PARKVILLE, Mo. — A professor at Park University explained the impact that the Ukraine-Russia conflict could have locally.
“There’s always a question of why now? Why today?” Jack MacLennan, an assistant professor of Political Science at Park University said.
MacLennan said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is ongoing, and it comes down to security and timing.
“If you were in my class, this is something I would tell you to pay attention to," he said. "Is there’s a lot of faith put in the diplomatic process."
But is it a solve in this case?
“Diplomacy is a cold, hard, rational look at how you make trade-offs to get states to move off of a footing like this," he said. "And that’s going to be where the really difficult comes in the coming days and weeks of whether or not an outcome can be agreed on both sides. I think [the alarm rate], it’s fairly high.”
He says the way in which the United States, western and eastern Europe decide to respond will teeter on escalation.
In the meantime, he says Kansas City could see a specific trickle-down: Higher gas prices, a back and forth in the stock market, higher commodity prices and continued inflation.
“Things like the oil price has jumped, it’s probably going to continue to go up, especially if things escalate,” he said.
He also questions if resources could be taken away to fund a war effort and if our supply chains will reliably move across borders.
“While the United States made it very clear it won’t defend Ukraine directly, it will take steps to defend NATO's eastern flank and that can mean the deployment and call up of national guard troops and deployments of forces that may be found in the Midwest,” he said.
MacLennan says long-term solutions from the U.S. could look like more sanctions that are invasive to the Russian economy.
“It does seem like the international community is waiting to see what Putin’s near-term strategic goals are, or if the conflict stabilizes, where it is, or is this the pretext to a large invasion,” he said.
