The war in Ukraine has started.  While it is easy to say this is all the doing of a madman, a brutal dictator or a thug, it would not be totally true.  Putin is all of the above but if we ignore the history that led to all of this, then we are likely to repeat this type of tragedies over and over again.  I am no historian and some of the facts I recall may not be 100% accurate.  I am also writing this as I am thinking about it and so I don't know how many blogs is going take me.  Hopefully this is coherent.

The USSR and the U.S. were allies in WWII along with Western Europe.  Post war the two sides went separate ways.  Just like we were proud of winning the war, the Soviets were proud of their victory.  The U.S. and the Soviets built the two biggest military powers in the world.  Unfortunately, they were no longer allies as they represent two opposite systems.  Both wish to destroy the other's system, believing that they would suffer if the other side wins.  The Soviets were able to match the Americans militarily but they failed miserably economically.  So unlike what Reagan supporters believe, we didn't win the Cold War due to strength.  We won because the USSR self-destructed economically.

So Gorbachev decided to make peace with the West.  The Soviets were going to change their system and try to imitate the West with the help of the West.  Gorbachev believed that if Germany and Japan can rise from the ashes of their defeat in WWII with the help of the West, surely the USSR can do the same.  But the help he needed never came.  Left on its own with poor leaders like Yeltsin, corruption within the government and no previous experience with capitalism, only a few oligarchs became rich.  The rest of the country became even more poor.

So the USSR started to break up.  The Warsaw Pact also collapsed.  The economically weak Russia could not do much to stop the bleeding.  By the time the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania left the bloc, there wasn't much left except for Ukraine and Georgia.

Ukraine was the closest of the former Soviet Republics to Russia.  There were and still are many Russians in Ukraine.  Most people in Ukraine can speak Russian.  Also we look at the map, you can draw a straight line from England to France to Germany to Poland to Ukraine to Russia.  Once Poland became part of the EU, Ukraine is the only buffer between Russia and NATO.  So you can see why Ukraine is so important to Russia.  Before the breakup, Ukraine actually had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.  When the deal was made to breakup,  Ukraine wanted continue Russian support and gave back the nuclear weapons.  

Ukraine, however, was split two factions.  Those west side of the country tended to favor Europe but the east side favor Russia.  Meanwhile the EU was snapping up all the countries west of Ukraine.  The EU wanted these countries to join so they can station troops and missile close to Russia, so the Russians reasoned.  The Western Europeans would say that they just want to spread democracy and improve the economic status of the Eastern European countries.  You can be the judge of who is right on this.  I would say that some of these countries are democratic in name only.  Economically, most of them are better off than when the Soviets dominated them but they are not anywhere near Western European level.  I think by incorporating them into the EU, Western Europe just got a source of cheap labor, something the Brits missed out since Brexit.

Well, I digress and getting tired so I will stop for now.  Next will go over how Putin's view on this and how he used it to his advantage and eventually took Crimea.

 Now that the Winter Olympics are over, I will give some final thoughts. 

China, as expected, did a great job of hosting and putting on a show.  Also expected, it got the "but" review from western media.  That is, the media will say things went well, but....For example NYT:  China Celebrates a Joyless Triumph.  USA Today:  The most controversial, most unwelcoming Olympics of our lifetime are now over.  So there were many articles such that nobody got COVID from the Olympics so China deserves credit but there was no fun, no interactions, too much trouble for the journalists etc.

But there were many accounts by athletes of them having great times and impressed with the Beijing organization.  Aaron Blunck, an American skier, praised China during a news conference saying what he read before coming here seems to be false.  Shortly after, he reported that his twitter account was suspended.  He thought that it was because his comments about China.  But the account was restored shortly afterward so I think it was most likely a glitch, not an American government effort to limit his speech as some in the Chinese media pointed out.

