By David Glenn Cox
Many years ago, I visited a small town in Alabama, called Hayneville. It was one of those friendly little southern farm towns. Where people would wave because they recognized you as a stranger in town. In front of the courthouse was an obelisk. It wasn’t one of those gaudy monuments to our glorious lost cause. It was a stark monument to the dead men of Hayneville, who died in a bloody Civil War.
Covered with names and dates of fathers and sons. Brothers and whole families of men who were wiped out. And I began to understand that this town had never recovered from the Civil War almost 110 years later. Because the young men had no children the town had no future and so stumbled along towards obscurity and oblivion.
Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine stealthily. It was supposed to be all over in four days. But his plans began to miscue almost immediately. The Russian tactic left over from World War Two say, if at first you don’t succeed, throw more men at it. But almost immediately, because nobody knows you like the folks at home. Large cues began to form at the Russian borders. The best and the brightest, the affluent and the educated were headed for the exits. And before they could shut off the spicket an estimated one million young men left the country, never to return.
After three years of war, the Russian Black Sea fleet has fled the Black Sea. The Russian air force nurses along an aging fleet of forty-year-old Soviet aircraft. The other day a Russian fighter jet fired its missiles then went into a sharp defensive bank. Then the wing fell off. They lose as many airplanes to age as they do to combat. When Ukraine attacked the Russian bomber fleet, they destroyed many and damaged many others. The Western media largely assumed those airplanes could be repaired. Assuming that there were parts available on the shelf for forty-year-old airplanes. And technicians available who know how to repair forty-year-old airplanes.
Russia has lost in combat over one million men. Plus, to keep from paying death benefits many more of the dead are reported as missing. So, the actual number of Russian casualties is unknown. What is known is the average age of a Russian Soldier fighting on the front lines in Ukraine today is over fifty. North Korea sent 11,000 men and now, half of those are gone. Russia is importing workers and soldiers from anywhere poor men live in poverty. Africans, ethnic Chinese and nearly 1.3 million men from India. To replace the civilian Russian workers no longer available.
It becomes a population bomb and a demographic disaster. If the young men don’t have any children, it becomes a population of the very old and the very young. It becomes Hayneville. A population in a death spiral. No more children today means …no more children tomorrow. Like the old song goes, “Where have all the young men gone?”
About a month ago, President Zelensky was going to give a speech and the Russians got wind of it and targeted the building with two missiles. But Zelensky hadn’t arrived yet. Two weeks later, a Russian Admiral was blown to bits in a car bomb attack. Ukraine sending a message. “You target me, and I’ll target you!”
As you can imagine for Vladimir Putin this is all very troubling. And as any autocrat can tell you, this must be someone’s else’s fault! People in power are being arrested and falling to their deaths from first floor windows. The Russian Finance minister recently gave her report noting the many challenges facing the Russian economy. Saying the economy could slip into a recession. If you were the finance minister, would you dare to use the word depression? With 24% interest rates and a shortage of sanctioned parts. Shortages of cash and shortages of qualified workers?
Putin’s government recently announced it was selling off nationalized industries. The railroads and phone company or what we call a fire sale. Desperate to raise cash as foreign workers tend to send their money home. These workers aren’t planning to stay in Russia or invest in Russia, so foreign workers become a double-edged sword bleeding the economy of much needed hard currency.
Ukraine targeting Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure limits the only inflow of hard currency available. Angry and frustrated Putin is stuck and lashes out. He can’t possibly quit now. Not and still remain in power. And so, he plays rope a dope with the biggest dope available today on the world stage. Blowing hot and cold on a ceasefire talks, while the dope blows hot and cold on Ukraine.
The legacy of Russia’s Communist past is widespread corruption. From Chinese tires and now to the suicide of the former Governor of Kursk. Who was appointed transportation minister and was responsible for building defensive fortifications in Kursk. What are the chances the Ukrainians would ever attack Kursk? So, the minister pocketed around $190 million dollars and then when Ukrainians blew through the fortifications like a toll booth. Vladimir became very angry. It ruined Russian plans for a summer offensive. And it made Vladimir look incompetent.
And unlike many government official’s who’s deaths were ruled as suicides in Russia. This one even had a gun in the car. The war is now decided and now comes only the fight for the survival of the leadership. So now, there is a big push in Russia to revitalize the memory of Joseph Stalin. You remember? The good old days! Where you better watch your mouth and keep your opinions to yourself. A very useful policy in a country rapidly facing disintegration from a long and disastrous war. A war that was only going to last for four days.
In another twenty years, Russia will be covered in Haynesvilles. Dying farm towns, empty classrooms and empty playgrounds and in each town an obelisk, remembering the war dead. And the futures never to be. Like a dying man, no one can say for sure at what hour he will let go, only that he will let go.
“Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by contentment.
But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.” ― Sun Tzu
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