Friends, my latest article lays out an argument for why we should avoid war between Russia and Ukraine, and possibly a new Cold War between Russia and NATO (or worse), by giving Russia what it wants: a guarantee that Ukraine will never be admitted into NATO. Why not? We don't want Ukraine in our exclusive club anyway. See if you agree with my analysis:
Sleepy Joe: Shelve the UnRealpolitik, While There's Still Time
To those who follow the news, it's become increasingly clear that Russia doesn't want Ukraine in NATO. Fair enough. It's also clear that NATO doesn't want Ukraine in NATO. I mean, it's a failed state. All things being equal, we'd prefer that Ukraine wasn't even in Europe... So, given that Russia and the West are in rare agreement, why not...go to war over it anyway? Brilliant! And, with visionary leaders like Joe Biden at the helm, what's to stop us? Full steam ahead!
In case you couldn't decipher my sarcasm, let me be more upfront: there is no good reason for the current brouhaha between NATO and Russia over Ukraine. Ukraine has been, for a millennium or so, deep inside the Russian sphere of influence. In effect, Ukraine is Russia's little brother – headstrong and resentful, but destined to live in the shadow of big, strong Rus, come what may. And we in the West, for some reason, think it's our business to take Ukraine's side (of late), and to upbraid Rus for his highhandedness, insisting that he treat his little brother like an equal. What's more, we expect to get our way not by bopping Rus on the nose, in the time-honored manner in which bullies are generally brought to heel, but by waving our arms in a pantomime of outrage, and, if pressed, by threatening Rus with a cut in his allowance. Little do we realize that such tactics are tailor-made to infuriate Rus, to goad him to acts of aggression, and in fact to make little Ukraine's already complicated life absolutely miserable. The simple fact is that we interfere with this age-old fraternal bond at our peril, and even more so at the peril of the very people we claim to want to help.
Arguably, our useless chiding of Russia, and our even more useless cheerleading for Ukraine, might be defensible, if Ukraine itself was worth fighting over. It isn't. It probably never was, and it certainly hasn't been since we and the Europeans acquired the ability to produce more food for ourselves than we could possibly eat. Once upon a time, Ukraine was a breadbasket, and rich agricultural lands are worth a pitched battle or two. Now, though, Ukraine is an impoverished backwater, a cesspool of corruption, and strategic dead weight. Winning its allegiance, or defending its independence, is about as useful to the West as staking a claim to one of Jupiter's moons, or annexing broad swathes of the fourth dimension. Ukraine ought to be absolutely, positively unthinkable as the ground over which World War III could be fought, with all the dreadful portents for nuclear annihilation that such a war would bring with it. Think about it: the West and Russia, despite some close calls, have successfully avoided major wars for 75 years. That's three whole generations! And now we're contemplating throwing away that legacy of peace and prosperity for...the sacred sovereignty of Ukraine? No! A thousand times, no! The very prospect should send chills down our collective and individual spines.
Better than all the blustering that's characterized our approach to Ukraine thus far would be some genuine dialogue and a little common sense. Russia is contemplating an invasion of Ukraine for one reason and one reason only: because the West has pushed the boundaries of a hostile alliance, NATO, closer and closer to Russia's historic and strategic heartland, ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Moreover, we show every sign of nibbling away further at Russia's “near abroad” until, having secured all of it for ourselves, we can start destabilizing Russia herself, encouraging her people to turn against their leaders, and thus make our conquest of our ancient enemy complete. Why else would we have maintained the NATO alliance in the first place, once the Cold War was won, and why would we have made its relentless eastward expansion its principal mission?
We can, however, diffuse Russia's anxiety, and forestall a seemingly imminent invasion, by a simple expedient: we make Russia a promise, either explicit or implicit, that Ukraine will never be a candidate for NATO membership – and, in fact, that the era of NATO expansion has come to an end. By doing so, we would not only bring the present crisis to a happy conclusion, thus securing peace and prosperity for ourselves and for the Russian people, but we would also have conveyed these inestimable blessings to Ukraine. The Ukrainians' sovereignty would be intact (if a little frayed around the edges), and all for the sacrifice of one absurd fantasy: that Ukraine could ever be a member-in-good-standing of the Western alliance. We, the Ukrainians, and the Russians will all be better off when this dangerous illusion is set aside.
