That is, people live their lives as serf's for fear of pissing off the guy with the gun who will kill them. Things won't go back to "normal", "normal" will be the guy with the gun takes what he wants from you everyday thereafter.

You can say "normal" won't be like that, but Putin just invaded and there's nothing "normal" about that either, "normal" is whatever the guy with the gun says it is, because what are you going to do about it?