I’ve been thinking about simple ways to explain Putin’s war on Ukraine. You all, I’m sure, remember that painting I loved as a kid. The one with all the dogs sitting around a table playing poker...
I’ve been thinking about simple ways to explain Putin’s war on Ukraine. You all, I’m sure, remember that painting I loved as a kid. The one with all the dogs sitting around a table playing poker...
The dogs of war, or understanding who the players are at this table
I’ve been thinking about simple ways to explain Putin’s war on Ukraine. You all, I’m sure, remember that painting I loved as a kid. The one with all the dogs sitting around a table playing poker. The one painted in 1903 by a New York born Quaker by the name of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. Kitschy I know, but none the less we all remember it.
Let’s picture this international crisis as that poker game. We’ve got a couple dozen players seated around the table. All but two of them are playing against the other two, passing chips around and helping each other out.
There’s one really, big dog at the table. That big dog has got a huge pile of chips and is the leader of the pack against the two others. The leader of the pack has a big red button linked to a bomb that will blow up the whole room.
Then there’s a couple of smaller dogs in the big dog’s pack, who also have red buttons, but their red buttons are smaller and hooked up to a bomb that will blow up part of the table, but not the whole room.
Then there’s a snarling, medium-size dog who also has a red button to a bomb that will blow up the whole room. The medium-size dog attacks the smaller player next to him to steal all his chips, all the while stroking the red button and threatening to blow the whole room up if the big dog and his friends do too much to help the attacked dog. The attacked dog is friendly with the big dog and his friends but not part of the pack.
Got the picture? The really, big dog is, of course, the US with the world’s largest economy and the world's largest military and a mighty big nuclear arsenal. The smaller dogs, with smaller red buttons, are Britain and France with their relatively tiny nuclear arsenals.
The snarling medium size dog is Russia, which, with only the eleventh largest economy in world doesn’t hold the sway of the big dog, but with its huge red button holds a nuclear arsenal even bigger than the big dog.
The attacked dog is Ukraine, with a third the population of Russia, an army a quarter the size of Russia’s, an air force a tenth the size of Russia and no navy.
The pack, especially the big dog, can destroy the medium size dog, but at the risk of the medium size dog blowing up the entire room. The pack snarls and circles the fight, while giving the smaller, attacked poker-playing dog encouragement, food and water to stay in the fight.
Little dog, Ukraine, is fighting back a whole lot more than any of the other dogs expected and although bleeding badly is taking some chunks out of medium-sized dog Russia.
How do we get a leash back on the attack dog, without attack dog slapping the great big red button that ends the game and the world? As you can see a very high stakes poker game indeed.
The game the pack is playing, at the moment, is to keep Ukraine in the fight long enough to slip a leash on the attacker or bleed the attacker enough to have the attacker decide continuing is too painful.
Enough of our poker playing dog analogy. There are real people dying. Lots of them. More will die. Lots more. Every indication is that Putin is the only one in Russia who really wants this war, so Putin is the one who must be leashed. We the West, NATO, the US are not going to directly confront his military. The risk of nuclear war is simply viewed as too great.
Instead, we must indirectly confront him, so that internal Russian societal forces leash him. When will this happen? When Russian mothers tire of burying their sons. When wealthy Russians tire of having their yachts seized. When everyday Russians learn Putin has lied to them, mislead them, stolen from them. With the allegations of war crimes being committed daily in Ukraine Putin will not, cannot, backdown. It will take blood in the streets of Russia to leash him. The blood has only begun to flow and not yet in Moscow.
© William L. Enyart 2022, Reflections from the River
www.billenyart.com Email:bill@billenyart.com
Audio production by: Tom Calhoun, www.paguytom.com