Only about five countries joined the American diplomatic boycott.  Then the U.S. requested dozens of diplomat passes to the Games.  I don't know why they requested them if you are boycotting.  I am sure the countries that follow our lead wonder too.  Why do the diplomats need to be there?  Maybe they are security forces to protect American athletes since Nancy Pelosi is worried about their safety if they speak out against China!  It seems that the American athletes only have nice things to say.  And even if they don't, China is not stupid enough to harm them when the whole world is watching.  I think Pelosi have more important things than that to worry about in our own country.

Eileen Gu won two gold and one silver, becoming the biggest star for China.  People are calling her traitor or at least asking if she is still American.  Bill Maher said that it is not racist to ask if she is still an American.  Well, he and others did not ask if Zoe Atkin, an American competing in the same event as Gu, is still an American after she represented Britain in Beijing because her father was born in Britain.  Nobody is asking if Kailee Humphries, the two time gold medalists for Canada but won a gold for the U.S. in Beijing, is still a Canadian.  There are many instances of athletes representing a country that is not where they were born or live.  Nobody ever question their loyalty except for Gu.  So you tell me if this is racist or sinophobia.

As an aside, Bill Maher also criticized John Cena for apologizing to his Chinese fans in Mandarin (he speaks Mandarin very well) because he mistakenly called Taiwan a country.  Well, Maher should know that Taiwan is not recognized by about 190 countries in this world as a nation, including the U.S.  So Cena is right and Maher should apologize to Cena.

The figure skating controversy is very sad.  The Russian girl is 15.  I am sure she didn't take those medication by choice.  She would have no idea what they are.  The risk vs benefit is very high.  It would be malpractice for any doctor to prescribe these for a young girl.  Whoever put her up to it should be in jail.  So the name changes from the USSR to the Unified Team to Olympic Athlete of Russia to ROC but the cheating continues.  Not only that, you see how the coaches treat the girls with whole world watching.  I can't imagine what they do to them in training when nobody is watching.

Mikaela Shiffrin is a class act.  After a disastrous Olympic, she talked to the press with politeness and humility without blaming anyone or feeling sorry for herself.  I am sure she will bounce back and continue her path of becoming the GOAT.

I will stop now but lets see how the press coverage for Italy in 2026 will go.  During the first big wave of COVID in 2020, Italy was suffering the worst.  It had to go to complete lockdown, same as China at that time.  The New York Times, on the same day, published articles on the two countries' response.  The Chinese effort was labeled draconian.  The Italian effort was hailed as heroic.  Need I say more?

 I am not a big fan of the Winter Olympics.  I can't really get into watching most of the sports.  I did watch some figure skating over the weekend.  I felt very bad for Zhu Yi, the American born as Beverly Zhu, who is now skating for China.  She did very poorly in the team event, falling badly in both the short and long programs.  She has been blasted in Chinese social media.  Many are questioning why an American is taking the only woman figure skating spot on the Chinese team ahead of a Chinese born skater.  Worse, some question if she failed on purpose because she is not really Chinese.

I find these attacks on Zhu horrifying.  First of all, if China had someone better, their Olympic leaders certainly would not have chosen Zhu.  Somehow after Lu Chen had won the world championships about twenty years ago, China has not produce another female skater that is able to compete for the podium.  I thought back then that there would have been a wave of female skater who would dominate the world.  If the U.S. can produce a Michelle Kwan, why wouldn't China produce several of them?  So there must be problems in their system that they have nobody stepping up now.  Zhu, obviously was not among the top American women so she decided to represent China.  She was not expected to medal.  But in trying too hard to show that she belong on the Chinese team, she stumbled badly.  She does not deserve such hatred.  If the Chinese people think that Zhu does not belong, then they should question their own Olympic leaders to see why they have failed.

Having seen what has happened to Zhu, I really worry about another American who is representing China, Eileen Gu.  Gu is in three events in freestyle skiing.  Unlike Zhu, Gu is a strong contender to medal.  She is dubbed the snow princess in China.  If they get mad at Zhu for failing, can you imagine what they will say about Gu if she fails to medal?