#surrender #peace #Russia #Ukraine #PeaceDeal #cowardice #weakness #strength #courage
Surrender is not peace.
CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria stated that on his GPS show Nov. 23. 2025, talking about peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
Proposals being offered by the U.S., acting as mediator, appear to call for Ukraine to surrender territory Russia took from it by force. Ukrainians overwhelmingly do not want to do that.
As Zakaria’s comment implies, surrendering territory just to stop another country from attacking you is not a peace deal.
There are other parts of the proposed deal that European allies do not agree with, such as Ukraine agreeing never to join NATO, the European-American alliance designed as a backstop to Russia’s potential aggression. Russia recently softened its position on this, reports say,
After all, if Ukraine cedes part of its sovereign territory to Russia, what’s to stop Russia from attacking other nearby European allies?
But, let’s break down what peace is, and what it is not.
Peace is more than just a stoppage of fighting.
Certainly, both sides likely want the fighting to stop. The war is doing serious damage to both countries.
But, in Ukraine’s case, it not only wants all its land back, but it also wants assurance that no further attacks will be forthcoming.
Trading land for peace is not a deal. It is a surrender.
In any negotiation, both sides give something and get something. And, in any negotiation, some things are not negotiable.
If what is not negotiable for one side is untenable to the other, there is likely no deal to be had.
Ukraine is a smaller country than Russia. It’s larger neighbor attacked it. It is fighting a noble battle, mainly against soldiers, military targets and economical targets to try to inhibit Russia’s ability to keep attacking.
Russia, on the other hand, is attacking soft civilian targets, like residential areas, schools and hospitals and energy infrastructure, hoping to turn the Ukrainian public against its own government. This shows weakness, not strength. It shows cowardice, not courage.
But, Ukraine has fought hard to get out from under Russia’s grasp for years, and has built a vibrant, democratic country.
Russia also resents the fact that many smart Russians have moved to Ukraine in search of freedom.
Russia, meanwhile, wants Ukraine back under its empire, and may want other former satellite states as well.
So, if peace is achieved, the two nations have to live in the same region, with some guarantees against future attacks.
That will not be easy to achieve, given the attitudes of the players. But, anything less will be something other than real peace.
Peter
Tag Archives: courage
LEADERSHIP AND OZ: BRAIN, HEART, COURAGE
#TheWizardofOz #leadership #workplaces
Even if you’ve read the book or seen the movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” you may not realize that it offers great lessons in leadership.
Workplace expert BJ Gallagher brings some of those lessons to light in her book, “The Leadership Secrets of Oz: Strategies From Great and Powerful to Flying Monkeys – Unleash Some Magic in Your Management.”
Using actual lines from the book and/or movie, Gallagher addresses how one can build brains, heed your heart and cultivate courage.
To jog one’s memory, Dorothy and her three sidekicks were looking to Oz to provide each with the one thing they thought they lacked. The point is that they didn’t lack that characteristic at all. The wizard helped give them the perspective they needed to see that they indeed had what they needed all along.
Sometimes, when we think we don’t have something, or believe we can never find that one thing that we believe will put us over the top, often it is our perspective that is lacking, as Andy Andrews often writes and speaks about.
Have you ever heard someone say, “if I just had a …, I could do …?”
Perhaps what they don’t have is money. They may have a job, but perhaps live paycheck to paycheck. Perhaps they are overwhelmed with debt.
Perhaps they really want something – a nice car, for example – but believe it takes the money they don’t have to get it.
There are many ways to get money while still working that job that doesn’t pay enough, in a person’s mind.
First: spend less and save more. It’s old advice, but still applicable today. If you are young, you can get your nice car, if that’s your dream, but perhaps not right away. If you skip, say, one trip to the coffee shop every day, and saved the money you would otherwise spend there, eventually you’ll have the money put away for that car. Better yet, buy a container that will keep your coffee hot for a long time, make your own coffee, skip the coffee shop altogether and save what you would have spent there. You’ll be driving those dream wheels even sooner.
By the way, while saving for the car, put a few bucks into an account for your retirement. You never know when the day will come that your job will go away. The more and the longer you can save, as well as invest wisely with good trusted advice, the bigger your smile will be when your job eventually goes away.
Second: take a second job or, better yet, use a few non-working hours to help generate an income that could be even better than that from a second job. Maybe it could even outpace your main income source. There are many such vehicles out to help you do that. To check out one of the best, message me.
One can dictate his own future by the right perspective on each circumstance. The Oz characters came to realize that what they lacked was not lacking at all. They simply lacked the perspective that could help them better see what they had.
We all make choices. We all have circumstances. Sometimes, seeing opportunity amid catastrophe requires merely a new perspective. Sometimes, looking at other ways to do things that may be different from what you are used to can turn catastrophe into a dream come true.
Peter