Like letter writer Timmon Wallis, I am aware Ukraine is a much smaller country that is going head to head with Russia [“No, Ukraine cannot still ‘win’ this war,” Gazette, March 4]. Differently from Wallis and some other writers to the Gazette, I do not take the further step of asserting Ukraine must cede to Russian demands. My understanding is that those demands Russia is making are not in fact what Russia wants and needs. My view is that the only viable peace that can come out of this horrible conflict is a solution in which both sides win. Finding how both sides can win might require less in the way of painful compromise than by way of greater insights as to what is at issue in this fight.
I believe part of what is in play is the art of the deal that the 45th and 47th president seems to have made with Russia when he first went to Moscow on July 4, 1987. Apparently, by the
terms of that deal this person would achieve great things for America while becoming wealthy beyond all imagination. This individual would cut the gordian knot of enmity between the United States and Russia so as to end the Cold War, finally and forever.
The Soviets will not have been generous towards this person from the goodness of their hearts.
And what the Russians wanted — and still want — from the party they then assisted into presidential office involves a steep price in terms of our national dignity, pride and honor that most Americans will not knowingly choose to pay. All of this has been a high risk proposition from a Russian perspective, as Americans waking up to what has been pulled on us could become very vengeful.
The recent war that tore Syria apart was in some ways a “proxy war,” which is to say other countries used Syria as a safer alternative for venting their unhappiness with each other than going head to head directly. I am not sure but that the 47th president might be attempting to use his Iranian “excursion” to gain leverage for renegotiating his deal with Iran’s ally, Russia.
Mary H. Hall
South Hadley