Mike Hosking: The world's reaction to the Ukraine invasion gives me hope

 

In the midst of war, what an uplifting week it's been in terms of a world that, despite all its many worries, can still largely unite and offer hope. 

Never in my lifetime have I seen such a coordinated, effective, and immediate response to a crisis. 

Normally when war breaks out, the world divides, the sanctions are piecemeal, the hot air is voluminous, but not this time. 

You can't buy an Apple product, H&M are closed, Maersk aren’t delivering, Boeing are out, oil and gas are gone and Volvo is closed. They are but a handful of the myriad of commercial operators who have cut ties. 

Germany has basically torn up every post World War Two rule they had. They are funding third party countries with weapons, they have boosted defence spending beyond two percent of GDP, Nord Stream 2 is gone, and they agreed on the SWIFT move. 

The European Union acted as a 27-country collective. There's quite a bit of commentary around that Britain, newly freed from Europe, has been able to spearhead a response previously unthinkable. 

America, even though war weary and off the back of the astonishingly bad Afghanistan withdrawal, has managed to look like they are doing pretty much all they can short of actually shooting Russians. 

Even China has not turned out to be anywhere near as problematic as many predicted. 

When the United Nations, hampered by their weird rules, manages a vote in which only five countries are against a resolution and those countries are the aggressor, the aggressors nutty neighbour, Eritrea, Syria, and North Korea, you know the world is about as unified as we have seen in many a year. 

Uplifting too is Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Surely, he's the Nobel Peace Prize winner if he survives this? 

And the Ukrainian people. Who honestly would stay, get a gun, and build a Molotov cocktail here? No one. It’s a different culture, a different background and outlook, but it's impossible not to be impressed by the level of resistance this week in a war that, let's be honest, many said would be over by this past Monday. 

Ultimately, Russia may still roll thorough Ukraine. But this week has been the window of hope and opportunity. There's the mad race to gets guns in Ukrainian hands and the mad race to cripple the Russian economy with sanctions. 

This country should have, could have done more. Two million dollars for aid. As Mark Mitchell said Wednesday, the mongrel mob got more. God forbid, we should be like Australia and fund weaponry. Why help save a country when you can give them blankets when they are displaced? 

But most of the world got it, and did something good about it. Thus, proving that in the right time and for the right reasons, we are all still on each other's side.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.