Ukraine

War

Mark Noonan34 Comments

With Ukraine in the news I’ve been pondering a lot about our general view of the world. One thing that has been striking a jarring note for me is the assumption that we bear some sort of responsibility for Ukraine. That Ukraine as an independent nation is something that we must secure.

Why?

To be sure, some say that in Ukraine’s deal to give up nuclear weapons, we pledged ourselves to Ukraine’s defense. But, we really didn’t: we pledged to rush right off to the UN if Ukraine was attacked – a UN which, of course, has a Russian veto and so the whole thing was quite toothless from the get-go. But even supposing we had an agreement to come to Ukraine’s defense, does this then relieve Ukraine from the obligation to defend herself?

Seems to me that if I were a Ukrainian patriot with a neighbor like Russia, I’d put a high priority on national defense. I realize that Ukraine is poor, but the Israelis were dirt poor in the 1950’s and their first priority was a military second to none because they had hostile neighbors who could attack at any moment. A Ukraine filled with people committed to the Ukrainian national ideal would have a very powerful army, thickly layered defenses and a reserve force made up of the entire adult population in arms. You know – be so well armed that even a successful foreign invasion would drown in blood. Do that, and the chances of that foreign attack diminish remarkably.

Ukraine’s active military is a little more than 200,000. Reserves about 250,000. To defend 230,000 square miles and 41 million people. That’s not a lot. That’s not nearly what you need. It isn’t nearly what you’d have if the Ukranian people really gave a damn. To give you a comparison, when Israel was attacked in 1973, out of an Israeli population of about 3 million, the Israelis mobilized about 400,000. That’s 13 percent. That can’t be sustained for long (your civil economy starts to collapse), but when your life is on the line, you do it. You’d think that 41 million Ukrainians could have 4 million ready to mobilize in a life-and-death emergency. And they would, if Ukrainians really cared – because Russia is right next door and the President of Russia believes that Ukraine is an integral part of Russia.

And if the Ukrainians won’t do it – won’t even show willing to do it – why in heck does anyone else have to care? Because wars of aggression are wrong? Well, yes they are – nobody ever has a moral case for starting a war, or setting things up so that the only way out is for someone to start shooting. But lots of things are wrong – the way some Arab countries treat women is wrong. What China is doing o the Uyghurs is wrong. The slave trade in Africa is wrong. The drug lords running rampant in Mexico and Central America are wrong. Lots of things are wrong which war, successfully prosecuted by good guys, could set right. But do you want to?

Who wants kids from Ohio and Alabama to head off to the Donbas to keep the Russians out of lands largely populated by ethnic Russians? Or send them off to Xinjiang to liberate the Uyghurs from China? Or even clear out the drug lords from Ciudad Juarez? If anything, I’d rather help the Mexicans dispose of the cartels – but before I hazard American blood on anything, I’d like to know for certain why we’re doing it and what we get out of it.

The first thing to keep in mind about the world is that it isn’t neat and tidy. There isn’t a completely right answer in purely human affairs. Often, there’s just a least-bad answer. The unification of Italy and Germany into nation-States was an utter disaster for the world and, most especially, Italy and Germany. The freeing of the peoples of the Austrian Empire was a disaster for the peoples of the Austrian Empire. I mean, I dig that Poles didn’t like officious Austrian overlords (who would?) but the officious Austrians kept a cavalry barracks at Oświęcim, not a death camp at Auschwitz. I guess what I’m saying here is think carefully about what you want before you act.

What I want, first and foremost, is a free and independent United States. If I’ve got that, then I am very satisfied with the world. Naturally, I understand that the United States cannot live in isolation from the world. People and trade flow around and ambitious people with wicked minds are here, there and everywhere. I do have to keep an eye on things. I will, at times, be forced to fight. But when I fight and how I fight must refer back to my first principle: a free and independent United States.

