Dry Thoughts in a Time of War

No one really knows what's going on, but I'll give it a shot...

Striking image of a B-52 (“Buff”) flying over the Alps near Northern Italy last week got me to thinking about all of this, so here goes:

I received an e-mail with a short video about how we have to “stand up to Putin” and “defend Democracy” and “show our strength.” I humbly submit that the proponents of this bellicosity are really missing the point.

1. Russia - while it appears that Russia is having a hard time with Ukraine, it is equally possible they are going slow trying to grind down the will of the Ukes to fight.  This would also lessen the bloodshed, giving civilians a better chance to get out and potentially leave some of the infrastructure usable.  Sure, they are still hurting from the loss of the “glory of the USSR,” and yes, Putin exhibits the same expansionist behavior of the ancient Dukes of Muscovy, but they are still basically a third world nation with a crappy GDP (especially per person).  They have an enormous demographic problem with plummeting birth rates and are, for the most part, in overall decline.  They do not have the economic nor military capacity to go all the way to the English Channel.  

Yes, they have a lot of nuclear weapons - but some sense of the MAD Doctrine is still in play.  The French and Brits have nukes on their doorstep and they know what we can do with our Ohio class boomer boats.

Maybe, just maybe, all they really want is what they have said all along - we don’t want NATO on our doorstep.  My best guess for how this ends is that the Russians end up with the Donbas region and a good chunk of Eastern Ukraine.  They extract a pledge of neutrality from the Ukes and everybody stands down.

2. Ukraine - ironically, this invasion may have finally created a real nation of Ukraine.  From all I have read, the current configuration was carved out of Poland, Hungary and parts of Mother Russia and in exchange for giving up the Soviet nukes within their territory, they were given an expanded border, the Crimea etc.  The tragedy of Ukraine is that they thought they had been buying their safety by paying off American politicians and their children - Hunter Biden, Kerry’s kids, Romney’s kids, Pelosi’s son etc. etc.   So the oligarchy of the poorest country in Europe spent millions thinking if the big bear next door decided to take a bite, the Amerikanskis would come to their defense.  

But when this is over, they might end up with a real country and a national myth (fighting the big bear) and some prestige courtesy of the admirable leadership of Zolensky.  (sidebar - there is a lot of evidence that he’s not exactly Mr. Pure either - many rubles stashed in overseas bank accounts and tax havens).

3. NATO - what a Godawful organization this has become.  One of the great opportunities for true peace in Europe was missed when the wall fell in 1992.  NATO should have been stood down - sure, keep the joint ops for practice now and then, but really it’s purpose was gone.  We should have pushed for a full integration of the Soviet bloc with the West.  But the military-industrial complex would have none of that…not good for Northrop Grumman’s share price and all the kickbacks they give to the political class.  The reality is we have carried NATO on our back for all of its existence while allowing  European “social democracies” to provide free healthcare, generous pensions and time off for their citizens.

Unfortunately, Putin has breathed new life into this decrepit bureaucracy.  Maybe he will succeed where Trump failed in getting the member states to pay their “fair share.”  

The other great bungle of NATO was expanding up into the Balkans, the Baltic and getting former Soviet states to join - including the latest attempt to get Ukraine in.  Do we really want the 101st on the front lines of Lithuania?  I am all for economic cooperation agreements and selling cool weaponry to our friends, but I heed General Washington’s wise warning about “foreign entanglements.”

4. Biden (and our own military) -  as a friend of mine wisely noted - “what could go wrong with us getting in a war with Russia in Central Europe with a senile president and a woke military?”  Instead of beating the war drums in the lead up to this fiasco, if Biden had a drop of statesman’s blood left in him, he would have seen what was happening and instead of bleating to the world and pointing at Putin screaming “he’s going to invade!”  He could have invited a summit with the Russians and Ukrainians.  We could have extracted a great deal for Ukraine and agreed to arm them as long as they remained neutral.  Let them join the EU for economic purposes (if they want to) but basically become another Finland on Russia’s border.  But President Bumblebrains exacerbated the situation, almost daring Putin to dive in.

So, here we are - where do we go from here?  We look weak and the sanctions we are putting in place are hurting us worse than the Russians.  Biden’s shooting his mouth off calling Putin a “war criminal” and exploding any chance of being the one who could negotiate a settlement.  We are sending billions in arms to the Ukrainians with a damned good chance that the materiel will end up in Russian hands and the morally reprehensible action that will get more Ukrainians killed as well as increase the chance that Putin expands the war and ultimately drags us in.  I remain cautiously hopeful that cooler heads among the Ukrainians and Russians will prevail and something like I sketched out above will emerge, but we shall see.

Anyway, the call for us to “show our strength” and “defend Democracy” along with “Strava Ukrainia!” don’t get very far with me.  I am not putting Ukrainian flags in my social media avatars any more than I put “I got vaccinated” buttons on my FB page. The same crew that told me “15-days to flatten the curve” two years ago today is still basically running the show…I don’t trust them.