James M. Redwine

War

Shanghaied

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On February 04, 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin, on an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping, attended the China Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. Twenty days later Russia invaded Ukraine. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, in response to an invitation, visited Taiwan over China’s objections on August 2, 2022 and China immediately responded with massive military maneuvers around Taiwan.

Russia has now been at war with Ukraine for over six months. Ukraine has been supplied with many billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware by America before and during the war. Taiwan has recently received a pledge of over one billion dollars’ worth of military aid from the U.S. The U.S. has long supported Taiwan’s independence from China which claims Taiwan as part of China.

Russia and China share some common borders on the eastern and western edges of both countries and share one main nemesis, America. On September 15 and 16, 2022 Xi and Putin will meet face to face at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The United States is not invited.

It is possible Russia and China just want to confer on the relative merits of their national ballet companies and the ten billion cubic meters of national gas Putin promised to Xi in their February meeting. Or perhaps Putin and Xi want to compare notes on how each can continue in power beyond the traditional terms of prior Chinese and Russian presidents.

On the other hand, I suggest the two leaders may be getting together to discuss their largest common problem, us. Not much information was released from their conference in Beijing in February and almost no advanced agenda has been published for their Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit. My suspicion is the name “Shanghai” was not chosen idly. It may be that China is reminding the United States of the practice of tricking or forcing sailors to serve on merchant ships sailing to Shanghai in the 1800’s as was often done by American, British and French merchants. Perhaps it is meant as an otherwise inscrutable warning to America to butt out of Ukraine and Taiwan.

As for me, I think Pelosi or anyone else ought to have the right to visit Taiwan and, I think, Ukraine’s territorial integrity should be respected. Of course, I find it difficult to analyze the motivations of China, Russia or even my own country when it comes to engagement in foreign wars unless one is attacked. It seems to me our Constitution’s provision for military defense, not offense, makes sense. But then I am not in charge of our foreign policy. If I had been, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan might have unfolded differently and maybe Ukraine and Taiwan too. Those are matters our elected leaders are much more informed upon, I hope.

The Briar Patch

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Joel Chandler Harris, AKA Joe Harris (1848-1908), was born in the state of Georgia before the Civil War and worked on a slave-holding plantation as a teenager. After the war he became an associate editor at The Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Harris had lived and worked around the evils of slavery and he had absorbed the folk wisdom of slaves who were prohibited by law from formal education. Harris created his fictional writings using Uncle Remus as a wise and shrewd observer of human nature hidden within animal behavior.

Harris intended his writings as compliments to the ability of Uncle Remus to explain human foibles by giving animals human failings such as arrogance. In the story of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox contained in Harris’ Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the meanness of the Fox is used by the Rabbit to escape by getting the Fox to “punish” the Rabbit by throwing him into a briar patch. Of course, that is exactly what the Rabbit really wanted.

Unfortunately, due to our current misguided wokeness in many areas, the slave dialect used by Harris now interferes with the appreciation of the literature of The Song of the South and a great number of those pro-African American folk tales are no longer read. However, for those of us whose time of birth helped us escape the ravages of the current misguided ignorance in the area of children’s literature, Uncle Remus is still imparting wisdom, such as enjoying a proverbial briar patch. Or in my case, Peg’s banishment of me to the solitude of our bunkhouse when I got COVID and Peg did not.

At first, I was offended when Peg handed me my toothbrush and a set of clean underwear and locked our cabin door behind me after she forcefully shut it. It was not that I wanted Peg to share in my experience of a sore throat, lethargy and endless amounts of crud being expelled from my body. It was more the feeling that a one-person leper colony was a rather lonely possibility, plus I really missed my favorite recliner and ready access to the refrigerator. Oh, and Peg too, of course.

Be that as it may, Peg sentenced me to two weeks of quarantine with the same lack of ceremony she would have exhibited if a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman had appeared with a sample case. You remember encyclopedias don’t you, Gentle Reader? You know, those things with pages, tables of contents and indexes that went the way of the dodo bird after Google came along. Well, that may call for a different column.

Anyway, here I am alone with the piles of books I never read, the piano I used to play and old photographs of friends and relatives I barely recognize. I have been rummaging through boxes and drawers filled with the most interesting stuff not seen by me since high school. What a strange looking dude I was with dark colored hair and a discernible jaw line. Who was that and who are those undecipherable young people around him wearing weird clothes?

Say, Peg, what is this thing that says Maytag on it? Is this where my clean clothes came from? It must be a miracle machine. How does it operate? By the way, there is no stove out here and after several days of eating the leftovers you sent with me, I am ready for some real food.

By the way, I have done my Paxlovid and am pretty sure I am not Typhoid Mary anymore. On the other hand, the bunkhouse refrigerator is stocked with leftover beer from our Fourth of July Family Reunion and the TV is constantly tuned to Gunsmoke reruns. The bunkhouse is the answer to every boy’s escape from his mother and every husband’s escape from constant inspection by his wife.

