectively suffered losses of equipment, deaths, and wounded. So, even without the details for the battles and individual stories of heroism, Russia will be set back for years. Russia is already diminished and will be for some time going forward. I would not venture to even guess the endgame in Ukraine, but the Putin has taken his country backwards and time will just make that more and more obvious.
The question is about Ukraine itself. We have all witnessed the damage and suffering; it is real and horrific. What seems true is that Russia can continue with impunity to launch attacks from within Russia into Ukraine or bombard them from the sea until they just run out of bombs. It does not really have to be chemical or nuclear ever unless they just run out of those munitions or can no longer deliver them. At this point I feel safer trusting people who have studied and been trained to make the right decisions about what to do. Even though I can be reasonably dispassionate about the work I do, I am sick of watching evil people do evil things. I do not feel that qualified to opine about what we should do to help Ukraine when there are experts that know more than me. Except, we should be helping Ukraine as much as we can because this is an immoral and unjust war being prosecuted by Russia that is consciously targeting civilians. (Please spare me the “he could be killing even more civilians” logic).
I am not sure if this post even has an inherent message, except that I have never fully resolved the balance between seeing suffering and knowing what to do about it. It is very easy when it is right next to you to take action, but it gets harder and harder as it moves away, even we know it is very real and horrible.
I would love to hear about the good things you are doing and good things that other people can do to help. One thing I do know is that helping others does make the world a better place and is good for the soul.