Just when things were looking up again bam, a megalomaniac decides to start a war in Eastern Europe.
After two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been returning to normal life, more or less. The virus and its mutating variants are still out there, causing waves of infections. So, it remains a back- ground threat even if the subsequent waves are looking to be less deadly.
That COVID-19 has now killed around a million Americans and more than six million around the globe both likely undercounts shows the disease needs to be taken seriously. And most people have taken it seriously by getting vaccinated and heeding public health measures, like masking and distancing, when mandated.
The same conscientious people have, however, grown weary of the fight and want to get on with their lives. At the same, some vulnerable and risk-averse among us wonder if that shift in sentiment is premature. They could be right but unless subsequent waves prove to be as deadly as earlier ones, the momentum to return to normal isn’t going to reverse itself.
Among the good bits of news is that the pandemic while messing mightily with supply chains didn’t destroy the economy. The pent-up demand that existed as the pandemic unfolded remained pent- up and is ready to be released once the supply chain troubles are sorted out.
Or so it was looking until Russia dictator Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine. Suddenly a far greater existential risk than a viral pandemic has appeared on the horizon. Western European nations and the West more generally have united in opposing Putin’s adventurism and in supporting Ukrainians’ efforts to defend their country.
But for one practical reason, the nations of the West are limited in how they can respond to Russia’s aggression. Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. As a consequence, the last thing the world should do is provoke Putin to, either in a fit of madness or maniacal calculation, start a nuclear war.
So far, the Western countries are doing what they can even if not to the extent that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy would like to help Ukrainians defend their homeland. Providing arms and humanitarian aid is a major part of that. So are sanctions against Russia. What really needs to be ramped up are the sanctions. The U.S. and Canada have cut off oil imports from Russia. But those were just a trickle anyway. Europe needs to cut off its dependence on Russian oil and gas, which is financing Putin’s war. But to do that will require a combination of greater European sacrifice and/or increases in imports of those commodities from elsewhere.
That’s the rub. Summer is coming, which means Europeans could survive for a few months without heat. But would that be enough time to rejig the supply lines to bring oil from elsewhere? Canada could conceivably help but it already lacks enough pipelines to get its Alberta oil to tidewater. The controversial Canadian- government-owned Trans Mountain pipe- line expansion project, which will triple the amount of oil that flows to the Port of Vancouver, was 50 percent complete in March. It certainly won’t be ready in time to provide any oil to Europe this year. And even if the pipeline were ready by then, it’s not certain the Aframax tankers that service the port will be able to transit the Panama Canal without major modifications.
While those circumstances make a Canadian oil rescue of Europe a moot point, they are examples of the complex infrastructure challenges in this interconnected world especially when the world is trying to deal with a bad actor who has nukes.
In a perverse way, the nukes if they don’t end up laying waste to the planet are probably preventing a conventional third world war. Without the threat of mutually assured destruction, it would be harder for the Western nations to resist hawkish calls to take up arms of their own and repel the Russian invasion. Then a conventional war like the Second World War, only worse, would be on.
The prudent course, then, remains for the West to do more of what it’s been doing to bolster the defenses of the brave Ukrainians and restrict the flow of money supporting the Russian war machine so that the latter collapses under the weight of Putin’s hubris.
Then, having vanquished that threat, the world can focus on the other challenges of the 21st century, such as viral contagions, climate change, habitat destruction, and economic uncertainty. The 21st century can still be great, but the greatness won’t just happen.