Critter Corner

PAGE 22 | JUNE 9 - 15, 2022

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BACK IN THE DAY

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Falls Church News-Press

Vol. VII, No. 12 • June 5, 1997

4th Annual Tinner Hill Festival This Saturday

Falls Church News-Press

Vol. XXII, No. 15 • June 7, 2012

Dems Vote for U.S. Rep, GOP for U.S. Senate Nominee

The Fourth Annual Tinner Street Festival will be held this Saturday, June 7, from 1 - 5:30 p.m. Closed for the event will be all of Wallace Street, between S. Maple Ave. and the 400 block of S. Washington St. The festival celebrates the founding in Falls Church of the first rural chapter of the NAACP..

Neither race is considered truly competitive, but that is a factor which could contribute to a surprise result if enough voters don’t bother going to the polls for GOP and Democratic primaries this coming Tuesday. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 12.

The Ukraine War Still Holds Surprises. The Biggest May Be for Putin.

Continued from Page 5

our three greatest commanders in chief — Washington, Lincoln and FDR — all had in common as wartime presidents was their ability to keep the country committed to winning the war, despite the dissent.”

That will be President Joe Biden’s challenge, too, especially when there is no consensus among the allies or with Ukraine on what “winning” there looks like: Is it the achievement of Kyiv’s currently stated goal of recovering every inch of its territory occupied by Russia? Is it enabling Ukraine, with the help of NATO, to deliver such a blow to the Russian army that Putin is forced into a compromise deal that still leaves him holding some territory? And what if Putin decides he never wants any compromise — and instead wants Ukraine to endure a slow and painful death?

In two of the most important wars in our history, the Civil War and World War II, Mandelbaum said, “our goal was total victory over the enemy. The problem for Biden and our allies is that we cannot aim for total victory over Putin’s Russia, because that could trigger a nuclear war — yet something like total victory may be the only way to stop Putin from just bleeding Ukraine forever.”

Which brings us to the unpredictable: After more than 100 days of fighting, no one can tell you how this war ends. It was started in Putin’s head, and it will likely end only when Putin says he wants it to end. Putin probably feels that he’s calling all the shots and that time is on his side, because he can take more pain than Western democracies. But big wars are strange things. However they start, they can end in totally unpredicted ways.

Let me offer an example via one of Mandelbaum’s favorite quotes. It is from Winston Churchill’s biography of his great ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, published in the 1930s: “Great battles, won or lost, change the entire course of events, create new standards of values, new moods, new atmospheres, in armies and in nations, to which all must conform.”

Churchill’s point, Mandelbaum has argued, was that “wars can change the course of history and great battles often decide wars. The battle between Russia and Ukraine for control of the area in eastern Ukraine known as the Donbas has the potential to be such a battle.”

In more ways than one. The 27 nations of the European Union, our key ally, are actually the world’s largest trading bloc. They have already moved decisively to slash trade with and investments in Russia. On May 31, the EU agreed to cut off 90 percent of Russia’s crude imports by the end of 2022. This will not only hurt Russia but also cause real pain for EU consumers and manufacturers, already paying astronomical prices for gasoline and natural gas.

All of this is happening, though, at a time when renewable energy, such as solar and wind, have become competitive in price with fossil fuels, and when the auto industry worldwide is significantly scaling up production of electric vehicles and new batteries.

In the short run, none of these can make up for the drop in Russian supplies. But if we have a year or two of astronomical gasoline and heating oil prices because of the Ukraine war, “you are going to see a massive shift in investment by mutual funds and industry into electric vehicles, grid enhancements, transmission lines and long-duration storage that could tip the whole market away from reliance on fossil fuels toward renewables,” said Tom Burke, director of E3G, Third Generation Environmentalism, the climate research group. “The Ukraine war is already forcing every country and company to dramatically advance their plans for decarbonization.”

Indeed, a report published last week by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and Ember, a global energy think tank based in Britain, found that 19 out of the 27 EU states “have significantly stepped up their ambition in terms of renewable energy deployment since 2019, while decreasing planned 2030 fossil fuel generation to shield themselves from geopolitical threats.”

A recent article in McKinsey Quarterly noted: “The 19th century’s naval wars accelerated a shift from wind- to coal-powered vessels. World War I brought about a shift from coal to oil. World War II introduced nuclear energy as a major power source. In each of these cases, wartime innovations flowed directly to the civilian economy and ushered in a new era. The war in Ukraine is different in that it is not prompting the energy innovation itself but making the need for it clearer. Still, the potential impact could be equally transformative.”

Go figure: If this war doesn’t inadvertently blow up the planet, it might inadvertently help sustain it. And, over time, shrink Putin’s primary source of money and power.

Now wouldn’t that be ironic.

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN © 2022 The

New York Times

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HERE ARE NILES, LEO & CODY of Falls Church, on a warm spring day. They love to gaze out the window. They live with their parents in a single family home with lots of windows. They long to be outside, but the window is the next best thing.

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