Before there was war in Ukraine, there was war in Ukraine.
When Vladimir Putin devoted a substantial portion of his two-hour conversation with Tucker Carlson to the history of Russia and Ukraine, he had a purpose. Anyone who listened learned Russia will not walk away from Ukraine. Thus, Russia will not accept the expansion of NATO into Ukraine.
Putin also declared, “The U.N. charter and international law have become obsolete.” And NATO, in Putin’s view, is sustaining a war footing among the nations of Europe, Russia included. NATO is a Cold War relic.
So what does Putin want? What Putin wants, like him or not, must be part of any consideration short of nuclear war.
Clearly, he wants to align Russia more closely with European nations. All he asked, before he sent a single Russian soldier to the border with Ukraine, was an assurance NATO would not expand to include Ukraine. Team Biden responded by forcefully committing to bring Ukraine into NATO and taking on the role of the defender of Ukraine. Now two years in, Ukraine is mortally wounded and a fortune in U.S. tax dollars have exploded.
Certainly Americans can remember, or at least read and study about, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nitika Khrushchev had missile sites under construction in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy drew a line. Mr. Khrushchev withdrew. War averted. Compare that to Joe Biden’s insistence of Ukraine membership in NATO. Would America allow Mexico to annex Texas?
Putin next discussed China and its potential given its population of 1.5 billion people. Russia shares a 2,615-mile-long border with China, and perhaps Russia sees its future with Caucasian Europe, since Russia is Caucasian, not Asian. The Russian leader discussed what Russia and Europe have in common, such as: a market economy, religion and culture.
Putin told Carlson, “After 1991, when Russia expected that it would be welcomed into the brotherly family of civilized nations, nothing like this happened. You tricked us. I don’t mean you personally when I say you. Of course I’m talking about the United States. The promise was that NATO would not expand eastward, but it happened five times. There were five waves of expansion. We tolerated all that. We were trying to persuade them. We were saying, please don’t. We are as bourgeois now as you are. We are a market economy, and there is no Communist Party power. Let’s negotiate.”
There was much more offered by Putin, who clearly was using the Carlson interview to make public what Russia has been attempting to do through diplomacy behind the headlines. “Let’s negotiate,” is pretty clear. The American response, shaped by the Democrat Party, has been “Russia, Russia, Russia” couched in Cold War terms. The Democrat Party went so far as to claim the president of the United States was a Russian agent. The excesses of Democrat Party politics forced Vladimir Putin to watch and to wait.
Putin’s overtures were not given serious attention in Washington, D.C., where so many careers and no many agencies depend upon a worldwide war footing for their livelihood. An almost mindless reaction suggested anyone who wished to talk to Putin or consider Russian overtures for peace, is a traitor to the United States of America.
A substantial part of the Biden reelection campaign is tied to the “evil Russian” theme of 70 years ago. The accusation that Republicans are Russian agents for not approving another $60 billion for the war in Ukraine is being waged because the Democrat strategists believe it will mean more votes for their party. Peace be damned.
As a result, the potential to shift the nuclear standoff and perhaps re-unify Europe on a competitive, free market economic basis, is ignored.
History may record this as the greatest diplomatic failure of all time. A world leader sits down with a reporter and says his nation expected to be invited in, and offers, “Let’s negotiate,” and Team Biden rants about Russia, smears Russia and uses the existence of Russia to tar and feather Americans who do not want war and who might respond to Russia in civil, diplomatic terms.
Even if one assumes Putin did not mean what he said, the U.S. response should be to open discussion, not hurl insults. Instead, America appears to the world as the aggressor, the party with hostile intent.
The Democrats wet all over themselves at the prospect of the Carlson interview, and then lashed out. The Republican Party cowered in the corner, silent, fearful of Democrat and media criticism. The GOP might as well have announced, “We cannot be seen near a kind word or a hopeful expression, regarding anything to do with Putin or with Russia.” And so with the passage of time, the media was handed a story of the prison death of a Putin foe, and automatically, like Police Officer Derrick Chauvin, Putin was convicted of murder.
There is a single American leader who speaks truth to intrenched power. That is Donald J. Trump. In his first term, the Democrat Party tried to use the mere existence of Russia as a means to smear Trump and remove him from office. Trump found virulent opponents in the Department of State, Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, and these groups bring the industrial might of weapons production with them.
If he wins a second term, Trump will be free of petty partisan games and vested interests. He can pick up the phone and display the art of the deal. If Vladimir Putin, in his interview with Tucker Carlson, was straight with the world, a second term for Donald Trump might finish what Ronald Reagan started and tamp down frictions that sustain a war footing through the decades.
The Team Biden approach to Russia is so “last century.”
Trump is the only national leader who understands that NATO has no more value than a peace treaty in the hands of Neville Chamberlain. Trump’s powerful responses to the outrageous attacks, his willingness to sacrifice his golden years and much of his treasure, for the nation, is obvious.
So what will it be, America? The demented coward of Afghanistan, or a committed national leader?
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