Now, as I consider Ukraine I note that it was firmly under Russian rule from 1776 until 1917 and then, again, from 1921 until 1991. At no time during those periods was Russian rule in Ukraine a threat to American freedom and independence. It just wasn’t. Sure, from a geopolitical standpoint it would have been advantageous to the US to have an independent Ukraine all through the Cold War…but it wasn’t a necessity as proved by the fact that all through the Cold War we didn’t have an independent Ukraine. If Russian rule is reimposed in Ukraine, what ill effect will this have on American freedom and independence? I can’t see any.

“But Russia might go on and attack more!”

They might. Baltic States, Poland. On and On. I note that Poland was under Russian rule from 1791 to 1918 with no ill effect on American freedom and independence. I’m very sympathetic to the Poles as they have put up with a lot. But does my sympathy for Poland extend to sending American kids to die there? Make your case, if you’ve got one. I can’t. I could not look an American kid in the eye and tell him that his death along the Bug River will keep America free and independent. I couldn’t say it because it wouldn’t be true.

Don’t get me wrong, there can be existential, global threats. Communism was such, as was Nazism. They both proposed the whole world as their jurisdiction. Fantastic as it sounds, the USSR considered the American Communist Party as the legitimate American government and Hitler had named Goebbles to be Gauleiter of America. Fighting such things anywhere is what you have to do because if they win anywhere, they are step closer to overthrowing American independence and freedom. But Putin is no Hitler or Stalin. He does not represent a global ideology at permanent war with all dissenters. He may be a bastard twenty different ways, but he’s not an existential threat.

I agree there are non-existential threats which still must be confronted. Radical Islam. Chinese imperialism. And even a bit of Russia’s aggression are causes of concern, sometimes grave concern, which could make fighting them necessary. While I don’t think Ukraine rises to such a level, I do hold that Russian meddling in the United States is a problem. But far more than Russian meddling I find the threat in Chinese and Islamist meddling to be a huge threat – especially given how much money Islamists and Chinese have to bribe Americans to betray their own.

In wanting to contend with such threats, I can agree to enter into mutual defense pacts with other nations. I can agree to military action and even full scale war. I do believe that if China attacked Taiwan, that is worth us going to war over – because of China’s meddling in the United States such a conflict, successfully concluded by China, would simply put us in a worse position vis a vis China and so allow them to interfere in our internal affairs even more.

It would, naturally, be to Taiwan’s advantage to accept our aid against China. If we win, they win. But even in such a clear cut case of fighting for American interests, I still want a clear goal and a clear payoff for our expenditure of treasure and blood. We can’t go out to bleed and die just to help – we have to be compensated for our efforts.

Suppose we had to go to war with China. Fine. It would be a years long and very expensive war in blood and treasure. I believe that even as ruined as we are right now, we would prevail in the war (China isn’t nearly as powerful as advertised). And that would be good. But we can’t do it like we did after WWII. That was a horrendous mistake: we helped our defeated enemies return to the world of competition with us. No. No, no, NO!. They had to pay. Heck, that war cost so much they should still be paying. We go to war with China and win, then for a century China should be paying us.

I’m deadly seriously here – after a war with China, I’d want every bit of gold and silver and art turned over to us and a 10% tax on China’s GDP for a century paid to us. Maybe even take some land from them: move the Chinese out and Americans in. The main thing is that they pay us for putting us through the trouble. We do not want to own the world. We do not want the world to do what we say. Yeah, maybe from mid-century on we’ve had some jerks who dreamed of such, but that wasn’t the American people. We just wanted to be left alone to hold our own. My view is that if you do things to us which force us to go fight you, then you’re going to pay. You’re not just going to lose the war, you’re going to be humiliated and then forced to work very hard to send money to us for a very long time.