“President” Biden, I realize that, as a loyal CNN/MSNBC viewer, disparaging and antagonizing Russia comes second nature to you, but, please, give up these strong-arm tactics before you get someone hurt – and, by “someone”, I mean everyone!
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
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In other news, there's been a significant decline in public support for the death penalty, even among Republicans. Methinks this has a lot to do with the media blackout concerning violent crime. According to the MSM, we're not supposed to notice when homicidal maniacs, oh, rape and/or murder us, because a lot of those maniacs are BIPOC victims of white oppression, and it would be mean and racist to carp and moan about a few minor criminal infractions, right? Bottom line: the press ought to be covering the crime wave. If it did, support for capital punishment would rise in short order!
Inflation has consumers in a really foul mood. Poor consumer sentiment, moreover, is often correlated with recessions. Could one be on the way?
You thought it was rough being a Democrat now -- just imagine what their poll numbers would look like if the economy headed (further) south!
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/consumer-confidence-lowest-level-decade-rising-inflation
Freedom convoys are catching on -- even in Buffalo, which is mere steps away from the Rochester headquarters of the Waddist movement. Oh my!
Maybe you've heard: John Durham is alleging that the Hillary Clinton campaign paid I.T. whiz kids to infiltrate Trump Tower and the White House in order to find dirt, or anything that could be spun as dirt, on DJT. You'd think that would be kind of a big deal, but no -- the media is rating it "not newsworthy". That's par for the course.
Our old friend Robert Reich is at it again: he's saying that nasty rich oligarchs are in league with super-racist Republicans. As usual, his latest article is artfully misleading. He doesn't point out that the vast majority of donations from corporations and the ultra-rich in 2020 went to Democrats, and he also leaves out the clincher: it was Dem-supported lockdown policies that helped produce massive gains in wealth for the already-filthy-rich. The idea that the Democratic Party is the party of the "little guy" is getting more laughable by the day.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/13/us-republicans-oligarchs-economics-nationalism
Finally, here's a really good article about the weight of evidence supporting the lab leak theory of COVID's origins. I defy you to read it and not conclude that the Chicoms got away with the crime of the century!
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/reason-scientists-believe-coronavirus-originated-lab-wuhan-china
Dr.Waddy from Jack: I fully agree in that Ukraine and Russia share an undeniable relationshipship of which it is terrible folly for Nato trifle with. This is of great misfortune to Ukraine, even maybe Russian cultured Ukraine but it is STARK REALITY! We had to refrain from helping Hungary in 1956; how could we have risked WWIII by presenting Russia itself with a threat they perceived as fundamental!? And that consideration is terribly true today as much as we may charitably rue it! Our defenses are SOLID AS THEY ARE! Russia has no intent to advance upon them unless WE unwisely provoke them in what, for them but not for us,is fundamental!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack:We must laugh: Hillary vindictively participated, as "counsel"to a Congressional committee, in Nixon's being held to account for improprieties in his 1972 reelection campaign. Now it his her increasingly revealed as having had unendurable anxiety about her "deserved" enthronement in 2016, even unto unethical, even "improper" measures. Why should we give a good Goddam? Because she yet imagines an (again ironically)Nixonian rise from the very basement of ridiculous marginalization. Could she?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Upon my word sir, I laud your use of Jupiter's moons (all four of them) and of a surely fantastic fourth dimension as analogs! It was brisk, brisk I say, sir ! And apropos of the decided unwiseness of tasking the Czardom over its "borderland". Why it shall be so even centuries from now, well I wot you!
