The Malleable Moment: Ukraine, The Brink of War, and the World of Tomorrow
The crisis in Ukraine is a chance to recognize we've been lied to and that a better world is possible. The choice is ours to make.
For weeks now the tension has been mounting. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has staged over a hundred thousand troops and an invading force around the country of Ukraine, leading to a crisis of organization and economics among the world’s leading nations. For a brief moment, it seemed as if maybe Putin had been bluffing or decided against action, but it proved yet another feint. Today, there seems a consensus that war is inevitable. It is a shocking state of affairs because have been told repeatedly that our system and modern world would prevent this. And yet, it is incredibly unsurprising because that was a fantasy all along.
What we are experiencing now is a moment of malleability, meaning that our rigid structures are in a moment of flux. The crushing weight we feel is from a long-running order that, by design, tells us that things are incapable of changing and that we are living in the End of History. The truth is that any system capable of maintaining itself relies on this feeling, this sense of intractable perpetuity. The neoliberal global order was meant to create an equilibrium wherein markets and the wealthy could have their way while democracy, mass politics, and political turbulence were kept at bay. It was intended to last forever, but capitalism is undammable and always finds a way to move and change and destroy and rebuild.
If this conflict is inevitable, and hopefully it isn’t, the question is what comes next. We have been prepared for so long not to expect changes or fluctuations. The very idea of change now feels like nothing short of an apocalypse. To look at the world stage, with Russia and its interlocking allies and conspirators, it’s obvious that everything was setting up for this. That some massive and tragic war was laughably obvious. This is how history works. Prior to World War I, the European order, with its reactionary, conservative architects, believed it had created a system that would last forever and never be challenged. All it took was one power to act upon history and try and change that system. What emerged was apocalyptic violence, two world wars, and some of the most tragic cruelty in the history of humankind.
In the United States, there’s reason to worry. The Right Wing has meticulously peddled Putinist ideology and authoritarianism for years, creating a movement that is obsessed with ending liberal democracy forever. Ideologues like Steve Bannon have conspired with traditionalists around the world, including his Russian counterpart Aleksandr Dugin, in attempting to realize this new plan. An invasion of Ukraine, the severing of Western alliances like NATO, and a full-on challenge of the struggling American hegemony, have always been parts of the discussions. Because liberals in media and politics continue to deny this threat, as well as the authoritarian machinations of libertarian billionaires who are taking over our government, these forces have an incredible head-start for what is to come.
Because liberals in media and politics continue to deny this threat…these forces have an incredible head-start for what is to come
When viewed like this, things feel once more intractable. It seems fated that American liberal democracy and liberal democracy around the world will fall and reactionary oppression will undoubtedly replace it. Technofeudalism or technofascism, both ascending and becoming more and more undeniable, feel inescapable. But that is merely an illusion. As previously stated, systems depend on the veneer of inevitability and invincibility. The malleability is key because, as those narratives and stories grow more and more fragile, new alternatives begin to take shape.
There are dangers ahead. Make no mistake. The Right Wing/GOP preparation of antidemocratic sentiment could represent something resembling a fifth column within the United States. Allies around the world will have to decide whether to stand against aggression or throw in their lot with the economics of despotism. There’s a real chance those allies, so carefully constructed, will fall in line and we could see a mass run on resources and territory that has been, so far, held at bay by the neoliberal global order. But there are other possibilities.
When we are convinced that nothing could ever change, that to even consider something different is tantamount to armageddon, imagination and innovation suffer. That is where we are now. Stagnant. Decaying. The order relied on this feeling to exist, but it has always been an illusion. Knowing now that peace and stability were simply lies waiting to be exposed, it’s time to think beyond that paradigm.
What is possible?
What could be built?
Now that we know these were false premises, it’s time to imagine alternatives. It’s time to realize the world can actually change. And until we realize that, until we truly and honestly come to those terms, change will remain impossible.
Very good, provocative piece. I think what is missing here and what we need is extensive analysis of where are the vulnerabilities of the authoritarian model, and especially this version of it. We now know a whole lot about the vulnerabilities of the democratic model. The alternative futures we might imagine must come from strategies derived from both of these analyses.
In the meantime, democratic forces basically have to push back much harder than they have for decades. In a world that is now in flux in the ways so aptly described here, the power, and indeed the existence, of democracies are being challenged. The Democratic-inclined must assert their power financially, legally, in law enforcement, and militarily. The US and allies have extraordinary resources to deploy in this conflictual period. They must use them such that they get everyone’s undivided attention, and then they must assert and enforce a critical threshold of order — and then lead the way into some revised and new forms of democracy-enhancing socio-political norms and practices.
Make no mistake, democracies must take and maintain a firm, unyielding, and, where necessary, pain-inducing grip on forces that threaten us, both internally and externally: Firm and unyielding in deploying and strengthening guarantees of liberty, equality, and justice that address key failings and stir the hearts of The People to maintain and demand comity. But also, as in all wars, whether kinetic or political, there must be pain inflicted in deterring or stopping forces of mayhem and autocracy. We already know well that, once organized and unleashed, they can only be defeated through confrontation and the anticipation or infliction of unavoidable painful consequences for their actions.
After years of being blindered to and in many ways complicit in the rise of anti-democratic forces, we are now charged with, and are responsible for, resisting and then defeating them. This is not a mandate that any of us wished for or expected, but it is what it is and we must all now do what’s necessary to maintain the democratic project.