Photo: My Great Uncle, Pvt. Joe Clark, U.S. Army (Left). France, 1917
Because no invading army is currently shelling my town, and I'm not forced to build street barricades or evacuate my family, I have the privilege of ruminating in my kitchen over a good cup of coffee.
Some of us veterans are a bit long in the tooth to volunteer for the Ukrainian International Legion, but as global sanctions on Russia help shove the Invader out of power, I'll gladly pay a bit more at the gas pump. It's the least I can do in hopes of heading off World War III.
History shows that aggressive dictators don't improve over time. He'll have to go before the world can sleep in peace again. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian People, Russian regime change must wait either until Ukraine is devastated and the unhinged dictator invades another of his peaceful neighbors, or until a coup and/or assassination removes the threat from within.
Like any well-understood disease, nationalist expansionism must run its entirely predictable course in the way it always has. A year from now, if sanctions and support to Ukraine prove insufficient, we may realize that WWIII began in the spring of 2014 with the invasion and annexation of Crimea.
Napoleon. Wilhelm. Hitler. We know how this works. The technology advances, but war--the ancient obscenity, and our species' most notorious defect--never changes.
If the mild sacrifices at grocery and gas station are all we'll have to endure, we're fortunate. Anyone paying attention knows the days of isolated nations looking inward and managing their own affairs independently of foreign influence are long gone. Every developed nation is affected by this, the most significant land war in Europe since the Nazis introduced the world to blitzkrieg.
For people who struggle to make ends meet here in the US, I'm truly sorry rising prices make things more difficult. But to people of means complaining and blaming certain politicians for the crisis, I say be grateful our country is no longer run by a Russian puppet impeached for withholding Senate-mandated military aid to Ukraine. (By the way, isn't it amazing how many homespun national security and international relations specialists have popped up on the internet in the past few weeks.) When your children board a train to another country while you shiver in a bombed-out basement, loading rifle magazines with frostbitten fingers, then you can complain about hardship.
This war can only end in Moscow. Pray it happens soon, and that the thousands of US troops planning and training in Poland never have to tempt the Russian dictator to end civilization as we know it by crossing that border.
From my perspective, President Biden is making appropriate decisions to keep us, and the rest of the world, as safe as possible by emphasizing a secure future over a convenient present.
Your perspective is always valuable. Thanks.
Well said.