Cogitation in the Time of War #29 - West and East

It's been 7 days since last cogitation and probably it will be another 7 days before I publish the next one. Tis the season of spring holidays (May vacations as they call it here in the Low Countries) and after 2 years of restricted travelling (although we did cross the "big pond" at the end of last summer) we needed this as a family. I also needed to go on a road trip as the other day I realised that driving more than 100 km in a single trip had become a rare occurrence, let alone the more than 1000 km road-trips we did so often before having the kids...

But well, moving one from this personal take, it's time to cogitate a bit about Putin's (Failed) Invasion of Ukraine and how the situation has been developing. Just some thoughts and not a complete coverage of the last days (or even weeks).

Cogitation in the Time of War #27 - The medium-to-long term positive outcome

As I have written several times, twice here on the blog (Cogitation #21 and Cogitation #24) but I think that I have been sharing the same ideas on Facebook and/or Twitter, I've been thinking since the early stages that the final outcome of Putin's Invasion of Ukraine would be very positive in the medium-to-long term  (i.e. it won't be in the first months after the conflict ends) with overall future improvements for all parties involved, including Russia.

But every now and then, and in particular as a result of certain developments that occur, I'm worry that my positive prediction wont happen and that the World will step back a few decades to a new cold war, or even worse. Although when I think about the worst, I go back to a comment my brother made a few weeks ago, who told me that he thought the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 was kind of a natural protection that was given to us to gain more immunity to a new super-pandemic that will appear in a few years: him thinking of a new epidemic like the COVID-19 means that most of us will still be here and didn't go to hell in a nuclear holocaust...