The war in Ukraine has now outlasted the First World War. Snyder is right to insist that this fact carries historical weight proportional to its duration, and that the outcome will too.
What this campaign illustrates, beyond the specific hardware, is something the Western security establishment still underweights: the democratic polity as a procurement network. Distributed, crowdfunded, civilian-adjacent defense. Donation converted to deployed capability in real time. That feedback loop is faster than most defense ministries can manage at any budget level.
The $500K figure is deliberately modest….. it represents about ten seconds of U.S. defense spending. But the signal isn’t the amount. It’s the velocity and the directness. People who understand what’s at stake, moving resources to where they matter, without bureaucratic friction.
The deeper point is that Ukraine is not only defending territory. It is road-testing democratic resilience under industrial-scale coercion. What is being learned there, about civil society mobilization, distributed command, and the psychology of persistence under sustained attack, will define security architecture for the next generation.
We should be paying close attention to the curriculum.
To emphasize your second paragraph, Johan, allow me to share an experience. For more than half a decade starting in the late '90s I worked on a DARPA project called "Low Cost Cruise Missile Defense" which foresaw though underappreciated the current drone war situation. Our team developed a radar seeker that would enable an air defense weapon costing about the same as the weapons being countered. But none of the services were interested. It had to do with lack of glamor and modest program size as much as with short sightedness.
Of course that situation is not new; Parkinson's law derives from his observations of the British armed forces in the 1920s and Lewis Mumford wrote about it decades later. But the newest twist, dumbing down the military and rejecting lessons paid for in blood, only strengthens the argument for a complete rebuilding of our military starting with a critical re-examination of the fundamental premises.
Trump is finding out that just because MAGA can’t think for themselves that doesn’t apply to the rest of the country.
Ukraine has been my guiding light for many years now and if we somehow find our way out of here is it by luck, providence, by logic and reason or a combination of factors, what will the history books write about us in 5, 10, 50 years from now. The new generation better gear up for higher education and civility and understanding peace or will have to beat it out of them!
I've been supporting Sky Defense since its inception and did so again a few minutes ago. Thank you, Timothy Snyder, for being such a staunch supporter of Ukraine prior to and during the War for Ukraine's Independence.
As russia increases its attacks against civilians, Ukrainian interceptor drones have been able to down an average of 90% of russian drones, saving lives and reducing the destruction caused by drones. Lil' putin knows russia is losing the ground war so he's increasing drone and missile attacks against civilians to pressure President Zelenskyy to negotiate a ceasefire in exchange for surrendering the unoccupied Donbas to russia, something russia has been unable to capture since 2014. But Ukrainians won't surrender because they understand:
It is better to live, fight and die as a free Ukrainian than live as a russian slave.
I agree with you. We must do what we can to support Ukraine in any way possible and continue to do so till hopefully the final victory. As a Dane I find it easier to contribute through Danish channels and that’s what I’m doing regularly and will continue to do so.
I’ve contributed to this, but just be aware that your US credit card contribution may be blocked by your credit card company. I had to use 3 different cards before the payment finally went through (with my credit union) and that was only after I called to tell them it was a legitimate contribution!
Recently finished, Bloodlands. I will quote one sentence that I dearly loved. “Only history individuates by providing the common subject from which individual ethical reasoning can begin.” My god, I think that’s so life affirming. I’m just getting to know you, love what you’ve written, thank you so much.
Read it years ago and cried my way through it. So honored to be able to contribute in my own small way to the heroic Ukrainian people fighting for all who love democracy against the criminal Putin and his lackeys. And embarrassed as an American for all we have not done to help. Shameful and cowardly. Slava Ukraini.
When it comes to standing on the side of right, where else would you stand? Stalin was a monster no different than Hitler, as you know they had been partners in crime. and Putin is a chip off the old block. The Ukrainians are a creative inventive people, this new attack drone disables a Russian drone costing 30-50 K for a fraction of the price.