It is time we got out of the dream world. All this UN, NATO, treaties and arms limitation garbage since WWII has been the answer provided by dimwits who never understood the world. The world is a real place. People do things in it. Good and bad. We can’t cure all bad and we don’t have the right to, anyway. Our primary duty is to look after ourselves – to make only temporary alliances at need, to make sure they are reciprocal (our blood to defend them, their blood to defend us) and when we defeat an enemy we don’t occupy and rebuild them…but we do make them pay. Through the nose. With usury. In blood and treasure.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

Team Pudding Brain has been caught transporting around the USA large numbers of single, fit male illegal immigrants. This is actually against the law – as Rep Dan Crenshaw pointed out, an impeachable offense.

I’m not sure how serious Crenshaw is – he may just be putting out some boilerplate in an election year. And I think a lot of people would say that Biden should be impeached for breaking the law. But, that would be wrong. And our Amazona gonna love this:

Joe Biden should be impeached for failure to see that the laws are faithfully enforced. That is right there in the Constitution. It isn’t ambiguous: the President shall take care that the laws are faithfully enforced. In short, we’d be impeaching him for violating his oath of office. Cool, huh?

And to me it is a crucial point of principal: our government is increasingly lawless. Officials of it do whatever it is they think they can get away with. This is destroying the very fabric of our nation and so it is necessary for us to fight it out on the issue of rule of law. Of course, it is usually difficult to do this because most of the time you don’t have a handy case easily understood. We do now. The American people are aware of illegal immigration. They are aware that when Joe came in there was a huge surge in border crossings…what they don’t know is that Team Biden is refusing to enforce the law. That these people are not just being cut lose but are being transported by the government to their illegal release point. The issue is tailor made for us – and it can be made even more dramatic by highlighting what some of these people will end up doing over the next year (you know a percentage of them are mere criminals).

We impeach Biden on the accusation that he didn’t enforce the laws per his oath of office, we’ll win the PR battle – and then watch Democrats immolate themselves asserting that the President doesn’t have to enforce the law. Mark my words on it: they will lash themselves to the mast on this. They are committed to lawlessness. They will die on that hill. So, let’s help them do so.

War for Ukraine? Not interested. Neither, I think, are most people – and here the old line GOP (McConnell, eg) is entirely out of step with the base. This does surprise me as Mitch is usually pretty sensitive to where the political wind is blowing. There is no rally ’round the flag here. We are not in any sense of the word a unified nation: we are at each other’s throats and until we resolve our domestic conflicts we’d better walk small on the world stage…but it seems as if bureaucratic inertia is moving us to a risk of war. Our real hope is that Putin sees it isn’t worth it…that a dying American Ruling Class may end up doing something very stupid and so he’d better give it a rest. Fingers crossed on this one.

Niel Young, whom you are surprised to find still alive, demanded that Spotify remove his music. And most of his fans went, “what the heck is Spotify?”. Young was upset that Spotify carries Rogan’s show, which dares to cast doubt on the official Covid narrative. So, the man who once sung about facing off against Nixon’s soldiers is now an Establishment shill. Pathetic – but hippies always tend to be that, don’t they?

There is probably no liquid water on Mars. They thought they had detected some, but Mars is simply too cold. I really don’t expect us to find much on Mars – certainly no life. It has the materials for us to live, but only if we can resolve the gravity and radiation issues.

An American Foreign Policy

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Bismarck allegedly once said that there is a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America. If he did say it then it was because he could see how very lucky the United State was and is: moated east and west by oceans and with harmless neighbors north and south, the United States could always pick and choose which foreign affairs to take an interest in. Meanwhile, Bismarck’s Prussia-become-Germany had to contend with Russia, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Britain and a host of smaller powers all on German’s doorstep or very close by. It was a nightmare maze to navigate through (made more nightmarish by Bismarck, but he didn’t see it that way). Bismarck died in 1898 – which, as it turns out, was the year the United States decided that being blessed by geography just wasn’t going to cut it.

