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October 6, 2022

With news that Israeli intelligence has detected an “irregular presence” of nuclear-capable Russian bombers near Finland and retired general David Petraeus casually saying NATO would likely sink Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea fleet if Russia used a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, it’s perhaps time for a few questions:

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First, can we discuss a situation that could very well result in thermonuclear war — and the end of life as we know it — intelligently and rationally? Or must all questions about our Dr. Strangelove policy be met with childish name-calling (e.g., “stooge of Putin!”) designed to silence debate?

Second, is it a good idea to essentially tell a man who controls 6,200 nuclear weapons, and who our pseudo-elites may label “crazy,” you want to kill him? This is what Joe Biden’s and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for Russian “regime change” really amounts to, mind you.

It’s important realizing that this conflict means infinitely more to Putin than it does to us. Our pseudo-elites are playing some kind of geopolitical game (with our lives and our children’s) as is their wont.

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To Putin this is an existential crisis.  Our globalist chicken hawks have ensured that.

Putin currently has no graceful exit from this situation. It’s apparently all or nothing, victory or death. Do you really think the wounded Bear will collapse into the waiting arms of those who’d devour him and not lash out, no-holds-barred, driven by self-preservation? Do we know what the phrase “Nothing to lose” means?

It’s time now for some realpolitik (there is a moral component here, too; more on that momentarily). In the early 19th century, we formulated the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that foreign intervention in the Americas could be considered a hostile act against the United States. Now, question:

Does Russia have a right to its own Monroe Doctrine?  Or, a better question may be, can we realistically prevent it from effecting such?

Some may now say that Putin had no right to invade Ukraine. Fair enough. But we invaded Mexico in 1846 and overthrew Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in a CIA-backed coup in 1954, to mention just two of our Latin American interventions. Whether we had a “right” to do so, or were right in doing so, is not the point here. We could enforce our will in our sphere of influence because we had the power. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, for example and in contrast, could not — i.e., when annexing Kuwait — because it didn’t have the power. Yet Russia is no Iraq.

So, is this all about “Might makes right”? Not exactly. One element of what’s known as Just War Doctrine is that for a proposed military action to be moral, it must do more good than harm. Is this the case with our playing of chicken with Putin? The best-case scenario is that we help an internationalist pseudo-elite, Zelenskyy, retain power and preserve the borders of what even the left-wing Guardian called in 2015 “the most corrupt nation in Europe.”