Ukraine’s secret weapon a lesson that should strike terror into the hearts of autocrats everywhere

Offensive: a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian capital’s TV centre. Picture: AFP / Facebook

The events unfolding in Ukraine are tragic for its people, as well as for the good and ordinary citizenry of Russia. Even for those of us who are geographically removed, and who have enjoyed the peace and prosperity of a post-war rules-based global order, they are mightily confronting. The world as we knew it has changed. Sadly, the prospect of war, of neighbourly aggression, of the excesses of one man’s (flawed) ambition has been a recurring theme throughout history. And now, it would seem, it is our turn to deal with this dangerous aspect of the human condition.

The Great War was supposedly the war to end all wars. The same thinking prevailed after World War II. And yet the market for conflict has thrived. The stuff of war has, however, changed. This was evident within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was neither the threat of nuclear annihilation nor the whiz-bang technology that made the difference this time, but something that military strategists and autocrats for evermore will have to account for: the smartphone.

Many of Ukraine’s 44 million residents have used their phones to record, to communicate, the brutality, the lies and the pitilessness of war, and early on achieved a glorious moral victory. The Russian administration was revealed and quickly reviled as a global pariah. First the people, then nations and corporations came out in solidarity. What strikes me about Ukrainians is their dignity, stoicism, bravery and national unity. Here is a nation that has experienced the Soviet and the democratic systems. They have chosen freedom; they are prepared to fight to retain their culture, their way of life, their right to self-determination.

What would have been the course of the Great War if our soldiers had access to a smartphone to video and broadcast, instantly, globally, the horrors of trench warfare? What this conflict has shown is that naked aggression, for no good reason, is exposed by modern technology for all to see and judge accordingly. And when we make that judgment, we do so from core and primal values of fairness and love of family, community and country.

A popular dictum among autocrats is that the West is flawed, divided, weakened, spineless. That may well be so. But the West has a secret weapon more powerful than any hypersonic ballistic missile, potentially more damaging than any atrocity-capturing smartphone. It is our capacity for, and celebration of, dissenting voices. The Australian, let alone the American, political process is a crucible of competing ideas, thinking, verbiage – some say sewage – covering a multitude of cities and regions whose people enjoy the freedom to say and do as they wish (within the bounds of the law). Autocrats, on the other hand, suppress freedom, control and constrict dissenting opinion.

The West in its processes may be chaotic, but it does not suffer from a lack of dissent for fear of upsetting the Dear Leader. Our Prime Minister, the US President and others must daily navigate the sticky quagmire of dissenting voices forever shouting in their general direction. In the quietude of the Kremlin there is only the rhythmic nodding of bemedalled men.

It took the stoic resistance, and purpose, of the Ukrainian people (and many brave Russian protesters) to inspire and to galvanise the global community to call out right from wrong. This experience is indeed a lesson that should strike terror into the hearts of autocrats everywhere.