Comment: Much of world thinks West getting too deep in Ukraine

A poll in India found majorities blaming NATO or the U.S. — not Russia — for the war in Ukraine.

By Pankaj Mishra / Bloomberg Opinion

A treacherous new era in global politics has begun with fresh and dramatic military commitments by Europe and the United States to Ukraine. We should recognize its dangers quickly, without self-deception or euphemism.

Despite almost a year of harsh economic sanctions, and even severe setbacks on the battlefield, Russia appears no readier to negotiate an end to the war. Rather, it has responded by mobilizing additional troops and battering Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Russian President Vladimir Putin is only likely to escalate further, and more viciously, in response to the West’s decision to send battle tanks to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, there are no signs that a significant number of Russians have grown angry or disillusioned with their reckless leader. Few appear to contest his much-amplified conviction that a morally decadent West is ganging up against their country.

There is no evidence either that the people and governments of the Global South, who are suffering most from the economic consequences of the war, are turning decisively against Putin, or that most of the world’s population see Russia’s assault on Ukraine as qualitatively different from the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In India, supposedly allied to the West, a recent poll found that more respondents blamed either NATO or the U.S. than Russia for the war in Ukraine.

It’s not even plain, in the absence of public debate, that most people in Western nations support a deepening of their confrontation with Russia. In fact, their opinion is hardly being sought. A German population sharply divided over the question of sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine at least conducted a long internal discussion. The U.S. and United Kingdom governments barely informed their citizens before committing more advanced weaponry to the conflict.

Western governments benefit today from a broad and largely unchallenged consensus among think tanks and mainstream periodicals: Russia’s defeat, if not outright capitulation, is crucial to ensuring Ukraine’s territorial integrity and future as a sovereign nation. This may be right. But any faith that our political and media elites are assuming correctly and acting wisely should sit uncomfortably with memories of their record in recent years.

All major countries in the Western alliance were complicit in military fiascos that ravaged entire regions of Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Political leaders marched into easily predicted disasters accompanied by a supporting chorus of media outlets, ranging from Fox News to the Economist, that drowned out or deliberately delegitimized dissenting voices.

There is good reason to worry when, still unpunished for their calamitous bungles, many in the West’s intellectual-industrial complex again cheerlead a military intervention, this time against the fanatical leader of a nuclear-armed country.

Worse, the rest of us don’t seem disturbed enough by this spectacle of blunder-prone elites yet again making history- and geography-altering decisions without adequate democratic oversight. In the countries where the political earthquakes of recent years occurred, the fault lines between rulers and the ruled could easily widen again. As Donald Trump has ably demonstrated, demagogues always stand ready to exploit disaffection with endless, expensive and unwinnable wars.

The future of Ukraine as a democracy, too, grows cloudier when you consider the recent fate of countries showered with weapons and dollars. One of the world’s most corrupt countries before the war, Ukraine seems further away from the prospect of an honest and accountable elite. In the eventual accounting of financial and moral malfeasance during the war, the recent scandal involving officials close to President Volodymyr Zelensky will likely prove minor.

There are too many signs that the search for allies in what is effectively now the West’s war against Russia is affecting political and moral judgment. Thus, India is routinely presented in the West as a counterweight to Chinese and Russian autocrats even as its Hindu supremacist government intensifies its assault on democracy and the country ramps up its purchases of Russian oil. A bizarre forgetfulness about two world wars prevails as, to wide cheers in the West, Germany rearms and dispatches military hardware to its old killing fields.

Among the simple historical lessons being neglected is that governments everywhere are prone to grow more reckless as military escalation begins to seem the only route to peace. The leaders of Japan, another militarist terror of the 20th century, are re-arming their country on a dramatic scale even at the cost of inflating its already extraordinary fiscal deficit.

Needless to add, the Japanese government has not offered a detailed account of the risks involved in this militarization (from China and Russia, two countries with which it has fought wars), let alone explained how a country with an acute shortage of young people will fill the ranks of a bigger and more sophisticated military.

Such signs of irresponsibility are equally apparent among Western political establishments, who are trying to expand their military footprint abroad even as they struggle against economic crises at home. They are the clearest warning we have of a deeper and more extensive conflagration ahead.

Pankaj Mishra is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is author, most recently, of “Run and Hide.”

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

2024 Presidential Election Day Symbolic Elements.
Editorial: Retain Escamilla, Binda on Lynnwood City Council

Escamilla was appointed a year ago. Binda is serving his first term.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Thursday, July 10

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Blame Democrats’ taxes, rules for out-of-state ferry contract

Gov. Bob Ferguson should be ashamed of the hypocrisy shown by choosing… Continue reading

Letter used too broad a brush against Democrats

In response to a recent letter to the editor, this Democrat admits… Continue reading

Kristof: Women’s rights effort has work to do in Africa, elsewhere

Girls in Sierra Leone will sell themselves to pay for school. The feminist movement has looked away.

French: Supreme Court hits a vile industry with its comeuppance

While disagreeing on the best test, the justices agreed on the threat that porn poses to children.

Comment: When ‘politically correct’ becomes ‘Trump approved’

Companies and reporters are seeing the consequences of using words the president doesn’t approve of.

A Volunteers of America Western Washington crisis counselor talks with somebody on the phone Thursday, July 28, 2022, in at the VOA Behavioral Health Crisis Call Center in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: Dire results will follow end of LGBTQ+ crisis line

The Trump administration will end funding for a 988 line that serves youths in the LGBTQ+ community.

toon
Editorial: Using discourse to get to common ground

A Building Bridges panel discussion heard from lawmakers and students on disagreeing agreeably.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, June 27, 2025. The sweeping measure Senate Republican leaders hope to push through has many unpopular elements that they despise. But they face a political reckoning on taxes and the scorn of the president if they fail to pass it. (Kent Nishimura/The New York Times)
Editorial: GOP should heed all-caps message on tax policy bill

Trading cuts to Medicaid and more for tax cuts for the wealthy may have consequences for Republicans.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Wednesday, July 9

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Welch: A plan to supply drugs to addicts is a dangerous dance

A state panel’s plan to create a ‘safer supply’ of drugs is the wrong path to addiction recovery.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.