The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the reaction, or lack thereof, by the feckless and incoherent Biden Administration has spawned a fissure within conservative circles.  Some on the right are beating the war drums for increased intervention beyond supplying Ukraine with advanced weaponry while others cower paralyzed with fear that any step to substantially help the Ukrainians defeat Putin and the Russians will precipitate World War III. 

Meanwhile, the left, in their never-ending virtue-signaling mindset, incessantly waves the Ukrainian flag, writes poems, creates hashtags, deifies the president of Ukraine, outbids each other on how much money to spend on Ukraine, and loudly proclaims to the world their love for a country and its people.  These vacuous buffoons, joined by many in the center and on the right, view the war almost solely through the parochial lens of their own life experience, which emanates from living in a society that has not experienced national adversity since the Great Depression.

On both sides of the political spectrum, other than a small percentage who are veterans with combat experience, no native-born American has experienced first-hand the devastation and brutality of modern unconditional war. 

Americans are flocking to view the images of a destroyed nation and the death of its people on their television or computer screens.  While perhaps momentarily and emotionally moved, they can change channels or turn off the monitor and go about their daily lives.  These images almost immediately fade into the recesses of their minds as they are immune to the realities of contemporary warfare.

Mariupol YouTube screengrab (cropped)

Out of ignorance and a herd mentality, many invariably and inanely trot out the inevitable and vacuous comparisons to Hitler, the 1930s, and World War II, revealing a myopic mindset and unfathomable ignorance.  Meanwhile, far too many ignore reality and the potentially devastating eventuality of a global conflict with a far more lethal tripartite enemy than the axis powers in World War II: China, Russia, and Iran.

If I may claim a point of personal privilege as a survivor and casualty of World War II and its immediate aftermath to say to my fellow citizens:

1. Stop the empty-headed comparisons of anyone you dislike or any event to Hitler, the Nazis, or World War II; these fatuous comparisons are insulting and demean the untold millions that were casualties of the War.  Nothing since 1945 remotely compares to the carnage and brutality of that perilous chapter in human history.
2. Understand that entrenched political classes in democratic nations will invariably exacerbate conflict and in their overweening sense of superiority callously ignore opportunities to avoid a war.
3. Grasp that the absence of morality and ethics in a society and an economy that cannot underwrite a powerful military invites aggression.
4. Be aware that there are but two common threads in all of the wars in the history of mankind.  The circumstances that eventuate in war are always dissimilar.

The two common threads in all wars are: First, wars are invariably precipitated by the megalomaniacal within the small fragment of the human race genetically predisposed to dominate, control or exploit other peoples or nations.  Second, those that suffer the most from war are the civilians and, in particular, the children who survive and whose lives will never be the same, whose innocence is violently and permanently stripped away from them, who for the rest of their lives will never escape the memory of their experiences that will hover above them like an immovable black cloud and whose first life lesson is death, brutality, and destruction.

What is happening in Ukraine was avoidable and unnecessary.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and Western Europe continued to treat a geographically smaller and dramatically weaker Russia essentially the same as they did a bellicose and powerful Soviet Union, thus, triggering and exacerbating Russian paranoia which gave rise to the ascension of Vladimir Putin. 

American politicians over the years, while exploiting the political instability and corruption in Ukraine for personal and political gains, continued to falsely insinuate to the various Ukrainian governments that they would be allowed to join NATO, whose sole original reason for being was to stop Soviet aggression. 

At the same time, the American political elites were unleashing an unnecessary war in Iraq, pursuing a futile 20-year conflict in Afghanistan, enabling an implacable terrorist state, Iran, fomenting violent civil wars in Libya and Syria, and willfully choosing to become dependent on China.  Thus, they weakened the United States and squandered American lives and treasure as well as the faith and confidence of its citizenry.

Even as late as 2021, if the United States and Western Europe had been honest with the Ukrainians about their actual intention of never allowing them to join NATO, and subsequently armed them with sufficient weaponry to thwart a potential invasion, war could have been avoided.

Putin, while a megalomaniac, is not Hitler or Stalin.  Their ascendancy to power was a devastating outgrowth of their time and place.  The circumstances leading up to the invasion of Ukraine are unique to Putin and these times.  The 2020s are not the 1930s. 

It is not appeasement by other European nations that prompted this war.  Instead, it was the deliberate actions by America and Western Europe to hoodwink Ukraine and antagonize Russia while simultaneously compromising and weakening themselves, particularly Germany.  This hobbling of Germany and the West was accomplished by foolishly succumbing to the most successful ploy of the century-old international communist movement: fictitious climate change. The subsequent mania by the ruling classes in western nations to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels has hobbled their wealth-generating capacity and vastly enriched Putin (and Iran) by driving oil prices through the roof ever since Biden began his attack on American oil production on day one of his presidency,

The invasion of Ukraine will not spawn World War III as China, the dominant member of the budding axis that includes Russia and Iran, will make certain it does not.  If Putin’s debacle results in the conquest of Ukraine or perhaps even a de facto stalemate, all signs point to China dominating and effectively controlling Russia and its massive reserves of natural resources that will enable this axis to dominate and effectively control all economic activity throughout the world. 

That outcome cannot be allowed to eventuate.  Thus, the United States and Europe must unconditionally support Ukraine with advanced weaponry regardless of the ever-present government corruption in Ukraine and its egocentric president, Volodymyr Zelensky.   The adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is applicable in these circumstances.  Further. it is not a necessity to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine or introduce NATO ground troops if Ukraine is sufficiently armed and financially supported.

The war in Ukraine cannot be dismissed as not being in America’s vital interest.  This nation cannot retreat into self-imposed isolationism, while at the same time deliberately undercutting its economy through absurd regulations and taxes; chasing the fleeting apparition of “green” energy; being far too dependent on China for not only vital manufactured items but many essential raw materials; gratuitously allowing a terror-sponsoring Iran to achieve regional hegemony in the Middle East; and inanely devastating American society through an undeclared war on the culture in order to transform the nation into a dystopian Neverland. 

If the war in Ukraine ends in a stalemate, America should gradually phase out of NATO and force the European Union to assume the primary responsibility for defending Europe.  America must rebuild its economy and society as well transform its political class in order to face the greatest and most lethal threat to the United States in its nearly 250-year history: China.  A nation whose communist leadership is maniacally obsessed with global hegemony spawned by a centuries-old belief in Chinese manifest destiny and retribution for Western-imposed subservience in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

It is my fervent prayer that the people of this nation never experience what the victims and survivors of World War II or any unconditional war in the modern era have endured.  The American people can continue to live in peace but only if the United States is a dominant moral and economic force able to underwrite being the unrivaled military power in the world and be willing to use all those strengths, together with its allies, to resolutely confront potential adversaries before they metastasize into a far greater threat.  

While the war in Ukraine is in America’s vital interest, it should also be a soul-shattering wake-up call to its citizenry.