An appreciation of our revolution and the power of insurgency that formed it.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s courage coalesced his countrymen and Europe in a fight against Putin’s megalomania that reverses this century’s rise of autocratic rule and elevates the power of democracy. The Russian Army did not storm Ukraine like Hitler’s blitzkrieg of Poland in September of 1939 which was anticipated. On the contrary the invasion is bogged down and appears to be incompetently lead. “We’re in shock at how dumb their behavior is” stated a Ukrainian special forces member to the Wall Street Journal. “Now we mostly focus on hitting their rear, their supply convoys because if they don’t get fuel, they can’t do anything.”  The delay in the takeover has given western democracies time to provide military and humanitarian assistance and make clear to Russia that the eventual outcome will be withdrawal and humiliation from too much blood and treasure spent on what appears to be just a whim. The consequence of eventual defeat must weigh heavily on China’s Xi Jinping, another autocrat who believes democracies are weak and now clarifies how the United States can defend democracy in SouthEast Asia.

Too many times we as a nation have ignored the example of our revolution and the personal courage to mount an insurrection that wears out and defeats the super power of its time. We rejected Ho Chi Minh’s appeal for help to unshackle colonial Vietnam from France because it didn’t fit with the geopolitical chessboard of the time only to be defeated decades later in a modern replay of our revolution. Ukraine President  Zelenskyy’s courage to defend a democracy changes our perspective over the feared invasion of Taiwan by mainland China.

Currently the Pentagon has been wringing its hands over not having the overwhelming naval power that President Clinton used effectively to get China to back down in the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. But China’s naval force has grown many times over since then and won’t back down just with just a show of force, no matter how many vessels we add to our fleet because the nuclear constraint just renders it a bluff.  But the courage of the Ukrainian people shows the path for Taiwan to defend their democracy.  The recent strangling of Hong Kong’s democracy by the mainland has hardened the Taiwanese public and its President Tsai Ing-wen's perception of China and Xi Jinping’s assertion of total power over all its regions. The invasion of Ukraine makes the threat clear and their valiant resistance gives the Taiwanese the steel backbone to organize and prepare.  On the other hand the poor performance of the Russian Army must give pause to the mainland.  Formosa is over a hundred miles away by sea. Like Hitler rejecting invading Britain, Xi Jinping may reject invading because of the high probability of losing and humiliating his regime. President Tsai must lead to re-enforce in every way she can that an invasion would be extremely costly and the Island’s occupation ungovernable. The United States should provide all the material help it can ahead of time to help the island to prepare and develop plans on how to resupply those fighting the invasion when it occurs, a much more daunting problem than Ukraine’s which has Poland next door as a resupply depot.

Zelenskyy’s courage must make the United States look back at its birth and appreciate the power of insurgency and make it a tool in our arsenal. Use it to keep conflicts local and the superpowers from mutually assuring our destruction. And our military budget should focus on what it takes to defend those with the courage to stand up to autocrats and deny it to those who impose their rule on others.