It is a widely held view, and most likely correct, that the cold war was won through an arms race in which — simply put — the Soviet Union just could not sustain the drain upon its relatively limited resources.
The difference today is that Vladimir Putin only has Russia and not all of the old Soviet territories to rein in. While this further limits his resources, it is easier for him to politically manage a smaller domestic audience, especially one that has little or no history of democratic values and in which civil society has been largely rendered a zombie. The state of a civil society is indeed the best criterion by which to classify different states. The question is how much longer Russian civil society can withstand declining living standards and collapsing infrastructure, as suggested by Martin Sandbu (Opinion, February 12).
Army recruitment offers wages to many, but shops are not full of goods to be bought. In this sense it is a race against time for Putin, and therefore for Ukraine, and by implication for the rest of Europe, and without Europe as its outer line of defence, for the US as well. This is not the time to shy away from a resolute defence of Ukraine’s independence. To do so will come at a much greater cost down the road.
Professor John Ure
Singapore
