Living by Proxy

I have made an effort to steer clear of politics on this site, although at times it’s been impossible not to comment or even devote an entire post to some political issue. How could I not, given the emergence of populism and the radicalization of political discourse over the ten years that the site has existed? As stated on the Welcome page, posts are meant to be like “musical études or pieces that focus as much on technique, style, and language as concept.”

I prefer to keep it that way but now find myself unable, not when current events include an expansion of the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Ukraine’s recent use of American-made, long-range missiles that hit targets inside Russia provoked a response by Russia with a so-called “hypersonic” missile fired at the city of Dnipro in Ukraine. Reportedly, hypersonic missiles are capable of evading not just Ukraine’s but NATO’s air defenses and can do so with nuclear payloads.

The Biden administration approved the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine, knowing that they needed the American military to manage their guidance systems and, presumably, that such involvement would put the United States in direct confrontation with Russia. Vladimir Putin has said that he will treat any further attacks on Russia in kind, including those countries in the West backing the attacks. Kennedy’s warning to Khrushchev in 1962 about the placement of missiles in Cuba requiring a “full retaliatory response” comes to mind.

This is dangerous ground. That there are people in the administration still arguing for escalation and against a diplomatic end to the war–as if it were winnable–is troubling. especially when it is not clear who is making decisions. The president seems incapacitated and the vice president unavailable, which surprises no one. That leaves the secretaries of defense and state, the National Security Council, and a host of intelligence agencies vying with one another for control of policy. Worse still, the media doesn’t have any problem with throwing out one reference after another to “World War Three” while the general public prepares blissfully for Thanksgiving and the holidays.

Perhaps it doesn’t feel as catastrophic to many Americans as that earlier brush with nuclear war, because it is far removed not just geographically but from our collective memory. After all, Ukraine is not ninety miles from Florida, and the only people to have invaded America is Americans. That war, a civil one, lingers like a shadow in the national unconscious but without the immediacy of actual battles and death. For that, you have to go to a museum, war memorial, or battle site like Gettysburg.

That brings me to Tucker Carlson’s interview of Donald Trump just before the 2024 presidential election. Trump called Liz Cheney a war hawk and said she should be issued a rifle and sent into battle to see what it’s like before sending others to fight. Comically, mainstream media went into a frenzy, claiming that Trump had called for Cheney’s execution by firing squad.

In retrospect, it was a reasonable observation and one that not that long ago the Left made of the Right concerning the military industrial complex and wars of regime change. I recall one antiwar trope about bureaucrats in air-conditioned offices in Washington, DC sending young men into steamy jungles in Vietnam to die. Now, the shoe is on the other foot and, apparently, causing blisters.

The war in Ukraine is a proxy war, of course. Some have said, cynically, that America is so committed we will fight to the last Ukrainian. We are loathe to send troops into battle, especially when the mission, cause, and strategy are unclear. So, we conduct foreign policy through others, whether nation states or groups. But this time around may require getting our hands dirty. Putin has shown that it may require getting our hands bloody.

It might be that the biggest shift in American politics since the rise of populism is the self-recognition that we are not a proxy people. We do not like fighting other people’s wars when the cause is not only unjust but unclear. Neither do we want other countries acting as our advance forces, expendable and replaceable, while we conduct drone attacks and provide guidance for air strikes. This recognition will be even more important if the war in Ukraine spreads into NATO territory and as North Korean troops are deployed on the front lines.

If this sounds strangely familiar, it is because the world witnessed similar alignments that led to the disaster of World War One. This is not quite the same, since it combines elements of that war with the Cuban missile crisis. That’s not exactly encouraging news, since it means this time there will be no trenches to hide in and no proxies to hide for us.

Image credits: feature by Resource Database; red missile by Alexander Mils. Want more? Go to Robert Brancatelli. The Brancatelli Blog is a member of The Free Media Alliance, which promotes “alternatives to software, culture, and hardware monopolies.”