There was nothing particularly wrong with ejecting the Spanish from Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898. There was also no particular need to do it. But at least it fell in line with the general idea of the Monroe Doctrine and a long-held American ideal that the Americas should no longer be the colonial possession of Europeans. But that wasn’t really why we went into that war: it was merely the excuse. The reason we went into the war was because a segment of American political leaders felt it was vital for America to enter global competition. The concept, boiled down, was that if we didn’t force our way on to the world stage, we’d start to decline as a nation. Cuba was the excuse – but all along what was wanted was Manila and the gateway to China.

And so we did it – and placed ourselves in the position of caring about China and that meant dealing with Japan and Britain and Russia and fussing about who would govern what in the western Pacific and east Asia. I think that most of us were taught that this was fundamentally a good thing – that the USA had to get involved. But now that I think back on those lessons in high school history, they never did get around to telling us why we had to do it. It was just an assertion that as a mature great power, we should be involved and if we didn’t, disaster would follow.

I try to think of what disasters would have been worse than Communist China, the Korean and Vietnam wars (not to mention things like the battles of Okinawa and Saipan) had we stayed home. Remember, Pearl Harbor was struck because it based the American fleet which was set to relieve the American garrison in the Philippines…but if there wasn’t an American garrison there? If the Spanish still ruled Manila or the Filipinos fully ruled themselves at that time? What would be the reason for attacking the American fleet at Pearl Harbor? Can’t really think of one.

Now, one can argue that Japanese rule of the Philippines and Indonesia would be bad. No real argument there. But China’s rule of Tibet is bad – anyone saying we have to go to war with China to free Tibet? The point I’m making: the supposed need for the USA to expend blood and treasure to save foreigners from oppression seems a little selectively applied. Either it is our policy, or it isn’t. If it is, then it is time to war with China. If it isn’t…then what the heck have we been doing for the last century? Being involved. And that seems to be it.

I bring all this up because now people are telling us we have to confront Russia in Ukraine. Saw a Tweet from a bluecheck Neocon today basically comparing the situation to Hitler’s rise to power. I’m really rather tired of that sort of thing – Hitler was a unique threat which will never arise again. The peculiar circumstances of his rise no longer exist and can’t be replicated. Hitler, of course, stepped into the European power vacuum opened by the overthrow of the Hoehzollern’s of Germany and the dissolution of the Hapsburg Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. That particular situation has now been absorbed into the European equilibrium (mostly by Stalin, as it turns out: he moved whole populations around in 1945 to make the nations of central Europe compact ethnic nations no longer having a biological title deed to lands outside their borders: some times brutality can get things done). It should also be noted that the power vacuum was largely created by us – it was our insistence on the overthrow of the Hohenzollern’s and the dissolution of the Hapsburgs which created the vacuum. Had we stayed out, the Franco-British would have had to engage in a negotiated peace in the middle of 1918.

Anyways – we’re once again being told we must get involved. The safety of the world is at stake!

Really? How so?

How, that is, does Putin absorbing the Donbas really alter the world in some intrinsically negative manner? That plenty of people in the area don’t want to be ruled by Putin I take as a given. But I don’t understand our interest in it. Seems to me that if Putin is trying to re-cobble together the Czarist Empire then Ukraine should be looking to Poland and the Baltic States to form a coalition to stop it. I doubt much that Putin wants a general war. He’d like to detach the Donbas with minimal fighting. But Poland and Ukraine with 80 million people against Russia’s 146 million is probably far more than Putin wants to tangle with. Ukraine can probably get at least some interest – if not direct help – from Turkey, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Germany, France and Britain; all of whom have a varying interest in keeping Russia curbed (the closer they are to Russia, the greater the interest). A bit of firm diplomacy by Ukraine should easily be able to get Russia to back off.

