Skip to main content

A Brief Foreign Affairs Diversion

By February 21, 2022Commentary

Tonight we are seeing what happens when you have a literally demented old man who can’t keep up with  anything and who isn’t in charge and has an administration peopled with incompetents.  Putin simply has no fear of these imbeciles, and rightly so.  Much as I disliked Trump’s personality, there is no way in hell Putin does this if he were still President.  In fact, he wouldn’t even think about it when Trump was President.  And the Baltic republics, Poland and other nations must be very fearful right now.  If we don’t take some incredibly strong action, dangerous in itself, like sabotaging the Nordstream and other pipelines, Putin isn’t going to stop.  Before he dies he wants to recreate the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.  He will not voluntarily stop.  So whatever cyber capabilities we have and whatever acts of mischief against Russia we have the ability to do, we should do now and we shouldn’t stop til Putin withdraws.  How many times do we have to learn that if you don’t stop thugs early, you pay a huge price later.

Join the discussion 16 Comments

  • Bryon Grosz says:

    I agree completely, although I think this is now the minority view on the right. I’ve seen more and more of an isolationist mindset creep in on the right over the last 10 years or so. There is a post on Power Line about Neville Chamberlain and there is a disconcerting number of comments saying Chamberlain got a bad rap.

    On a side note: It looks like Paul Mirengoff has left Power Line. I haven’t seen a post from him in the last week. You would be an awesome addition to take his place. Unfortunately I don’t think this particular post would be too popular there, although I would chime in my agreement.

  • Fred Barth says:

    Kevin, thanks for your continuously excellent, difficult work. It’s been a great help during the last several years. In this article, you are picturing our current administration in what I believe is an unrealistic way. The fools to whom you refer have no real interest in dissuading Putin; they may only want to convey the impression that this is true, so far as that impression is useful to their political ends. The presidential keepers, Russia, and China have consonant goals: global, centralized power over mankind and its resources. Buying great quantities of oil from Russia does not show firm resolve.

  • Dan says:

    “ If we don’t take some incredibly strong action, dangerous in itself, like sabotaging the Nordstream and other pipelines, Putin isn’t going to stop.”. Why is it any of our business? If you don’t think he can strike back by hacking whatever he wants to you haven’t been paying attention. Next thing we have a real war on our hands with incompetent biden in charge.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      Modern history is the story of pyschopathetic totalitarians who stir up immense trouble if they aren’t stopped quickly. You sound like some Americans during Hitler’s rise to power.

  • Chris W says:

    Exactly. Vote policy over personality every time. Trump’s personality is tough to take, but his policies were good for the country.

  • joe Kosanda says:

    Victor Hansen book on WWII is a must read
    written from a geopolitical perspective, it sheds tremendous light on the reasons for war since the days of Sparta

    Putins move into Ukraine can be partially explained via the events starting early during the obama administration , then the russian hoax and then with the biden administration.

    Granted, Putin has had his sights on Ukraine and most of the former soviet bloc. but the progressives in the democratic party have done their share to encourage Putin.
    See also obuma’s behavior with IRAN

    Victor Hansens book on WW2 is a absolute must read.

  • Bob Harper says:

    Dan, You may not be interested in Mr. Putin, but he is interested in you. Not personally, perhaps, but in making life worse for the West while increasing his power. Better to stop him now (better still to have stopped him five or ten years ago, but….) than to wait until doing so proves even more costly. We all hope it can be done without violence, but it may come to that; in fact, it WILL come to that unless we can hurt him economically sufficiently for him to stop or be stopped.

  • Byron Santana says:

    What is the US going to do? Send in Gen Milley and his division of transgender wokies? Spend more money we don’t have? I don’t care what Putin or Russia are doing. Take Ukraine. Don’t take Ukraine. Seems like something Ukraine and Europe should work out. We have a massive dumpster fire going on in our own nation on multiple levels, and boomers and liberals want to pick a fight with Russia. Wow.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I think that approach was tried with another psychopath in WWII–just take Austria, just take Czeckoslovakia, oops, wait, you want the whold world? Psychopaths don’t stop, they have to be stopped. And if you think it doesn’t affect us, that we sit here in some isolated little continent, you are wrong and you are ignoring a fundamental obligation all humans should have to care about how people around the world are treated.

  • Byron Santana says:

    Spare me the Putin-is-Hitler meme. Putin has been in power long enough to know what he is about. Unlike Xi (more likely a threat but one neocons and boomers are too frightened of to mess with), he has not been committing genocide nor has he proven to be a psychopath as you call him. Enough of this globocop b.s. Europe can fight their own battles. Haven’t we learned anything from our defeat by goat herders in Afghanistan? Is that 20 year debacle already out of mind? I’m not worried about Ukraine or any other formerly Russian-controlled state. They can fight for their own nations if they care enough. Who knows? Perhaps Russia would be an improvement. It isn’t like Ukraine is a shining example of freedom and democracy. They’re just as corrupt as Russia (and maybe less than us). It is high time we tell the neocons, liberals, and boomers to sit down and shut up. This nation, OUR nation is a mess. And I have fundamental obligations to care FIRST about my own family, friends, neighbors, and nation long before worrying about the globe.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      Easy for us to say when we live in the US, imagine living in a country, say Tibet, where another country comes in a totally turns your society and life upside down. I guess you would be really happy that no one in the world should give a shit what happens to you.

  • Ed Blake says:

    Two words: Susan Rice. A nitwit of the first order.

  • LA_Bob says:

    I agree with Kevin Roche on this, but I do think there are a lot moving parts to consider. One of them is that European NATO really needs to step up here. One of Trump’s concerns was that NATO takes the US for granted. They have let slide much of their own military capacities and don’t even pay their mandated shares of NATO support. Related to this is European dependence on Russian natural gas. Germany could have been (but wasn’t) much smarter about it’s nuclear energy program. But, hey, what’s making it through the next several winters compared to the threat of global warming in 50-100 years?

    US fracking and natural gas production might have helped had a certain nursing-home candidate not become president. Even with that, the US can’t do it all.

  • MProoveIt says:

    Does Putin have some genocidal programs like the Chi Coms that I should be aware of? We’re FAR MORE intertwined with China and we have much more endangered by that regime. Or, is this a proxy battle with China?

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I agree that China is more dangerous, both more nefarious and a larger, richer society. I think China is probably truly ambivalent about Russia. They like to see Putin give us trouble, but the blowback Russian causes will also affect China.

Leave a Reply to DanCancel reply