Clothes are in a pile where I take them off. The bed never has to be made to drill sergeant standards and every door knob and chair back is a hanger. But the most serendipitous of all? Peg is afraid to step foot in my little slice of heaven. I may claim to be eternally toxic. Bring on that Briar Patch!

D-Day

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“Throughout the 200-year history of the United States the American nation has been at war.” That was how author William Koenig led into his 1980 book, Americans at War. Although ostensibly a study of American warfare from about 1775 at Lexington and Concord to 1975, the end of the Viet Nam War, Koenig actually starts with the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620 and Native Americans meeting the ship. Had he waited until today to publish he could have included another fifty years of Americans at war, right up to Ukraine.

In general, we Americans view our involvement in foreign wars, that is, non-Native American warfare, as justified by the belligerence of others who have forced us reluctantly into “making the world safe for democracy.” The beginning of our provision of armaments, intelligence and training to Ukraine dates back to soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the “breakup” of the Soviet Union. The current U.S. commitment of over 50 billion dollars is only a fraction of our huge military and economic support for Ukraine over many years. Russia has often taken note.

George Soros, the Hungarian born American billionaire, stated on May 24, 2022 that the Russia-Ukraine war may be the start of World War III and result in the end of human civilization. Such doomsday statements are not a new phenomenon. Ever since the days of The Flood people have warned that human behavior, usually by someone other than the Jeremiad of the moment, was going to lead to the end of the world. They mean the end of homo sapiens’ short 200,000-year reign on our 4.5-billion-year-old planet. Earth will survive, but without us.

I have no estimate how many predictions of mankind’s demise have been made from the time of our common really great-grandmother, Lucy, in Africa until 1945. Until America came up with and used the atom bomb, the philosophers who had previously cried wolf were doing just that. However, now with numerous countries possessing nuclear weapons and itching to use them, we may have finally made honest men out of Noah and all the other survivalists. I am not going to address climate change and pollution as doomsday machines as I only have about three pages of print available. I will stick with nuclear war in this column.

With nuclear powers, such as Russia, North Korea, China, America and Israel all claiming they fear for their survival, I am reminded of my onetime acquaintance who told me in 1973 that if Egypt were about to destroy Israel that Israel would be justified in destroying the whole world to avenge itself. Fortunately, he was not an Israeli and Egypt stood down. I do wonder if Putin might feel so threatened he would believe Russia would be justified in starting the nuclear daisy chain.

These thoughts of World War III came scrambling into my brain when I thought about June 06, 1944 and D-Day. Americans and many others thought the World War of 1914-1918 with its inane carnage, over no one knew what, was going to end world-wide war. Then the courage and sacrifice of 150,000 American soldiers on D-Day was touted as the beginning of the end of totalitarian regimes. Later we thought we had learned something from Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, George Soros, hardly a war monger, fears we may be at the beginning of WWIII raging in Ukraine.

As for me, I will place my confidence in that part of human nature that has pulled us back from self-immolation many times. History leads me to have faith we will not self-fulfill such a dire prophecy. Of course, if I am right everyone will be around to say so, and if I am wrong, what difference will it make?

Memorial Day

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My earliest memories of Memorial Day involved hot cemeteries where all the adult women spent a great deal of time loudly hushing all the children and the few men in attendance furtively smoked cigarettes while shifting from foot to foot. Any attempt by me or my brother, Philip, to chase butterflies or engage in horseplay was met with stern stares and an occasional knock on the head or a swat on the tail.

Mother had three brothers and one sister who had served in the Army in WWII and Mom observed the service of all veterans solemnly and reverently; she demanded her children properly learn the ritual. Our role was to honor the dead soldiers and show gratitude to those veterans who were still with us.

Memorial Day has slowly metamorphosized from a national day of honoring veterans to a general recognition of all who have passed on. And Mother and her mother and their mainly female friends and relatives saw their duty to include the graves of deceased loved ones in various cemeteries in divergent locales. Mom would load all four of us kids and bunches of freshly cut ferns and flowers into a black Ford without air conditioning and without a thought on her part of a cold pop or an ice cream cone for us. She would say that was scant penance on our part to repay the sacrifice of our service people and their families.

I do not know how many veterans’ gravesites Mom dragged me to before I joined the Air Force myself during the Viet Nam War. I did not get sent to Viet Nam but several of my childhood friends did. One of them, twenty-two-year-old Gary Malone, went twice but he only came back once. That changed my understanding of Mom’s dedication to Decoration Day. I may be generally obtuse but I no longer needed a pointed stare, a tap on the head or a kick in the behind to appreciate Memorial Day. I sure wish Gary were here so I could tell him but his veteran’s memorial marker is close to my Mom and Dad in the local cemetery so I can, at least, salute Gary as I visit the folks on Decoration Day. I now get it; as always, Mother knew best.

