(tl;dr: wrong, wrong, wrong)
At the start of Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, I wrote a piece that was cautiously optimistic about what I called a “crowdsourced war.” That piece accepted two premises — (1) that Putin's aggression must be met, and (2) that a hot war “would be a civilization-ending disaster.” It observed the emergence of what I called a “crowdsourced war” — the effort of many across the world with influence inside Russia to leverage their opposition to pressure Putin to withdraw. My claim was that the democratic interdependence of the modern era made any nation vulnerable to the condemnation of the world, and that sanctions at every level—from the government on up—could pressure a country, even Russia, to amend its criminal ways.
A Russian friend — I called him “Alexey”—disagreed. Not with the two premises, but with a crowdsourced war as the response, given those premises. We had an exchange on this page (my first essay, his reply, my reply, his reply, my reply). After my last, “Alexey” went silent. I subsequently published one more piece from a Czech perspective.
These 8 months have been a test of my theory. The data is in: I was wrong. Though the “crowd” has resolved itself against Putin (stupidly and unfortunately, though, this has meant resolving against Russia, and even worse, Russians)…
