That’s what it will be–Putin’s War. Russia has invaded Ukraine, an independent, democratic nation bordering on Russia. Ukraine has does nothing to deserve this.
Putin’s demands about where NATO exists or doesn’t exist is very troubling. He is telling NATO to back off, and he’s now using force to prevent an eastern European country from ever joining NATO. Ukraine began applying for membership in NATO soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991. Putin is being a big bully doing that.
Sweden and Finland are not NATO members. Nevertheless, they announced they are sending aid to Ukraine to it try to help prohibit Russia from taking over Ukraine. I think it and all other Western help for Ukraine will be too late. It appears extremely likely that Russia will take over Ukraine. President H.W. Bush was probably right when he advocated for NATO to accept Ukraine as a member even though its corruption caused it to not adhere to NATO requirements for membership.
However, I believe that what Putin is doing will do the opposite of what he wants. The autocrat envisions a Russian empire of the old days. All that will happen is that he will make Russia the “evil empire” again that U.S. President Ronald Reagan correctly said of the former atheistic Soviet Union. I don’t think most citizens of Russia want this at all. But unless they can somehow rise up in huge numbers and “throw the bum out,” they have no choice in this matter.
Putin is not just trying to annex Ukraine to Russia; he is trying to stop the spread of democracy in eastern Europe, which has been going on since the Cold War ended in 1991. But I believe Putin’s War will cause just the opposite of what President Vladimir Putin wants, which is to weaken the European Union, weaken NATO, and cause the U.S. to back off and perhaps pull out of its membership in NATO. Donald Trump was heading toward going that very thing with the USA. European Union nations and NATO will considerably strengthen because of Putin’s return to the Cold War.
I don’t know about the U.S. Have we Americans become so divided politically that we are becoming weak as a nation in standing up to something like this Putin’s War? It doesn’t look good for us. As I have written on my blog before, the Republican Party (I am an independent voter) has become so corrupt, partly due to Donald Trump. Much of it now advocates for U.S. isolation in the world, thus no longer having allies like European countries and being committed to NATO wherein its members abide by the motto that “an attack on one is an attack on all.” We’ve got news broadcaster like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson agreeing with former President Donald Trump’s atrocious, if not somewhat treasonous, comments Wednesday praising Putin’s attack of Ukraine.
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