One can become accustomed to the idea of war, or rather, to the idea of the possibility of war, like to a television set mumbling in the background. In addition, Russian public opinion has already survived, without damage to its mental health, and even with some inspiration, which has been blown away over the years, several military campaigns: Georgia, Crimea, Donbass, Syria. It will be more difficult to get used to the war that is not on TV, the war that is not a computer game that turns the whole way of life, the whole perception of reality.
And this is not only and not so much about the disabled SWIFT or the loss of several familiar tools of everyday life. This is a psychological breakdown, which will be very different from the triumphalist reflections of focus group respondents that “we” are doing everything right. Who are “we” and why “we” go to war in the logic of 1939: “We don’t want war, but we will defend ourselves - / We strengthen our defense not in vain. / And on the enemy's land we will defeat the enemy / With little blood, with a mighty blow! What blow? What for? Who is attacking us now? My son needs to go to university, and not go to the army, he also needs to think about where to spend his vacation, book tickets to Turkey, otherwise they will sort everything out ... And can you believerything will be done with "little blood"?
What is goal setting? Protect "brothers" in eastern Ukraine? These "brothers", unless they benefit from their official position, ask themselves the question - when will all this end, will this war last longer than the Great Patriotic War?
And after all, in exactly the same way they “liberated” the “brothers” in 1940, taking, in accordance with the well-known pact, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. In order to punish the stubborn Finns in 1939, who did not want to become a buffer state and a pawn in the game of big powers, they imitated shelling from the other side of the border, and began, according to Tvardovsky, “an unfamous war”, the results of which indicated that an unjust war it's impossible to win. Take Kiev in two days? So Grozny was already taken "in two hours by the forces of one parachute regiment."
The war in Afghanistan undermined the moral strength of the Soviet Union. The burden of military spending, the wastefully inefficient economy, the collapse in oil prices all mattered. But more important is the moral destruction of society from the inside, and by no means from the outside, by “enemies” and their intelligence services, jeans, chewing gum and obscene magazines. Zinc coffins gave birth in a whole generation, and, perhaps, not even in one, the "Vietnamese syndrome", the syndrome of brotherhood in hell. Moreover, this hell is man-made, created without purpose and meaning. Zinc coffins undermined the sense of the moral rightness of the Soviet Union and the remnants of respect for the leadership. Instead of inspiring, the war demobilized. Half the country was trembling in anticipation of the call of boys to Afghanistan. And no one wanted to die for the Politburo, between which and the Motherland they no longer put an equal sign.
The USSR would have collapsed even earlier if Brezhnev had the sense to stop the invasion plan to “restore order” in fraternal (again fraternal) Poland in 1980. There was still minimal rationality in Leonid Ilyich, despite the massive aging of the body. Instead of communism - the Olympics. And another invasion instead of the Olympics would have left the country without bread and livelihood - it would have cost more stringent sanctions than usual to cut off the pipe and, accordingly, the reverse flow of petrodollars.
Any military operation without goal-setting and a sense of absolute justice instead of “The armor is strong and our tanks are fast…” forces the wise Boris Grebenshchikov to sing another song, 1987: “According to new intelligence data, we fought with ourselves.” And any such war eventually turns into a "bombing of Voronezh": we strike at our own - we are looking for a front and undermining the foundations where they do not exist. We aim at an enemy plane, but we get into the gross domestic product, we aim at an enemy tank, and we get into the indicator of real disposable incomes of the population.
Generally speaking, as military historian Michael Howard wrote, the “post-heroic era” has long since arrived: people want to live, not fight. Trade, travel, earn money, meaningfully relax, understand the varieties of Italian wines, meticulously choose a swimsuit for the new holiday season. The new generations do not know either the Hellenic or the Jew - they are open to the world, it is nothing that 66% of young people of the 18-24 category treat Ukrainians well or very well, they do not care what adult uncles share there and cannot share in any way. The average young Muscovite has more in common with a young citizen of Kiev than with some "patriotic" deputy who wants to turn this young Russian into pre-stupefied cannon fodder for the sake of ... For what?If the memory of the Great War is really kept in families, then these families cannot wish for a war, albeit a small one and supposedly victorious. In today's circumstances, when Hitler is not on the other side of the trench, war is slaughter and death for the sake of someone's ambitions. Nothing more. If families really keep the memory of the repressed, they cannot dream of an additional "bombing of Voronezh" for the sake of ... For what? History, if it is really history, and not a mythologized set of clichés, cannot inspire war and increased repression against one's own people, the search for enemies and agents among neighbors. It can only warn and stop, but for this you need to know it and not be satisfied with how the propagandist from the pulpit tells that "we" never attacked anyone.
"Can we do it again"? What to repeat? Why repeat? And "we" are sure that we "repeat" exactly what our ancestors did, defending the country, and not attacking others. It seems that "we" are doing something completely different, hiding behind the memory of our ancestors, like a shield.
"When are we going to Washington?" Yes, when we ourselves establish within ourselves the cult of death, which, as evidenced by non-mythologized history, is characteristic of the wildest and cruelest political regimes.
And again: for what?
The collective brain of a nation is sometimes a very accurate radar. For several years now, the second anxiety on the list of possible horrors for Russians has been the fear of a world war. It is the world. The triumphant militancy no longer mobilizes, it frightens. And any small conflict in the eyes of the same Russians can develop into a world slaughter, where there will be no winners.
Maybe it would be worth all the same to stop this war with ourselves and start arranging your own land? Intelligence data will not lie.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editorial position.
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