We keep returning to unfinished work. Perhaps with little new to say. Our education taught us that we could, and should, wrap our minds around all near and distant events. Our experience should have taught us the futility of such certainties.
So, in step with the cable news channels, we return again and again to the war in Ukraine. I was in a zoom session this week with college friends. I learned a lot, but as with all true learning was left with further questions.
One question perhaps for this blog. Does the possession of territory really matter as much as we think. Does the wellbeing, the economic opportunities, the good life of someone living in one part of Ukraine depend upon who controls another part? Some areas of a state are blessed with greater natural resources. They contribute to national wealth, that may, and only may, be converted into public works and public goods. But isn’t it the know-how and the energy of people who live in one place the overriding factor in quality of life and prosperity?
As transportation, communication, ideas and technologies interweave us more closely together, over long distances and with different cultures, we benefit from the resources and the enterprise of our “neighbors” whether or not they are bound to us by a common government.
Does nationalism mislead us when it comes to mutual prosperity? Trade in product, in service, in ideas, in hope. Or say exchange, as “trade” seems to imply a win/lose dynamic, a nationalist nuance.
And war to hold or gain territory? The price, if measured in lives, is beyond reckoning.
I suspect that part of the problem of who "controls" what territory is being played out before our eyes. Putin and his siloviki are wealth extractors. His Russia is less efficient at developing wealth in the regions under it's control than many other countries, not because it lacks resources, but because it's a capitalist system without private companies.
While globalism certainly has the potential to spread wealth around, it does matter who holds a particular territory. Ukraine as the breadbasket of Europe was starved by Stalin, no matter its fertile soil and competent farmers. Natural wealth didn't help it avoid the effects of a dictatorial government. Ukraine today - well, 3 months ago - had come out from years of cronyism and corruption into a decent government with Zelensky. If Putin manages to win and hold any territory, that space will again be under a kleptocracy, to no benefit for the inhabitants.