Defending Democracy
Seeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfold, Mike expresses anxiety at the parallels he sees with China and Taiwan, fearing that the Russian invasion could foreshadow a similar invasion of his mother’s home country, as well as admiration for the students and youth of Taiwan who are bravely standing up to the Chinese government in order to keep their democracy alive.
This is Mike George coming to you from the relative calm and safety of Crimson House in Alexandria. It’s easy for us Americans to take our stability for granted. But what seems safe, stable, and even boring one day can very quickly turn into a total shitshow, as the people of Ukraine are currently experiencing.
President Putin has had his heart set on Ukraine for a long time, even preparing a "fake history" and a script to justify his actions to himself and anyone gullible enough to believe him. But regardless of the script, the reality on the ground is that tanks are rolling and bombs are falling. It’s a very sober reminder that things can go bad much faster than we’d like to admit.
This situation has made me think quite seriously about the people in my own life —specifically the Taiwanese people. For those who don't know me well, I am half-Taiwanese. Growing up, I used to confuse "Chinese" and "Taiwanese" identities because it was simpler to describe to others, and honestly, as a kid, I didn't fully understand the difference myself. Now, this geopolitical tension is deeply personal to me.
When we step back and look at our collective identity, many Americans take for granted that we live in one of the wealthiest and most stable regimes in human history. From post-World War II up until the year 2000, American power was rarely questioned. I remember the turn of the millennium, during which the biggest shitshow we faced then was the recount in Florida following the US Presidential elections. Little did we know that one recount would foreshadow the "wackiness" in elections and politics for years to come.
We often talk about America as a greater force of "good and evil," but those are basic terms for very complicated realities. Everyone wants to be the "good guy" in their own narrative, and that’s often how these conflicts start in the first place.
I believe Joe Biden is the type of leader you want in the Oval Office when World War III is a possibility. Foreign policy is his "bread and butter," in spite of the erosion in America’s credibility and recent military record.
Afghanistan: The longest military operation in U.S. history, lasting 20 years.
Iraq: Justified by the search for chemical weapons that we later realized didn't exist.
Syria: A country decimated by a leader who bombed his own people to stay in power.
If we look at the War on Terror, it was sparked by 9/11 and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But even when bin Laden was captured and executed, there was no "mission accomplished" moment, no ticker-tape parade, and no sense of true victory. We killed the "head of the snake," but new heads, like ISIS, simply grew back. The problem with an infinite War on Terror is that there is no clear end point; who gets to decide when people aren't "scared" anymore?.
As I watch Ukraine, it reminds me of the "shock and awe" campaign in Baghdad. There is a sick part of us that almost finds entertainment in watching the bombs fall, provided we divorce ourselves from the fact that there are real people on the ground. We’ve become numb to the spectacle.
Meanwhile, Putin is playing 3D chess around our foreign policy. He spent years manipulating our psyche and our elections, and now he is running circles around the US apparatus.
As a half-Taiwanese person, I am worried. I’ve even been calling my mother and making arrangements for her to have a place to stay if the worst happens over there. But when I look at the people actually in Taiwan—the college students and the protesters—I see that they aren't scared. They’ve been living with this threat forever, and their attitude is essentially, "Bring it on!"
I’m displaying the U.S. flag today to remind us of what America once stood for: defending people from tyranny and oppression. I only hope we can find our way back to that role before things go as bad as I fear they might.
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