That they don’t seem to be able to do this and that they lack sufficient arms to stand up to Russia is a problem. But how is it an American problem? Ukraine has been independent for 30 years: that was plenty of time for them to measure up a possible Russian attack and prepare the means to meet it. I get it that they are wracked by corruption (including corruption where they have paid off Americans – most infamously Hunter Biden – for influence) and have rather floundered around with an aging military force…but, once again: how is this an American problem? In fact – given how corrupt Ukraine is, what benefit to the people of the Ukraine in our propping up their corrupt system which didn’t even prepare the military means to defend Ukraine?

America needs an American foreign policy. That is: a policy which locates what the American interests are and then vigorously defends them. Far more worrisome for America than Russia attacking Ukraine is China buying influence throughout Latin America. It is a problem if, say, Panama’s government is purchased by China and closes the Canal to our ships. It is, then, in our interest to see to is that the government of Panama retains sufficient independence to prevent such an occurrence.

I’m completely done with this idea that America must be involved in this, that or the other foreign land. Outside the Americas, our interests are few and mostly relate to seaborne trade…which is menaced only by China’s rising fleet. We should be working on ensuring we can swiftly put China’s fleet at the bottom of the sea…but we’re working on whether or not to send troops to Ukraine, which doesn’t help us in any way against China. It isn’t like Ukraine will send troops to help us against China. Forget about that. We pull Ukraine’s chestnuts out of the fire here and then ten years from now we go to war with China, do not look for a Ukrainian army to help us out – more than likely we’ll see Ukraine selling war materials to China.

After 124 years, it is time to write off America as a global power. It hasn’t worked out for us. It has cost us a fortune in blood and treasure and those who don’t hate us despise us. Our position in the world couldn’t possibly be worse had we, in 1898, decided to not care about who ruled in Cuba. And it probably would be a lot better. At all events, it is time to give it a try. Try an American foreign policy: cross us in our interests and we’ll kill you. Not attacking our interests? Good luck and God bless.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan9 Comments

I’d like to say I don’t know where the time went – but, I do: still writing! Kings and Queen (Book V) will be out soon so I was doing some last touches on that…but, honestly, I’m already deep into Book IX. Not only that, but my granddaughter said my stories needed a dragon, so I took Celeste’s daughter Aleste and with assist from the granddaughter, I’m writing Aleste and the Icecrystal Dragons. So, hey guys! How ya been?

Anyways – so, Smollett is guilty, as we all knew he was as soon as the story broke. I’m sure if someone did some digging they could find something that almost amounts to an actual hate crime by a GOPer, but even then, not really. The trouble the Left has here is that we’re not racists. I pointed out on Twitter that if Smollett had actually gone to MAGA country he would have learned that we’re very nice people who don’t give a darn what you do as long as you don’t adversely affect housing prices. Keep your act together and we’re cool.

There’s a poll out for youngsters about their willingness to be friends with people who have different political views and for Democrat kiddies, they are overwhelmingly against being friends with Republicans. Part of this, I’m sure, is peer pressure: they don’t want to be known as someone who is friends with Republicans because all the cool kids don’t have any Republican friends. But it is also of the nature of the Left: hate is what motivates them. It is why they do what they do.

Some people are pointing out how horrible the crime is in Democrat cities and are asking when the DA’s in those towns will finally say, “enough”. I tell them: don’t hold your breath. It is the Left’s opinion that the prosperity and safety of middle class America is a false front on an intrinsically evil society. The Left is letting the criminals out to prey because they believe that it will help generate an acute social crisis which will turn people away from the American system. It is Lenin’s old dictum: the worse, the better. There is a fly in the ointment, however: the Left is the Ruling Class. So, when the people do turn against the system, these junior league Bolsheviks will find all of the hatred directed their way.

Team Pudding Brain has their solution to the inflation problem: order the MSM to talk about how it isn’t a problem. And like proper lapdogs, the MSM is going right along with this order. I’m not sure how well telling us to disbelieve our lying eyes will work. I suspect it won’t. One smart guy did point out that Biden hasn’t remotely hit bottom: apparently, he shoveled out some money for parents and didn’t broadcast too widely that the money is their child tax deduction for 2021…which means that when people go to do their taxes in April of 2022, they’ll find that they already spent their child deduction. I’m sure that’ll go over real well.

