By Donald Kirk
Images of the Russian army strangling the cruelly crushed Ukrainian city of Mariupol pull at heartstrings around the world, evoking indignant cries of "stop it" and "do something" to rescue the survivors, drive out the invaders and save what's left of a shattered community of more than 400,000 souls, many now dead or dying.
You cannot help but admire the bravery of ordinary people holding out in Mariupol even as Russian tanks rumble through empty streets littered with the wreckage of buildings and lives lost in a desperate struggle against overwhelming odds. You wonder, though, what's the rest of the world doing besides wringing hands, offering help that will never be enough and cringing at pleas for the kind of aid that might stop the fearsome Russians dead in their tracks.
In a battle between David and Goliath, David is supposed to win, but in the real world the biblical story is a fantasy that's a nightmare for Mariupol and much of the rest of the country. Yes, aid is pouring into Ukraine, and foreign volunteers are rushing to join the Ukrainian forces staving off the Russians as they advance from all sides on the capital of Kyiv and other beleaguered cities, but no one really advocates what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says is absolutely necessary, the creation of a "no fly zone" enforced by foreign air forces against Russian planes responsible for much of the death and destruction.
You can appreciate the urgency of Zelenskyy's plea and the reluctance of all the NATO countries, led by President Joe Biden, to escalate to the point of actually waging war, however limited, against the Russians. No way would Russia's President Vladimir Putin order his planes to stay out of the way just because the U.S and some of its NATO allies were telling them. Nor would the Russians suddenly decide, now's the time to agree to a conference at which we might have to make concessions, even agree to a ceasefire.
You have to ask, though, would there be any other way to stop the Russians from taking over the country other than to challenge them at least in the air and maybe strike Russian air bases on the other side of the border, perhaps deep in Russia? Would the world then plunge into World War III in which China, on the other side of the Eurasian land mass, would not only side with Russia but swing its weight ever more dangerously around Asia.
It's not difficult to imagine China's President Xi Jinping, a leader disturbingly similar to Putin in his grasp on power in his own country and his vision of expanding borders, deciding the time was ripe finally to recover the lost province of Taiwan, which was last under Beijing's thumb in 1895. That was when the Japanese took over the island, about 100 miles from the Chinese mainland, after defeating the forces of China's last dynasty in the Sino-Japanese War. Should the U.S. and its Northeast Asia allies, South Korea and Japan, all go to war for Taiwan?
The question of when and how to exert retaliatory force is relevant in the case of North Korea too. It's plain to everyone that Kim Jong-un is not going to give up his nukes. In fact, Kim gives every impression of wanting to improve his nuclear capabilities, fabricating ever more warheads while developing intercontinental ballistic missiles for carrying them to targets anywhere. In response, there's talk of South Korea developing its own nuclear capability along with more and better missiles. Also, some are asking, how about the U.S. and the ROK jointly attacking North Korea's nuclear complexes and missile launch sites?
Actually, these notions are madness. Just as enforcement of a "no fly zone" over Ukraine could escalate into a full-scale war, NATO versus Russia, so an assault on North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities risks more than just another Korean War. It's easy to imagine China, Russia too, jumping in to defend their old Korean War ally. Korean War II could spread over Asia as easily as World War III could flare in Europe.
Such cold, rational reasoning, though, does nothing to relieve the suffering of Mariupol or the rest of Ukraine any more than it helps the thousands of North Koreans suffering in the North's gulag system. We're left to watch in anguish as the people of Mariupol, those who haven't left or died, face a ruthless foe that's hellbent on conquering a democratic neighbor.
Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has been covering conflict, mostly in Asia, for decades.
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You cannot help but admire the bravery of ordinary people holding out in Mariupol even as Russian tanks rumble through empty streets littered with the wreckage of buildings and lives lost in a desperate struggle against overwhelming odds. You wonder, though, what's the rest of the world doing besides wringing hands, offering help that will never be enough and cringing at pleas for the kind of aid that might stop the fearsome Russians dead in their tracks.
In a battle between David and Goliath, David is supposed to win, but in the real world the biblical story is a fantasy that's a nightmare for Mariupol and much of the rest of the country. Yes, aid is pouring into Ukraine, and foreign volunteers are rushing to join the Ukrainian forces staving off the Russians as they advance from all sides on the capital of Kyiv and other beleaguered cities, but no one really advocates what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says is absolutely necessary, the creation of a "no fly zone" enforced by foreign air forces against Russian planes responsible for much of the death and destruction.
You can appreciate the urgency of Zelenskyy's plea and the reluctance of all the NATO countries, led by President Joe Biden, to escalate to the point of actually waging war, however limited, against the Russians. No way would Russia's President Vladimir Putin order his planes to stay out of the way just because the U.S and some of its NATO allies were telling them. Nor would the Russians suddenly decide, now's the time to agree to a conference at which we might have to make concessions, even agree to a ceasefire.
You have to ask, though, would there be any other way to stop the Russians from taking over the country other than to challenge them at least in the air and maybe strike Russian air bases on the other side of the border, perhaps deep in Russia? Would the world then plunge into World War III in which China, on the other side of the Eurasian land mass, would not only side with Russia but swing its weight ever more dangerously around Asia.
It's not difficult to imagine China's President Xi Jinping, a leader disturbingly similar to Putin in his grasp on power in his own country and his vision of expanding borders, deciding the time was ripe finally to recover the lost province of Taiwan, which was last under Beijing's thumb in 1895. That was when the Japanese took over the island, about 100 miles from the Chinese mainland, after defeating the forces of China's last dynasty in the Sino-Japanese War. Should the U.S. and its Northeast Asia allies, South Korea and Japan, all go to war for Taiwan?
The question of when and how to exert retaliatory force is relevant in the case of North Korea too. It's plain to everyone that Kim Jong-un is not going to give up his nukes. In fact, Kim gives every impression of wanting to improve his nuclear capabilities, fabricating ever more warheads while developing intercontinental ballistic missiles for carrying them to targets anywhere. In response, there's talk of South Korea developing its own nuclear capability along with more and better missiles. Also, some are asking, how about the U.S. and the ROK jointly attacking North Korea's nuclear complexes and missile launch sites?
Actually, these notions are madness. Just as enforcement of a "no fly zone" over Ukraine could escalate into a full-scale war, NATO versus Russia, so an assault on North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities risks more than just another Korean War. It's easy to imagine China, Russia too, jumping in to defend their old Korean War ally. Korean War II could spread over Asia as easily as World War III could flare in Europe.
Such cold, rational reasoning, though, does nothing to relieve the suffering of Mariupol or the rest of Ukraine any more than it helps the thousands of North Koreans suffering in the North's gulag system. We're left to watch in anguish as the people of Mariupol, those who haven't left or died, face a ruthless foe that's hellbent on conquering a democratic neighbor.
Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has been covering conflict, mostly in Asia, for decades.
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