War abroad and at home

War. No one wants it, but the option – or possibility, or hope – is readily and easily bandied about. Now Russia has invaded Ukraine, unleashing the greatest military violence in Europe since Hitler’s attack on Poland in 1939.

What does it mean? In the long run disaster for Vladimir Putin and disaster for the people of Russia. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 only to retreat in defeat nine years later. The U.S. loses war after war, from Vietnam to our own Afghanistan debacle, 20 years of lives and treasure lost there, of parents and spouses grieving, of one culture ruined and soldiers, their families and communities in both Afghan society and ours devastated.

The cliche is war is a continuation of politics. Clausewitz’s famous statement is, “War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.”

Politics is governance, whether internally or internationally, of settling differences through negotiation.

That Putin went to war shows his weakness, not his strength. Where will his victory be? What is his exit strategy? How will history ever proclaim his genius or righteousness? There are no good answers for Putin. He has no positive future. Bully and coward that he is, he sends his young to kill the citizens of another country and has them die in the process. Putin cares for no one except himself. He does not listen to dissent and has no one able to tell him of his colossal failures.

War is a continuation of politics. Our first concern, as U.S. citizens, is American soil, not Ukrainian.

What victory and end game is there in calling for civil war, an insurrection its opening salvo, insisting that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and exclaiming that our system of checks and balances has totally failed, the results fraudulent and that no alternative exists except to storm the nation’s Capital in defense of the continued righteous presidency of Donald Trump?

A failure of politics, policy and philosophy is shown in over the top name calling and insisting there is no alternative except the one right way of violent overthrow.

Mao Zedong famously said political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. If Donald Trump comes to power again, a possibility only through corrupt means, whether through his followers’ future massive election fraud or violent overthrow, how long can he hold on to power? Like Putin, he is a bully and a coward, a crook and a fraud. He may win in the moment, as the Soviets did in 1979, at the start of their Afghanistan war, or as Russia’s early advance in Ukraine captures a country for a moment in time.

Those poor Russian soldiers, fed lies about Ukrainians being Nazis. Now some of them have become cannon fodder. It is no different than Americans feasting on myths of a supreme white Christian race. Now some are in jail and over 700 await judgement. Our children are sacrificed on the alter by elites mad for power.

Trump can no more bring good and sweetness and light to American society than Putin can in Ukraine. Each is on a fool’s errand, led and run, of course, by fools.