Blood and Honor

I read today that there’s an increasing gap between how Ukrainians think the war will end, and how the rest of the world does. It’s interesting because the Russians are infected with the same strange optimism as the Ukrainians. Both sides still believe that this war will be resolved on the battlefield, while the rest of the world believes it will end over conference tables and Zoom calls.

On the Russian side, it’s easy to see why there is still a fervent commitment to this war of aggression: too much blood and silver has been lost to justify a partial victory. The value of the territory taken pales in comparison to the cost the Russian state and people must bear for decades, in the form of sanctions and opportunity cost, due to Putin’s war of choice. Also, billions have dollars have been spent to change the “modern” Russian economy into a permanent war economy, with 10-year war-plans as the guiding principle. Unfortunately for lovers of peace and free trade, this means that not only does Russia have no incentive to stop its militarization and expansionist policies all over the world, it also means that stopping the war-machine will cripple the Russian financial system that has now been wedded completely to the military-industrial complex.

Putin is a believer in the old ways, and a preacher of the mythology of might is right.

He’s the kind of person who reads about Attila the Hun saying, “Where my horse has trodden, no grass grows,” and gets goosebumps.

As for Ukraine, people here are just not willing to accept that thousands upon thousands of their friends and family have died for basically nothing, after being given the first real chance to achieve vengeance against their oppressors in generations.

The deal to sell away territory was still on the table in the early days of the war, but Ukrainians unanimously and unambiguously rejected such proposals in favor of conflict to the bitter end. Even today, 71% of Ukrainians oppose territorial concessions. For Ukraine, this is a crusade: a moral war against the forces of evil that cannot be stopped until evil is defeated, no matter the cost.

Russians are no longer portrayed as human in the Ukrainian infosphere, but rather inhuman “orcs.”

While this label may be completely justified, given the inhuman atrocities committed casually by Russian soldiers, as well as an official policy of rape and genocide, a society that views its opponents as inhuman child-raping monsters is not going to be easy to reason with. This paradigm becomes particularly problematic because there is no possibility for peace until Russia is defeated, and no strategic endgame other than vague notions of outlasting the aggressor.

On the other side, most Westerners are still in absolute denial about both Russian and Ukrainian commitment to war. Their economic-rationalist-approach to conflict absolutely fails to penetrate the drives of this war, and the history and heritage of these two cultures that is soaked in righteous bloodshed and an Indo-European mythology of might is right.

There is still an implicit understanding on both sides that fallen soldiers go straight to heaven, and that death on the battlefield is the highest honor.

For people of this mindset, war is the purpose of life. And both of these peoples have been given their first righteous purpose in decades, a chance to right historical wrongs and redeem themselves and their society through blood and honor, faith and sacrifice.

Who are we to take that away from them?