President Wilson Was Right

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President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points set forth a vision of a WWI peace treaty based not on total victory for any one country but a permanent peace for all countries founded on generous terms of self-determination and economic recovery. Germany sued for peace thinking it would be treated fairly, but mainly France and Great Britain joined by several other countries demanded Draconian subjugation of Germany including ruinous reparations. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 was a testament to vengeance, not peace. It also led directly to WWII.

If there is no war like a civil war for hatred and carnage, there is no dispute like a conflict between neighbors for animosity. Ukraine and Russia have had a common but transitioning border for many years. Millions of people in both countries can speak both Ukrainian and Russian. The two cultures are deeply intertwined even though there have been several border conflicts between the countries. Much as next door neighbors may fall out over property line disagreements countries with a common border may fall victim to the old axiom, “Good fences make good neighbors.” In like manner, when there is a breach in the “fence”, repairing good relations may require a generosity of spirit on both sides and perhaps on the part of third parties seeking to become involved.

My good friend, Judge D. Neil Harris of Mississippi, serves on the faculty of the National Judicial College. He teaches other judges about courthouse security. Judge Harris has found that the type of court cases that are most likely to result in outbreaks of courtroom violence are property line disputes. He advises judges to be particularly alert when disputes between neighbors must be resolved in court. There is something visceral about such personal matters that makes forgiveness more difficult. As the world found to its chagrin after Versailles and WWI, even when wise people know that “Blessed are the peacemakers”, stiff necks are often the approach when neighbors must negotiate.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has been negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin for two years and is eager to negotiate a cessation of the current hostilities if Putin agrees. The rest of the world should allow Ukraine and Russia autonomy for their efforts to achieve a permanent peace. Such countries as the United States, Poland, China or Belarus may confuse their own agendas with those of Ukraine and Russia and, just as at Versailles in 1919, peace may be only temporary when the neighbors make up under false pretenses or when pressured to do so by outside forces. Perhaps the rest of the world should bite its collective tongues as Ukraine and Russia, hopefully, apply Wilson’s Fourteen Point type wisdom that was so tragically ignored at the catastrophic ending of WWI.

The Price of Peace

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Americans relate to the Ukrainians’ passion to control their own lives. Of course, self-determination is not just an American or Ukrainian desire. It is a universal need for all people. However, when it comes to a democratic form of government there is an interesting historical tradition shared by Americans and Ukrainians.

We Americans rightly point to our Constitution that took effect in 1789 as a shining example of how a country’s government can be held in check as individual liberties are protected. However, in 1710 Ukrainian Philip Orlyk wrote and published a proposed constitution that called for a government designed to have three competing branches, Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Our American constitution was drafted principally by James Madison and was based mainly on the theories of French legal philosophers Montesquieu and Voltaire and the English legal philosopher John Locke along with legal theories underlying The Enlightenment. All of these thinkers did their work after Orlyk had published his constitution based on a democratic system of self-government.

Orlyk’s constitution was never put into operation. But the strong democratic ideals of the Ukrainian people were a part of what the German legal philosopher Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779-1861) would have described as the Ukrainian nation’s Volksgeist. Volksgeist is the inherent common spirit of a particular culture, in this case Ukraine.

When we are amazed that the Ukrainians are so vigorously and courageously opposing aggression from the third most powerful military on earth we can look to their spirit, their Volksgeist of democracy. This deep passion for self-determination when coupled with the natural advantages of fighting for their homeland have allowed the Ukrainians to stand up strongly against the great Russian bear. Will they win, yes, because they already have. Much of the world is on their side and is supporting them. Will Russia eventually gain physical control of Ukraine? Maybe, but emotional control over the hearts and minds of the Ukrainians, probably not.

How will this war reach what in mediation is called a quiescent state? There are many possibilities. In the long run the outcome is a subject of pure speculation. But in the short run a few things can be suggested. In all negotiations each side has their dream outcomes and each has what they eventually will accept. Russia probably hoped for total capitulation by Ukraine and Ukraine probably hopes for surrender by Russia. Neither outcome is likely.

Should total victory be beyond either country’s grasp, Ukraine may settle for sovereignty of all Ukrainian territory west of Russia including free access to the Dnieper River from the Black Sea plus sovereignty over the port of Odessa. Whereas Ukraine may want and may deserve reparations of billions of dollars from Russia, Russia cannot provide for itself much less re-build Ukraine. Ukraine will look to America and others such as Germany, France, Canada and Great Britain for economic aid.

Russia may be eager to get out of the quagmire it has blundered into if Ukraine concedes Crimea, already a fait accompli, and any port on the Black Sea or the Azov Sea excluding Odessa. Russia would have to sign a treaty that promises no future incursions into Ukraine and no interference with the Port of Odessa or use of the Dnieper River. Ukraine would have to sign a treaty that binds itself to not seek or accept NATO membership as long as Russia abides by the peace treaty. Of course, there are thousands of other possible significant concerns both countries may wish to have go their way. But peace requires sacrifice.