ReplyDeletetest from Jack
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I remember Philly Mayor Frank Rizzo saying : "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged". Oh he was much excoriated for this among the chattering classes of the day, as much for its insolent assertion of common sense as for its specific doubt for those who celebrate criminals and criminality. You know, in the prisons I worked in I heard thugs guffaw about how mugging victims soil themselves! The apologists for criminals should have their noses rubbed in THAT reality!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: You'd like to see the public take the detached and disdainful elite criminal apologists by the scruff, go nose to nose with them and expectorate in their much abashed pusses: " Lesson #1, criminals are bad and therefore do bad things! Law abiding people are good and deserve the protection provided by the law enforcement organs empowered by sound societies to protect the lawful. GET IT?! "
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: But the public will in this - that crime and criminals be shown intolerance- may well be asserted in November and if political will equal to that amply demonstrated by Mayor Guiliani is reimpowered, then the beneficial results seen in Guiliani's improbably tamed NYC may enjoy a return!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: It was done in NYC: a shamefully, almost unimaginably degraded city, in sections of which anarchy reigned, in the 1980s by the most courageous of modern governmental executives, Rudolph Guiliani! If it was done there it can be done anywhere, even terribly misgoverned Chicago. The political will to empower and support in office,executives as gutsy as Guiliani, can and must be mobilized. An onslaught on crime and criminals can, and should for the sake of rational civilization, be carried through with no apologies to those who pusillanimously bid us excuse criminality.
ReplyDeleteJack, the Ukraine to Hungary comparison is apt. The Russians prefer to erect a defensive perimeter around themselves (who doesn't?). The only thing that changes over time is where the perimeter is located. They have drawn it inwards a long, long way since the 1950s. Maybe we should stop pressing them to retreat further?
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Hillary 2.0 in 2024 (I guess it's more like 16.0, but you get the idea) ought to be laughable/pathetic, but given the media's guaranteed support, you just can't count her out...
Philadelphia once had a mayor characterized by common sense? The mind boggles!
Oh, I have no doubt that law and order will, sooner or later, be restored. As you've pointed out, it may be the leftist authoritarians who do the restoring!
You know, I think Trump may have missed an opportunity in 2020 re: crime. As BLM riots proliferated, and as violent crime mushroomed, Trump could have declared war on the forces of chaos, utilizing federal law enforcement and even the military to battle them in the streets. He forbore, on the advice of his establishment entourage. He deferred, in effect, to local law enforcement, much of which has been neutered by deep blue local politicians. I suspect, had he taken the bull by the horns, the American people would have had his back (and that of our police and military). Alas, we'll never know.
The Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire that was developed by the Czars over an approximately 400 year period, give or take. When the Communists made a deal with Germany to get out of World War 1, it was temporarily lost, as was much other territory. The Communists gained it back and it became part of the Soviet Union, but my point is that having a Russian Empire was NOT a communist idea.
ReplyDeleteAfter the Soviet Union, the Ukraine became independent as did many many other areas, and the Russians lost their empire as such. The Ukraine is especially important to them for the warm water ports, and also because it it a bread basket.
In any event, to Russians, "death comes from the west" and it is standard practice to have as much territory as possible to prevent this. Remember Hitler? Remember Napoleon? Others have attempted to invade Russia to include the Poles. Ever heard of the Mongols?
I can think of some other places that Russia might be looking at in the future to regain that old empire, but for now The Ukraine will do. Don't worry, the Russians will not invade Italy. Ha!
test from Jack
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: President Trump has astonished us many times. If he regains office he may do so again by showing he learned from his first term, his present break and especially from the yet relentless onslaught on him by the criminal loving far left. That could mean bad news for criminals and their toadies!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy fromJack: I have it! Let us legally obligate all wealthy and or corporate patrons of the criminal celebrating far left to kick in a percentage of their contributions to a Criminal Welfare Fund. Eligibility for benefits would be determined by the degree of savagery demonstrated by the criminal with the greatest depravity rating the greatest largesse! Now it would not enable the degree of luxury many criminals think their due, but enough, enough. Counterintuitive? Why yes but no more so than the touching and lugubrious compassion already afforded the thug by the left. And it would have the benefit of
ReplyDelete"suggesting"in a financial way, to the do gooders who dreamily or cynically support the sociopathic far left, the COST of their casual idealism! And oh yes, there would be an increasing scale of percentages levied on feckless contributors due to medical expenses, loss of property values, costly personal and property security measures, anarchic schools, loss of loved ones, etc.forced on the law abiding, correlating directly to the contributors' succor of the unjust.
