Gongol.com Archives: August 2025
August 20, 2025
A well-seasoned expression says, "If you want to travel fast, go alone. If you want to travel far, go together." There are times for going fast, but there are many more times when it's worth going far. One of those times was when Ukraine's president traveled with seven other European leaders to meet with (and attempt to persuade) the President of the United States that his country is worth a modest investment of solidarity in its fight to repel a Russian invasion. ■ The whole of human civilization lost out in a big way when Russia, emerging from the wreckage of the Soviet Union, failed to achieve the necessary escape velocity from decades of Communist oppression to emerge as a true, liberty-based democracy. There was a window of opportunity -- and other countries with the same Communist baggage, fewer natural resources, and less technological progress at their disposal managed to make it through. ■ Russia did not, and though the Russian people suffer most directly from that failure, others have suffered, too: Prominently, the people of Georgia, Belarus, and of course, Ukraine. In a better alternate history, a reconstructed Russia is contributing peacefully and mightily to the world's scientific, cultural, and economic progress, much as post-war West Germany and Japan or post-occupation South Korea or France do in our real world. ■ Societal openness and individual freedom work like that: They generate desirable progress domestically, but that progress spills over into good things for other nations, too. It's a matter of traveling far by traveling together. ■ Ukraine deserves every reasonable chance to win its present military conflict. Europe seems alert to the fact such a victory would be important to its security, too, which is why France, Germany, the UK, Italy, and Finland sent their leaders along on the urgent mission. Going together matters. ■ And in the long run, the world needs to remember to promptly offer every encouragement whenever a country shows signs of turning away from a sinister system of government and giving liberal democracy a try. It won't always result in success. Reforms don't always stick and culture doesn't always grow. But as we have seen, the costs of failure are enormous.
