Ukraine's Fight is Right!
On Giving Meaning to the Death of a Young Soldier.
By Michael P Byron
Today, I read an article in a Ukrainian newspaper about the
death in combat of a young soldier near the destroyed, now Russian occupied,
Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. What caught my attention was that I had recently
corresponded online with a Ukrainian soldier of that name fighting in that
location. I hadn’t heard from this person for about two weeks and was not able
to reach them today. So, I don’t know if it was the same person.
However, this started me thinking about the nature of the
world in which we live. Why is there war? When is fighting in a war “just” and
when is it not? Why? Why did this young soldier die? What follows is my answer
to these related questions.
I taught International Relations courses for many years at
various Colleges and Universities. At the beginning of each class I would
(usually) startle my students by informing them that the world they lived in
was in a state of anarchy. That all their lives, those of their parents,
grandparents, etc., had been lived in anarchy.
Anarchy occurs when no one is in charge. Who is in charge of
our world today? No one is! The United Nations is an inter-governmental
organization. Basically, it’s a club whose members are recognized governments
of the nations of the world. It can only act with binding authority if all five
of its permanent Security Council members agree. These are the United States,
Russia, China, Britain, and France. Any one of these can veto anything.
Further, The UN has no standing army. Any use of force in its name requires the
commitment of the armies of its member states. This may not be forthcoming. So,
we live in anarchy.
The development of agriculture led to humans living in
settled communities perhaps 10,000 years ago. From that time onwards, the
informal tribal leadership of our preceding hunter-gatherer societies, required
replacement by a government. This is because the numbers of people living in a
settled, agrarian community became too large for informal, usually family-based
governance. People would henceforth be governed by those who they were not
related to, and indeed, may have never met.
Government is unique among all human institutions because
government alone has a monopoly upon the police powers of the state. Government
makes law. People are forcibly compelled to obey these laws, ultimately upon
pain of death. Restated, government has a monopoly upon the
LEGITIMATE use of force, coercion and compulsion among all members of society.
That’s what LAW is about! By this means, anarchy is transcended for all members
of a society.
So, ancient states managed to maintain internal coherence
and thus transcend anarchy among large numbers of non-related people in the new
agrarian age. However, this transcendence of anarchy only applied to those
within the state. Those outside of its control were outside of its framework of
law. For non-agricultural foragers outside of the state’s borders, for those
living within other states, these laws did not apply. Rather, a state of
anarchy—lack of binding law—existed.
From that ancient time, until the present moment, this has
been our situation. Many states having binding authority within their borders,
but no common authority between them. For all the millennia since civilization
began, humanity has lived in global anarchy
Attempts to resolve this situation have resulted in the
creation of sprawling empires. But there has never been a global empire, or
state. Modern liberal ideas for transcending anarchy have involved existing
states voluntarily giving up some of their sovereign authority to a
supra-national body. The quintessential example of this is today’s European
Union. However, the EU is at best, a regional entity. So the planet remains in
a state of continuing anarchy. Until either it is unified militarily (think Rome),
or voluntarily (think EU), we’re in anarchy.
In this context, nation has continually invaded nation,
blood, slaughter, conquest, have been, and continue to be, our fate. It is in
this context that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has occurred. There exists a
vast amount of literature, ancient, medieval, and modern, western and
non-western, about the nature of “just war.” It is far beyond the scope of my
article to even begin to summarize it for you. If you’re interested just google
“just war,” or ask an AI to summarize it for you.
I will just say that there is a consensus that nations are
entitled to self-determination, unless they voluntarily submit to some other
arrangement. Any war which involves defense of a nation’s sovereignty is
“just".” Any war which involves attempting to involuntarily destroy such
sovereignty, is “unjust.”
Ukraine was subjected to an unprovoked military invasion by
a larger neighboring state. The intent of this aggressor state was to forcibly
reestablish its former Empire, which had included Ukraine. That’s it. All else
is falsehood, deception, propaganda.
Historically, Ukraine has never voluntarily surrendered its
sovereignty to its larger, aggressive neighbor. It has attempted to maintain,
or to reestablish its sovereignty for about half a millennium. It is still
doing so today.
Russia is fighting an unjust war of aggression for purpose
of involuntary conquest. Ukraine, conversely, is fighting a just war to repel
this aggression and to maintain its sovereignty. It is that simple. It is for
this reason that the young soldier, who I began this essay with, laid down
their life. In a world in anarchy, there is no recourse but to wage war for
self-defense under these circumstances. This young soldier died for the freedom
of Ukraine, and to preserve your own freedom by stopping aggressive fascism
from spreading.
Anyone who does not support Ukraine, or who supports Russia,
in this effort, is contributing to increasing anarchy and instability in the
contemporary world. They are aligning themselves with the advancement of
aggressive fascism, the destruction of a rule based international order.
Ukraine’s fight is our fight. It is a struggle for a just
international order based upon the consent of the governed. Ultimately, it is a
struggle to voluntarily reduce, then eliminate anarchy from our world.
That young soldier died, gun in hand, fighting for all of
us.
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