His clarity about the past is itself a form of resistance, he refuses to let the record dissolve into abstraction or propaganda. And it was academically painful for me, too. He is relentless in his presentation of evidence, and the repetition of event after event across so many overlapping atrocities can exhaust any reader. Snyder writes with that same conviction in On Tyranny and On Freedom, as well.
Thank you, Timothy Snyder, for helping to galvanize support for Ukraine. Just donated. Sky Defense is one of several causes for Ukraine, that I have supported. I hope Ukrainians understand that Trump,MAGA, and the complicit recacitrant GOP Congress do not speak for most Americans with respect to Ukraine. He, too, and this era shall pass.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) reported that May was the deadliest month in Ukraine since the war began in 2022. There were 274 civilian deaths and 1,763 injuries during the month for a total of 2,037 civilian casualties. Lil' putin is waging war against civilians, a war crime, and Sky Defense is critical to saving Ukrainian lives and reducing the destruction caused by russian drones.
Your ongoing support for Ukraine and providing meaningful ways that we as individuals can help is appreciated. Will proudly donate to this cause as I did with the armored vehicles. Thank you for all you do.
Dear Tim (if I may) - longtime/reader admirer but subbed today in order to comment on an essay by Peter Chametzky: "Art-Life During Wartime: Notes on a Field Trip to Kyiv" just posted at Firstofthemonth.org - Chametzky tells about the lives and times of Ukraine's stalwart visual artists. He focues in particular on the work of the late Marharyta Polovinko who was killed on the frontlines in April-- Polovinko was a born painter (and colorist) who carried on her practice at the frontlines - she used her own blood in her sketches...- The images of her work made pre-22 and during the full-on war are unforgettable. Hope you'll try Chametzky's piece and let your readers know about Polovinko's images.
I am supporting Ukraine in a different way, by purchasing from Ukraineian artists who have shops on Etsy.
I'm an artist and know how difficult being an unknown artist is, imagine the difficulty of artistic expressing during a war? My heart goes out to all of the creatives living in Ukraine, they are in a horriable assault from Russia, done by a leader who fantatizes that taking Ukraineian land as an "undoing" of the past as he trashes the Russian economy feeding his war machine. There is no undoing of what has happened in the past, killing for a imaginary past that never existed. Learning about our past mistakes and adjusting our path going forward does work.
I do the same, and have made a great friend in this way, a ceramic artist. She supports her husband, recently wounded in combat, and at the same time gives free pottery classes for injured soldiers and amputees in the local military hospital. I don't know where she finds the strength, but she is a joy to know and it does my spirits good to support her work.
The war in Ukraine has now outlasted the First World War. Snyder is right to insist that this fact carries historical weight proportional to its duration, and that the outcome will too.
What this campaign illustrates, beyond the specific hardware, is something the Western security establishment still underweights: the democratic polity as a procurement network. Distributed, crowdfunded, civilian-adjacent defense. Donation converted to deployed capability in real time. That feedback loop is faster than most defense ministries can manage at any budget level.
The $500K figure is deliberately modest….. it represents about ten seconds of U.S. defense spending. But the signal isn’t the amount. It’s the velocity and the directness. People who understand what’s at stake, moving resources to where they matter, without bureaucratic friction.
The deeper point is that Ukraine is not only defending territory. It is road-testing democratic resilience under industrial-scale coercion. What is being learned there, about civil society mobilization, distributed command, and the psychology of persistence under sustained attack, will define security architecture for the next generation.
We should be paying close attention to the curriculum.
🐌 Johan
….
To emphasize your second paragraph, Johan, allow me to share an experience. For more than half a decade starting in the late '90s I worked on a DARPA project called "Low Cost Cruise Missile Defense" which foresaw though underappreciated the current drone war situation. Our team developed a radar seeker that would enable an air defense weapon costing about the same as the weapons being countered. But none of the services were interested. It had to do with lack of glamor and modest program size as much as with short sightedness.
