With Charlie Harper

THE American Secretary of State and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister held a joint, televised news conference earlier this week after Russian troops and artillery began what looks very much like the start of a general invasion of Ukraine. Both spoke solemnly and articulately as they fielded questions from American and European reporters. The Ukrainian was especially eloquent in describing Russian aggression against his country and the urgent need for the West in general and American in particular to hit back against Moscow with tough sanctions as soon as possible.

At the end of their lengthy joint appearance, the two foreign ministers walked off the stage together. The American, Tony Blinken, threw his arm over the shoulder of the Ukrainian, Dmytro Kuleba in a gesture that seemed to epitomize the evolving relationship between the two nations. It certainly looked like big brother Blinken was fraternally protecting and aligning with younger brother Kuleba.

The Ukrainian has been making the rounds in Washington after a big multilateral security conference in Munich where Western support for Ukraine appeared to solidify under American and German leadership. As this quintessentially European crisis deepens with every passing day, it’s important to keep in mind the central role in Eastern Europe that Germany has played on this regional stage for over 150 years and continues to play today.

From at least the mid- 19th Century up to the present, German economic and commercial power and influence throughout Eastern Europe and Russia has been profound. Despite being on the losing side in both World War I and World War II, Germany - aided significantly in its economic recovery after 1945 by the United States and its Marshall Plan - has continued to be a regional economic giant. Trade between Germany, now reunified for over 30 years, and Eastern Europe is paramount for both sides.

When the Germans announced their solidarity with the US and other NATO allies in agreeing to sidetrack the new Nord Stream II gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, and in the process put at risk its continuing dependence on Russian energy to sustain its mighty industrial base, this was a genuinely significant step in the reunification of NATO and the European Union against Russian aggression.

The EU announced on Tuesday it will sanction all 351 members of the Russian legislature who authorized Putin to deploy his armed forces outside Russian borders, in addition to “27 individuals and entities who are playing a role in undermining or threatening Ukrainian territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence.”

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN FOR US?

First of all, oil prices will rise. International benchmark indicator Brent crude is already up more than one percent; West Texas Intermediate crude, the US benchmark, has risen by 1.3 percent. Overall, it is estimated Russia produces about ten percent of the world’s oil supply - about the same percentage as the US and Saudi Arabia. Analysts on both sides of the Atlantic are forecasting long-term “pressure” on oil supplies. That means higher prices at the pump.

But it also means the cost of consumer goods transportation will rise. Taken together with the accumulated effects on the North American trucking industry of COVID-19 personnel losses and the philosophical disagreement by large numbers of truck drivers over mask mandates, we’re going to pay potentially quite a bit more for almost everything we consume.

Annual inflation has already been projected at around seven percent in the US for 2022. It’s little wonder that bond prices are rising steadily in the US as its stock market approaches a condition known as “correction,” which basically means a sustained downward trend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now hovering around 33,000. For perspective, though, we can recall that when Donald Trump was sworn in as the American President in January 2017, that same average stood at 20,000, and at around 30,000 when Joe Biden took the oath of office four years later as Trump’s successor. Until recently, inflation has not been a significant modifying or qualifying factor in assessing these relative numbers.

Speaking of Trump, he is still spectacularly newsworthy. It’s likely that only those readers most desperate for some words of wisdom from and lavish praise for the former President have ever heard of the “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show”. Sexton is a long-time right-wing talker; Travis was most recently seen on Fox Sports co-hosting a sports betting show. Their show is a syndicated three-hour daily gabfest which for many participating radio stations has replaced the Rush Limbaugh show. (Limbaugh, you may recall, died shortly after Trump astonishingly awarded him the highest American civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.) It makes perfect sense, then, that Trump would grant a rant-interview to Travis and Sexton and break his silence on developments in Ukraine.

“This is genius,” Trump said of Putin’s decision on Monday to officially recognize the breakaway provinces and authorize the use of Russian military personnel to assist them. “Putin is now saying it’s independent - a large section of Ukraine. I said, how smart is that? And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep the peace, all right.”

Trump has of course long praised Putin’s strategic acumen, noting especially Putin’s implicit intention to “rebuild the Russian Empire”.

When asked to react to Trump’s comments, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said wryly that “we try not to take advice from anyone who praises President Putin and his military strategy. She also recalled how Trump had sided with Russia when it annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 before America elected him as resident. “There’s a bit of a different approach,” she said.

But Trump is absolutely right that Putin is indeed determined to reconstruct as much of the Soviet empire as he feels the West will allow him to do. Why is that?

The New York Times reached out to Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, for an answer. Albright was the first senior official to speak at length with Putin when he emerged from relative obscurity to great sudden prominence in the Russian government in 2000. Albright is a noted diplomatic history scholar who has been for many years closely associated with Georgetown University’s foreign service school in Washington.

Albright explained to the Times that Putin has long been fixated on restoring Russia to “greatness”. As he made clear to her in their first meeting, he views the break-up of the Soviet Union as “an embarrassment - a wrong he’s determined to make right”.

“Mr Putin’s revisionist and absurd assertion that Ukraine was a Russian creation and effectively stolen from the Russian empire is fully in keeping with his warped worldview,” Albright said. “Most disturbing to me: It was his attempt to establish the pretext for a full-scale invasion.”

While Putin might see taking Ukraine as a step toward attaining that ultimate goal, perhaps his obsession has blinded him to the reality. For, as Albright writes, he’s poised to make a grave miscalculation.

“Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine will ensure Mr Putin’s own infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance,” Albright concluded.

The former Secretary of State is looking prescient these days. The West has already announced new sanctions and promised more could come, and President Biden has announced plans to move more troops to the Baltics, to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank.

Maybe Putin is a genius, as Trump continues to suggest. Maybe he is maniacally misunderstanding not only the history of his own country and misjudging the resolve of the West to resist his aggression, as Albright believes.

But it is beyond dispute the Russian President has now enmeshed America, its European allies and much more far-flung allies such as Australia and Japan in a border dispute verging on all-out war that poses grave risks for the entire world.

We’re just spectators at this point. But warfare, especially today’s televised version, is a riveting phenomenon, so we’ll likely soon be able to witness widespread suffering and carnage from a seemingly and remote vantage point.

Only skyrocketing prices will remind us that we’re involved in this, too.