Quite right, Ray: Russia's interest in Ukraine (and most of Eastern Europe) has deep roots, and the closer you get to Russia itself the more ancy the Russians get. That's only to be expected.
ReplyDeleteJack: my fondest hope is that we could get a new-and-improved Trump as president in 2024. I've no doubt that he learned much from his first term and left office a far more effective leader than when he entered it -- but I still view many of his decisions as tragically ill-conceived. The rearguard action to keep himself in office was a case in point. It was just plain sloppy, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that, if bellyaching was the only arrow in his quiver, he was going to come up short.
Jack, your idea for a Criminal Welfare Fund has much merit, although one could argue that we already have one: it's called "big government". Some lefties, to their credit, do put their money where their mouths are by donating to criminal-friendly charities. Presumably, some (former) criminals even turn their lives around with the help of non-profits. Personally, I favor work camps and/or prompt execution, but then no one has ever accused me of being soft-hearted...
Dr.Waddy from Jack: The problem I see with non punitive organizations helping criminals to turn their lives around is that it works only when the criminal decides to make the painful transition to positive living (eg. answering the alarm at 5:30 am on a subzero WNY am ,day after wearisome day adnauseum). That leaves it for the lawful to wait until the crook decides to be ready. Uh uh! That ain't right!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Upon conviction society must take criminals firmly in hand! First, classify them into two main classes: one of felons proven so savage that to reintroduce them to society would be to tell all of thecriminal's myriad potential victims "Criminals have rights superior to yours" Incarcerate them for good. The other class, those who present some possibility of positive living, would be REQUIRED to prove willingness to do so by successful completion of an intense regimen of boot camp style living. Trained counselors and military style supervisors , trained in the paramount importance of protecting the law wbiding public, would evaluate them fairly while constantly watching for characteristic criminal "fronting". Inmates would be adequately informed of the consequences of failure: incarceration with the lost.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I know such a regimen far better serves the rights of the law abiding public: I experienced it at work in theNYS Shock Incarceration facility I was glad to work in from 1996 to 2003. But this would be but the first step. Graduation from the boot camp would introduce the recovering criminal to an incarceration less austere, with more freedom but with constant attention paid to recognizable signs of retained criminal intent. Again, incarceration with the lost would be the immediate consequence of reversion to criminal presumptuousness and implied sociopathy. It would be rightfully assumed, as per Wilson and Guiliani's "Broken Windows" demonstrated wisdom, that toleration of "minor" offenses surely presages major ones in direct commission or in pathetic imitation; successful completion of this phase after a set,invariable term would gain the inmate a freedom constantly monitored. Wanna do crime? Then do the time I say. Our society has made a good hearted but unknowingly disastrous decision to protect the lawless to the undeserving disadvantage of the lawful. This must end! We must take full control of these victimizers. To do less is profound injustice.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: But I would consider it necessary to relax criminal and even civil penalties for the possession or sale of intoxicants such as MJ and that is being done with typical NYS bureaucratic sloth. But! What will now become of those perhaps, ehh, less than lawful who participated in the MJ trade and its ancillaries? Will they embrace lawful enterprises? Ehh, perhaps not. It may be that they are devoted, or unable to function in other than, unlawful professions!
ReplyDeleteWhoa! Being a law-abiding citizen requires one to wake up at 5:30 a.m.? Yikes! Put me down as a small-time crook, in that case.
ReplyDeleteSorting the no-hopers from the salvageable naturally makes a lot of sense, but how confident could we be in the sorting, and I do wonder what the point is of incarcerating the no-hopers? Is it just to demonstrate our humanity? Because I'm not sure that locking up the scum of the earth with only other scum for company is all that humane...
Hmm. It's an interesting question what becomes of the pot peddlers when their trade is legalized. I doubt that the bottom-feeders all of a sudden become captains of industry, somehow...