Of course that situation is not new; Parkinson's law derives from his observations of the British armed forces in the 1920s and Lewis Mumford wrote about it decades later. But the newest twist, dumbing down the military and rejecting lessons paid for in blood, only strengthens the argument for a complete rebuilding of our military starting with a critical re-examination of the fundamental premises.
⚖️🕯️ A Lantern of Nations: Standing Strong
In France, before the G7 meets to chart the steady way,
Mark Carney and Emmanuel stood up to clearly say,
The world is feeling fractured by a shadowy design,
But democracies together must now hold the guiding line. 🤝
They noted how the global rules are facing deep attacks,
Through economic bullying and turning from the facts.
Through struggles with our information, power tries to press,
To put the international agreement to a test. ⚖️
But rule of law must stand its ground, and science must hold true,
To face the changing climate and protect the children, too.
These democratic values are the bedrock that we share,
A promise to our citizens of honesty and care. 🛡️
To face these shifting global winds and keep our people free,
We must be strong and capable, for all the world to see.
By acting in a partnership, without a sign of fright,
Democracies united will protect the steady light. 🕯️
We need to build our industries and keep our power secure,
To make our economies robust, our steady futures sure.
It takes an autonomy of choice to weather any storm,
To keep our nations confident, resilient, and warm. ⚙️
This push for deeper sovereignty is not a full retreat,
But how a free society stays standing on its feet.
It is the core condition so a nation can defend,
The safety of its citizens until the very end. 🏛️
From Europe’s ancient continent to Canada’s wide space,
A bold strategic joining is now locking into place.
A transatlantic handshake meant to fortify the grand,
And keep the rights of liberty secure across the land. 🌍
So let the lantern boldly shine when shadows try to creep,
The promises of freedom are the promises we keep.
When nations stand together to reject the power-play,
The steadfast strength of rule of law will always win the day. 🕊️
We are the Pro-Democracy Comment-Chain Crew, using our comments to boost pro-democracy leaders and indie media so the truth can grow!✨🇺🇸🗳️⚖️🕯️
Trump is finding out that just because MAGA can’t think for themselves that doesn’t apply to the rest of the country.
Ukraine has been my guiding light for many years now and if we somehow find our way out of here is it by luck, providence, by logic and reason or a combination of factors, what will the history books write about us in 5, 10, 50 years from now. The new generation better gear up for higher education and civility and understanding peace or will have to beat it out of them!
I've been supporting Sky Defense since its inception and did so again a few minutes ago. Thank you, Timothy Snyder, for being such a staunch supporter of Ukraine prior to and during the War for Ukraine's Independence.
As russia increases its attacks against civilians, Ukrainian interceptor drones have been able to down an average of 90% of russian drones, saving lives and reducing the destruction caused by drones. Lil' putin knows russia is losing the ground war so he's increasing drone and missile attacks against civilians to pressure President Zelenskyy to negotiate a ceasefire in exchange for surrendering the unoccupied Donbas to russia, something russia has been unable to capture since 2014. But Ukrainians won't surrender because they understand:
It is better to live, fight and die as a free Ukrainian than live as a russian slave.
Slava Ukraini!
I agree with you. We must do what we can to support Ukraine in any way possible and continue to do so till hopefully the final victory. As a Dane I find it easier to contribute through Danish channels and that’s what I’m doing regularly and will continue to do so.
I’ve contributed to this, but just be aware that your US credit card contribution may be blocked by your credit card company. I had to use 3 different cards before the payment finally went through (with my credit union) and that was only after I called to tell them it was a legitimate contribution!
Recently finished, Bloodlands. I will quote one sentence that I dearly loved. “Only history individuates by providing the common subject from which individual ethical reasoning can begin.” My god, I think that’s so life affirming. I’m just getting to know you, love what you’ve written, thank you so much.