Lots of people are noting that Latino voters are dropping the Dems. For males the Latino vote is almost mirroring the vote for white males. If you really drill down to it, the only really strong demographics for the Democrats are African-Americans and white, college educated women. And even the black vote is starting to get a few cracks in it. I don’t think that the Democrats can win much with that. As for the Latinos – don’t expect them to be Buckley-ite Conservatives. They just want law and order, good schools and a vibrant economy. In other words, what the Democrats would at least try to get for them before they were taken over by the aforementioned Bolsheviks. It is, though, our opening…and the GOP should push hard for Latino votes. A vote in 2022 for a good economy can be turned by, say, 2028 into a vote for limited government.

Russia is making waves in Ukraine and it looks like Pudding Brain will roll over for them. In this, probably for the best: can you imagine how catastrophic our defeat would be if we got into a shooting war with the current crew in charge? Also, we don’t have a strategic interest in who governs the Donbas. OTOH, the case can be made that we should stand against military aggression, as such. Not so sure I’m on board with that. Used to be. Maybe not any longer. Some things have to be worked out and war is just politics by other means. Putin – correctly – sees control of the Donbas as vital to his national security: the resources there are vital. Our largest strategic interest is to contain China. Sending an army to Kiev doesn’t serve that interest. Meanwhile, our useless allies won’t send an army…mostly because they haven’t got one. And, finally, the reason Putin is moving is because he knows he’s only got a short time – the miracle of having such a useless American President might never happen again. He kept quiet for Trump because he knew – from Trump’s actions – that Trump wouldn’t put up with it. Putin knows that he can walk all over Biden.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan60 Comments

I’m getting some feedback on “Mirrors” and I have to say I’m pleased – people are liking it. Wish it would sell more, of course! But, the main thing is that I’ve written a story that people like. And I’m very grateful for that.

So, the Ukraine thing – looks more and more like it is another self-own by the Democrats: it is the Bidens who might be in jeopardy, not Trump. My view: in any controversy regarding Trump, always work on the assumption that he’s the guy who didn’t break the law. We’ve long heard about Biden’s son getting sweet heart deals in Ukraine…and my bet is that this NSA “whistleblower” was a desperate rear-guard to try and keep it from coming out. RSM has thoughts.

Patriots ditch Antonio Brown after a mere 11 days with rising allegations of bad behavior. I don’t know what is true in this – it’ll come out over time, I’m sure.

We’re close to flipping the 9th Circuit – this is why we elected Trump and why we have to re-elect him. Once the Courts are firmly in the hands of judges who will enforce the law not only will the left no longer be able to impose their policies via judicial fiat, but we’ll be able to start rolling back the previous, unconstitutional rulings liberal judges made. All those years the Tru-Cons told us they’d do this…and they never, ever did: Trump has nearly done it in three years. All that was lacking was the will.

“Ad Astra” has a good review. I might have to go see it – and as the Progs are simply hating Sallone’s latest “First Blood” installment, I’ll probably have to check it out, too.

Trump’s approval rating is better than Obama’s at this point in his term. And this with, I’m very certain, polls cooked to make Trump look worse than he is.

What is Diplomacy?

Mark Noonan24 Comments

There have been several attempts at defining this.  Webster has it as “the work of maintaining good relations between the governments of different countries”, but that is a lot of nonsense.  You don’t need good relations between governments – in fact, good relations can some times hamper diplomacy (ties of sentiment are deadly when dealing with intra-governmental issues).  Will Rogers came closer when he said, “diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggy’ until you can find a rock”.  But that isn’t quite right, either – because the purpose of diplomacy is to not have to use the rock.  But, make no mistake about it, the rock must be part of the equation.

