The Week Magazine February 4, 2022

“I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.” That was the supposed justification given by Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who considered herself an enlightened reformist, for her unenlightened annexation spree in the 18th century. Under her rule, Russia expanded in all directions, conquering much of what is now Belarus, Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Baltic states. Catherine was right that the quirks of geography had left her country uniquely vulnerable to attack. The Russian heartland that stretches from St. Petersburg to Moscow sits on plains and lacks natural barriers such as mountains and major rivers to slow an invasion from Europe. And in the two centuries that followed Catherine’s death, two foreign invaders—Napoleon and Hitler—marched in from the west. Both were eventually defeated, although at…

What happened The Pentagon put 8,500 American troops on “heightened alert” for possible deployment to eastern Europe this week, as the Biden administration warned that Russian military aggression against Ukraine could result in crippling technological and economic penalties and personal sanctions against President Vladimir Putin. Biden reiterated that he has “no intention of putting American forces” in Ukraine to deter or counter Russian aggression, and said the U.S. troops would be part of a multinational NATO response force providing security for its member nations. But he warned that an invasion would trigger “enormous consequences worldwide,” and floated a plan to ban exports to Russia of computer chips made with U.S. tools or designed with U.S. software. NATO member countries including Spain, Denmark, and Holland readied forces and moved ships…

What happened Donald Trump and his circle faced renewed scrutiny this week over their alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The Justice Department confirmed it was investigating fake certificates containing slates of electors for Trump that were sent from seven swing states won by Joe Biden. Multiple sources have traced the certificates, which were signed by Republican state officials, back to recruitment efforts spearheaded by Trump lawyer and adviser Rudy Giuliani. Legal scholar John Eastman had pressured Vice President Mike Pence in a memo to use the certificates to halt the electoral count under the pretext that he could not decide between competing slates of electors. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, said that former Attorney General Bill Barr is cooperating…

What happened The worst of a crushing Omicron-fueled spike of coronavirus cases appears to be over in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, although the highly infectious variant caused alarming hospital overcrowding this week in the South, West, and Great Plains. The country is averaging about 652,000 new cases a day, down from 754,000 daily cases a week earlier, and hospitalizations appear to have leveled off after topping a pandemic high of 160,000. Daily deaths hit 2,200 for the first time since last fall’s Delta variant surge, bringing the total U.S. toll to 870,000. In Idaho, where just 48 percent of the population is fully vaccinated—the country’s lowest rate—cases have soared 174 percent over two weeks, forcing resource-starved hospitals to triage care. Patients at Covid-packed hospitals in Kansas, where cases are…

After two long years of “contagion and death,” there are, finally, solid “reasons to hope that the pandemic’s grip is loosening,” said Naomi Kresge in Bloomberg. The wildfire spread of the Omicron variant—“less malevolent” in causing fatal illness—is conferring a new layer of natural immunity on tens of millions of Americans and billions of people worldwide, on top of that already achieved by vaccines, booster shots, and previous bouts of infection. Scientists, meanwhile, are rolling out effective new antiviral therapies, and testing variant-specific boosters. Taken together, these developments have sparked hope we’re entering Covid’s “endemic” phase. That means Covid would continue to circulate and flare seasonally, but would become a largely manageable disease that “can finally move to the back burner of public discourse.” That moment is upon us,…

Good week for: The pursuit of liberty, after a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner escaped from a hotel in England and spent a full day at large in the outdoors before being located under a hedge. The device, hotel officials said, is now back “with the rest of its robot vacuum family.” Surface tension, after French physicists invented a super-durable bubble of water and glycerol that held its shape for a staggering 465 days, defying clichés about bubbles being “fragile” and “ephemeral.” The dictator’s cut, with reports that China’s streaming service has altered the cult classic Fight Club to have a happy, pro-authoritarian ending. In the original 1999 film, a bomb destroys a city skyline, but in China’s version, that scene is replaced by the words “The police rapidly figured out the…