I finished “Bloodlands” earlier this year Skipper, it was the hardest book I have ever read in nearly 80 years of life.
Read it years ago and cried my way through it. So honored to be able to contribute in my own small way to the heroic Ukrainian people fighting for all who love democracy against the criminal Putin and his lackeys. And embarrassed as an American for all we have not done to help. Shameful and cowardly. Slava Ukraini.
When it comes to standing on the side of right, where else would you stand? Stalin was a monster no different than Hitler, as you know they had been partners in crime. and Putin is a chip off the old block. The Ukrainians are a creative inventive people, this new attack drone disables a Russian drone costing 30-50 K for a fraction of the price.
Let's see what they can do to the new $1billion+ Trump line battleships when he sends them to bail out Putin.
His clarity about the past is itself a form of resistance, he refuses to let the record dissolve into abstraction or propaganda. And it was academically painful for me, too. He is relentless in his presentation of evidence, and the repetition of event after event across so many overlapping atrocities can exhaust any reader. Snyder writes with that same conviction in On Tyranny and On Freedom, as well.
Thank you, Timothy Snyder, for helping to galvanize support for Ukraine. Just donated. Sky Defense is one of several causes for Ukraine, that I have supported. I hope Ukrainians understand that Trump,MAGA, and the complicit recacitrant GOP Congress do not speak for most Americans with respect to Ukraine. He, too, and this era shall pass.
🥰🇺🇸🥰🇺🇦
The US response to this war has been a tragic failure of solidarity against aggressors, common humanity and leadership on the world front. Donated.
Dr Snyder is right. Now is the time to stand up for humanity and decency.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) reported that May was the deadliest month in Ukraine since the war began in 2022. There were 274 civilian deaths and 1,763 injuries during the month for a total of 2,037 civilian casualties. Lil' putin is waging war against civilians, a war crime, and Sky Defense is critical to saving Ukrainian lives and reducing the destruction caused by russian drones.
https://kyivindependent.com/may-deadliest-month-for-ukrainian-civilians-since-april-2022-un-says/
Slava Ukraini!
Your ongoing support for Ukraine and providing meaningful ways that we as individuals can help is appreciated. Will proudly donate to this cause as I did with the armored vehicles. Thank you for all you do.
Dear Tim (if I may) - longtime/reader admirer but subbed today in order to comment on an essay by Peter Chametzky: "Art-Life During Wartime: Notes on a Field Trip to Kyiv" just posted at Firstofthemonth.org - Chametzky tells about the lives and times of Ukraine's stalwart visual artists. He focues in particular on the work of the late Marharyta Polovinko who was killed on the frontlines in April-- Polovinko was a born painter (and colorist) who carried on her practice at the frontlines - she used her own blood in her sketches...- The images of her work made pre-22 and during the full-on war are unforgettable. Hope you'll try Chametzky's piece and let your readers know about Polovinko's images.
Of course I contributed and wish I could do more. It makes me so angry that our government and The Bloated Yam have deserted Ukraine.
I donated.
You are doing God's work, Dr. Snyder! Thank you.
I am supporting Ukraine in a different way, by purchasing from Ukraineian artists who have shops on Etsy.
I'm an artist and know how difficult being an unknown artist is, imagine the difficulty of artistic expressing during a war? My heart goes out to all of the creatives living in Ukraine, they are in a horriable assault from Russia, done by a leader who fantatizes that taking Ukraineian land as an "undoing" of the past as he trashes the Russian economy feeding his war machine. There is no undoing of what has happened in the past, killing for a imaginary past that never existed. Learning about our past mistakes and adjusting our path going forward does work.
I do the same, and have made a great friend in this way, a ceramic artist. She supports her husband, recently wounded in combat, and at the same time gives free pottery classes for injured soldiers and amputees in the local military hospital. I don't know where she finds the strength, but she is a joy to know and it does my spirits good to support her work.