I’ll say that diplomacy is the art of adjusting competing claims between actors of relatively equal power with war as the punishment for diplomatic failure.

It has to be between entities of roughly equal power or it isn’t diplomacy – it is either the stronger imposing its will on the weaker, or the stronger being generous to the weaker for whatever reason.  Only between equals can there be diplomacy – two equals (or two groups who are roughly equal) can sit down at the table and try to adjust their differences, all the while with the knowledge that failure to come to agreement means war – and being as it would be a war between roughly equal powers, no one on either side could be entirely sure of the result, and so the incentive is strongly in favor of coming to a deal.  Unless, that is, one side is determined upon war no matter what.  In such a case, diplomacy also cannot happen – because if one side is determined upon war no matter what and the other side is determined on peace no matter what, then the aggressive side is the stronger and will impose its will on the weaker…and, once again, you don’t have diplomacy.  Let’s look at some examples to illustrate my definition:

1.  It is said that we negotiated a treaty with Panama in 1903 in order to build the canal.  We did nothing of the kind.  We told Panama what we wanted and bade them sign on the dotted line or we wouldn’t build the canal, which is the only reason for Panama to exist.  This was the stronger imposing its will on the weaker.  Not diplomacy.

2.  It is said we negotiated a security treaty with Japan in 1951.  We did nothing of the kind.  Because Japan occupies a strategically vital area in the Asia-Pacific, we promised to protect Japan in return for obtaining certain privileges for our military forces in Japan.  It was a good move by us because Japan is a useful ally to have – but the security of the United States does not in any way depend upon the existence of Japan, and its not like a Japanese army would ever arrive in the United States to help defend us against foreign aggression. This was the stronger being generous to the weaker. Not diplomacy.

3.  When Chamberlain, Hitler, Daladier and Mussolini gathered in Munich in 1938, three of the four were determined to have peace at any price, one of them was determined upon war no matter what.  That it wound up with an agreement rather than war was because of the rather startling amount of surrender that Chamberlain and Daladier agreed to – they eventually decided that Hitler should get the spoils of war without war (keep in mind, that if they hadn’t agreed, Hitler would have gone to war in 1938 rather than waiting until 1939).  This was rather unique in human history (to that point, at least) but it still illustrates the point:  with one side willing war no matter what and the other willing peace no matter what, the warlike side becomes immediately the stronger and imposes its will upon the weaker.  Not diplomacy.

4.  When the USSR challenged the United States by putting nuclear missiles in Cuba, both affected parties were roughly equal in power and both sides were equally determined to avoid war.  Negotiations were tense and many fears were raised, but the fact of the matter is that as both were equally strong and no one was willing war, a deal was bound to happen unless some horrific accident took place.  The basics of the deal eventually agreed to were Russian nukes out of Cuba, American nukes out of Turkey.  That is diplomacy.

Now, why bring all this up?  Because as we have gone through the Ukraine crisis, no one is understanding that among all the varied things going on, diplomacy isn’t one of them.  Diplomacy will never be one of them – it can’t be as there aren’t two equal sides involved her.  Oh, to be sure, the power of the United States, alone, is enough to fight and defeat Russia…and the combined power of just Germany and France could probably make short work of Putin’s burgeoning empire.  But no one who dislikes Putin’s actions is putting on the table anything like the force necessary to give Putin pause and make him want to turn to diplomacy…which would, once again, be an adjustment of interests between equal powers and war as the price of failure.  It is my belief that Putin does not desire war – not with us, not with the European Union, not with anyone.  If there were power to match his power, he would climb down and negotiate a diplomatic settlement.  Such a settlement would, of course, have to grant Russia some of her desires – that is the thing about diplomacy: it is never a matter of anyone getting all they want.  It is a deal between equals and each gives a bit, because they don’t want a war which would be more costly than whatever it is they have to surrender to reach a deal.  But with a complete vacuum of power opposite Russia, there is no need for Russia to fear war, and thus no reason to use diplomacy.  Might as well grab all you can while the getting is good.

