The risk remains the same.
Though I would like to hear argument otherwise."
You might remember Von Clausewitz's aphorism, "war is politics by other means" and Henry Kissinger's reversal regarding VI Lenin, who believed, says Kissinger, politics is war by other means?
And what is local police work if not legally controlled war against criminals?
Indeed, what is war? Vlad the Invader calls his war a "special military operation".
In Pentagon-ese, war is "kinetic action" as opposed to "soft force" diplomatic or cyber warfare.
I understand the US still has troops in Syria -- are they at war or is it something else?
The last time the US formally declared war was in December 1941, after Pearl Harbor, and yet we've fought in many places since then, losing tens of thousands of young American lives.
Were those wars, or something else?
My point is: there are many actions countries can and do take which use military force and yet are not considered full blown war.
And these are exactly the kinds of military actions the US has used since 1945 to help maintain world peace.
Without them, the world today would be a very different place, and if we now stop using those "kinetic actions", the world will quickly become much less friendly and dominated by regional powers like Vlad the Invader and his senior partner the Xi-snake.
Mariner: "And I agree with the concept America has essential interests outside the Americas.
But NATO ain’t one of them.
Those parasitic bastards can take care of themselves.
We should no longer do it for them, no matter the outcome."
I agree Europeans should contribute more to NATO, and numbers I've seen say the EU combined has contributed as much as, or more, to Ukraine than the US, so far.
But the fact is, there's no more important alliance in the world than the US and NATO/EU.
The US and EU are roughly equal in population and GDP, and combined make up 40% of the world's GDP.
Add to that Canada and our Pacific allies, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Australia, and the US and allies account for well over 50% of the world's GDP.
Another 30% of world GDP comes from the B.R.I.C.S -- Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa -- about 60% of that being just China.
So, actually, it should be written as C.R.I.B.S, putting China and Russia first.
My point is: the CRIBS combined are more powerful economically than the US alone, but not more than the US plus our allies.
The key idea here is: the US plus our allies can still dominate the world -- economically, militarily, politically & culturally, to the same degree that the US alone did beginning in 1945.
The result is world peace and amazingly growing global prosperity.
But if we try to stand alone in the world, then other great alliances, such as the BRICS (CRIBS) or the EU can dominate us.
Mariner: "I am not advocating isolation.
Fair trade and open travel with closed borders should be the foundation."
But all of those are based on our military and economic alliances.
Nothing good happens without a strong military presence to enforce peace and basic laws.
Mariner: "Are you talking about tariffs?
I believe the US should have across the board tariffs against any country/bloc that restricts our products in any way...and any country that is not subject to the same environmental and labor laws."
No, I'm talking about laws, sanctions, intended to protect our economic independence by restricting imports of certain critical products (i.e., pharmaceuticals) from hostile actors like China.
Such laws should not apply to our friends and allies.
Tariffs are a different matter and can sometimes be used in lieu of sanctions.
Mariner: "Non sequitur and hyperbolic bullshit. Again.
There is no way a thinking person could arrive at that conclusion either from your logic above, or the facts on the ground."
And here is where your almighty stupidity reigns supreme, blinding you to the First Law of Human Nature: weakness provokes aggression from bad people.
We have seen it play out today in first, Chechnya (1999), then Georgia (2008) and now Ukraine (from 2014 on), just as we saw it in the 1930s in the Rhineland (1936), Austria (1938) and Czechoslovakia (1938).
Yes, Ukraine is still Czechoslovakia and Neville Chamberlain at Munich, it's not yet 1939 Poland and the Hitler-Stalin alliance which triggered the Second World War.
But that is exactly what everybody is looking at and realizing, now is the time to act.
If Vlad the Invader succeeds in Ukraine, it will increase Russia's population and economic power by roughly one third.
That will make Russia's next target country all the easier to overwhelm in a fight.
And Vlad the Invader, like Hitler before him, has told us expressly that he wants to reestablish the old Russian Empire.
Why would you ever doubt him on this?
