Consider just the ripple effects of the Ukraine war. Food and gas prices soar all over the world. Inflation results in higher interest rates and imperils governments. Germany and Japan agree to massive defense spending increases. Finland and Sweden apply to join NATO. All meaningful political opposition is crushed in Russia. Extreme American right-wingers support Putin against NATO, partly because the brutal Russian military isn’t “woke.” It’s an impressive list.
And those are just the secondary effects of the war. The main event is the attempt by a small, flawed democracy to retain its independence from Putin’s fascist, imperialist state. A lot of people have expended a lot of energy to analyze the war in different terms, but it really is that simple. This is a battle of good against evil, and evil has to be resisted, or it will continue to push the envelope.
Time Magazine got it right. Zelensky is the Man of the Year for 2022. It was a no-brainer.