All the huffing and puffing of Obama, Kerry and the collective world won’t do anything.  To be sure, Putin might graciously agree to eventually sign something which will be hailed as a diplomatic settlement, but you can rest assured – unless there comes along a credible threat of war against Russia – that whatever settlement is agreed to will be entirely in accordance with Putin’s view of Russia’s interests.  In other words, he’ll merely take what he wants at the moment, leave an option to grab what he hasn’t got and attend an international conference to ratify what he’s done.  It’ll be a nice meal and pictures taken and his own press back home will laud him (or else!) as the greatest Russian in a century, etc.

Now that I’ve said all that, what do I think we should do?  Normally, I would advocate a vigorous American response to this but given our current condition and our current President, I’m saying that surrender isn’t so bad.  To be sure, its bad for the people who will come under Putin’s embrace, but I’m not so sure how a half-hearted and incompetently conducted military campaign leading to eventual American failure would help – and, of course, such a thing would actually harm.  As under Obama we are bound to have nothing but the aforementioned half-hearted, etc, I figure we just cut to the chase and make the best of a bad situation.  We can start to repair this in 2017 – hopefully under leadership which isn’t quite as bad as Obama’s.  It is a sad and distressing position for America to be in, but we have no one to blame but ourselves – we might be able to assign our 2008 vote to well-intentioned folly, but our 2012 vote was a gigantic mistake with sufficient facts clearly known.  Now we just have to pay the price for it.

Why Did Putin Do It? Because He Thinks He’ll Win

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Later this year, on the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, I’m going to be writing an article about how I view that war – but I’ll give one spoiler right now:  the reason the war started, ultimately, was because the Germans thought they could win it.  That is why all wars start – one sides thinks they’ll win.  And not only thinks they’ll win, but thinks they’ll win in a walk over.  Wars aren’t started by people who are resigned to a difficult task with a doubtful outcome – wars are started by people who think they’ve got it sewn.

And Putin has sent troops in to Ukraine because he thinks he’ll win – and win rather easily.  Whether or not he’ll try to take over the whole country instead of the heavily-Russian eastern part remains to be seen.  But if Putin thinks he can grab the whole of Ukraine in an easy war, he’ll do it.  Now, why should Putin think that?

Well, first off, Ukraine is militarily not all that strong – a lot of their equipment is antiquated Soviet equipment (though upgraded a bit over the years), their armed forces are relatively small compared to Russia’s and, of course, a large minority of Ukrainians are Russians – not inclined to fight against the Russian army, even if not entirely favorable to coming under Russian rule. Furthermore, and probably decisively, Putin does not fear any serious response from anyone.  NATO?  Toothless.  EU?  Blind and toothless.  United States?  Distant and ruled over by fools who don’t understand how the world works.  The harshest thing on the table so far is that we’ll kick them out of the G-8.  Big whoop.  Like Putin will care too much about that – and like he won’t be invited back in a few years from now when tempers have cooled.

The only thing which would have stopped Putin is either a militarily powerful Ukraine or a United States not only powerful, but clearly willing to make Putin’s life miserable for years over the matter.  Neither being forthcoming, Putin moved.  Whether or not there will be some “deal” to smooth things over or whether it will go all the way to annexation by Russia remains to be seen – but Putin has just shown that he is in charge in that area of the world.  Ukraine knows that they can only go so far in offending Russia while other nations on Russia’s borders (especially the Baltic States) have been clearly warned that being tight with the west only offends Putin, while the west will do nothing concrete to oppose an offended Russia.

The worse problem is that the cat is really out of the bag, now.  Every two-bit tyrant out there who wants to grab himself a bit of geo-political territory knows that now is the time to start grabbing – with the United States effectively out of the picture as long as Democrats are in charge, the sky is the limit.