My second thoughts on the topic of War & Peace were grown from recent times, lots of news in the media, lots of discussion with friends / colleagues and even local experience with refugees. I would like to take a closer look to why the war between the governments of Russia, Russia’s friends and Ukraine could happen and give an overview about my speculation on why it must have happened. Please make up your own mind about it, don’t immediately believe what I write here.
Reason 1: Politics
In the near past from 1922 to 1991 Russia and Ukraine have been combined within the Soviet Union. That made them become a team. The whole thing was set up socialistic, which – in my opinion – doesn’t even exist. It sounds quite simple, but:
- Either there is money (=capitalism) or there is no money. If there is no or fake money, there is no system.
Based on this very short logic I can conclude that the whole “Union” system was a fake (because it had money) and the Russian government had a big advantage by setting themselves up as a leader in this “team” of countries. It took a long time until the governments of other countries could overcome this repression and went back to doing their own stuff. In 2008 Russia found out that the Soviet Union does not exist anymore, and their tricks have mostly stopped working. They were successful with fighting Chechnya and now they want the whole Empire back, but in a tricky Russian style. In my opinion, I don’t think that is possible.
Reason 2: Economics & governmental outlook for stability
- Leading countries can be stable, if there is a gap in stability of others. That’s why they lead.
Leading countries (not only countries) have the tactic to hold others weak, so they appear strong. Russia is doing that with war, same as US in the past. The EU and China perform it a bit different, in my opinion mostly tricking other countries and even themselves.
- Government is not the same as a country
In any area live many different people with many different opinions. Most of them are peaceful, just want to survive and have a good life. A government is admistrated by people who are mostly not like that. That is the same with every government in every country. So, if someone talks about war between Ukraine and Russia that is basically between the governments of both countries, who administrate the land area for the people. This is especially the case if a government is not voted democratically. Then the people in the area have not much to do with the government. It is not representing them. In general people should pay tax and shut up. I have friends in the area of Russia, who are nice people. They would not start a war.
- EVs change & resources
There is a big change of mobility going on in the world. Cars would no longer be fueled up by oil but by Electric Power. Electric power can be made of many different energy resources, that brings more flexibility to countries with rather low amount of resources. No longer it will be necessary that Russian Oli must be imported, the curve of consumption and import (by EU) will flatten out and then go down. I suspect that the Russian government got the news and does not like this development. In fact, I think that the action of shutting down Russian gas pipelines was a consequence of future less oil imports like an “angry kid reaction”. Please refer to the topic why invest for the role of a government and the Risk & Chances with any investment, such as failing. (It can happen!)
- Immigrants, refugees and law
Bombing other countries around Europe has been / is still a tactic of making people “go west” and at the same time let people know who is the boss. I can totally understand if a Russian bomb destroyed your house you would leave that place and try going to a NATO state, where this is not probable to happen. This tactic destroys the economy nearby Russia and brings trouble to EU countries to deal with all these new people. And as long as there are asylum laws in place, there is no stopping of these actions.
- Safe work for millions = safe tax collection from millions
EU countries (governments) have an interest in gaining more tax. How can they get more tax?
-> More tax-payers.
That means the refugee policy has a hard time to change, because any government has no interest in changing that. Refugees will work and pay tax. Perfect. The problem appears, if they don’t work and just make trouble.
Reason 3: stubbornness of all parties
- Ukrainian knowledge about and nearby cultural behavior of Russians which mostly concludes to “wtf why?” and then “fight till death”
As I have mentioned, Ukraine was not chosen by surprise. But the “original Russians” know very well what’s going on and will not accept that like other weaker countries.
- Why did they choose Ukraine? Why not another ex-soviet country?
They did, nobody cared. EU governments (and citizens) are quite ignorant when looking to the east. But after bombs tended to go west, finally they woke up. This means, whatever it takes, the most western country war will happen with Russia is Ukraine and there will be as much money flowing (investments) as necessary to keep this status quo. Of course, these investments will be made by governments in the west into their own warfare industries. I think for the situation it is smart to finally begin building a defense, but in the large view it is still quite dumb. These investments are locked and cannot go in better businesses, which give a benefit to societies. Russia on the other side might be happy to have a new industrial opportunity when selling oil is going down. Their problem is, they might bring the war “back home” unintentionally.
Outlook
I suppose that this war will not end soon. Instead, I would want to argue that a test drive for a “continuous” warfare has been born. Refer to Orwells 1984, for instance. It is a (re-)start for invention of new warfare tech and of course tests as well by the West. This could include robo-fighters, drones (already there), autonomous vehicles (tanks) and “innovative” guns etc. I hate to write it here, but it came to my mind today and I know the stupidity of humans too well. In terms of investments, it might be possible to ship some extra coins out of this tragedy. But if I look at the big picture, I cannot recommend any participation into this whole thing. The main reason is, that this is a local thing. Guns and rockets cannot be the long-term future for the whole world consisting of 195 countries. It is a waste of energy and waste of time. Further, there is a climate crisis. Why create more unnecessary problems that cost valuable resources?
Conclusion
It’s a sad story, if people believe a war will bring benefits to societies. That is good evidence for Darwinism. The human mind is still not far away from monkeys. Eating a banana is probably smarter than blowing up your peaceful (!) neighbor.