By Randy Rossi -
For those of us that lived through the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis and watched the USSR threaten to destroy the world in a nuclear war, it is hard to understand why so many people today do not support helping Ukraine defend its freedom from barbaric Russia ruled by murderous dictator Vladimir Putin who was a former KGB agent. For those of us that did live through the Cold War, the horrific danger of a rebuilt USSR under Putin is very real. We remember the nuclear attack drills in grade school in which we practiced by hiding under our desks in case the school building collapsed because of a nuclear attack. For me it was even worse, while working on the family farm at 13 cultivating a field on a tractor far from home and all alone, I suddenly heard a massive explosion which I thought was a nuclear strike. Scared to death, I was afraid that I was the only survivor in America until my uncle dropped by and told me it was a sonic boom from a US fighter jet practicing for war. Thank God President Ronald Reagan with the help of British PM Margret Thatcher, our NATO allies, Pope John Paul II, and the brave people of Poland successfully and peacefully defeated the Soviet Union and brought freedom to Eastern Europe. Russia had enslaved many countries in Eastern Europe and used them to fund their endless and brutal attacks on freedom.
President Ronald Reagan used the strategy of “Peace Through Strength” to force Russia to break apart the USSR in 1991 and that brought freedom to many countries Russia had enslaved including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Eastern Germany, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and many others. That dramatically reduced Russia’s power and their threat to freedom and global peace. Sadly, that peace that President Reagan brought the world is now taken for granted because most people today did not live through the horror of the Cold War. Well now that peace is once again at risk. Vladimir Putin has clearly told the world that he wants to rebuild the USSR and enslave the nations in Eastern Europe that President Reagan bravely freed by peacefully winning the “Cold War”. Barbaric Putin wants to have the power and strength to once again rule all of Eastern Europe so he can bully the free world.
If we let Putin conquer Ukraine, our allies Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and others would be next and Putin would rebuild the Soviet union and the Cold War would be on again. The good news is that right now the free world can stop barbaric Putin without firing a shot. If we isolated Russia and all free nations stopped doing business with them and stopped buying their natural gas, the Russian economy would collapse and the Russian people would kick Putin out of power. Putin knows that. So if the free world unites and protects Ukraine and threatens to isolate Russia if it attacks Ukraine, Putin would have no choice but to back off.
So why should you care about Ukraine? Because if we don’t stand up for them, Vladimir Putin will rebuild the Soviet Union and the “Cold War” would be back again putting the whole world at risk of a nuclear war much worse than it would have been 30 years ago because of new horribly destructive weapon technology. You should care about Ukraine to save world peace and to protect the futures of your children!
I urge everyone to read “Strategy of Denial” by Elbridge Colby. He was the architect of DJT’s China Containment policy, which even Biden, reluctantly, has quasi-embraced.
He posits “differentiated credibility”: that our allies and adversaries differentiate between alliances. Meaning that China will not interpret the US “allowing” Russia to take Ukraine as a sign of weakness. Furthermore, they may interpret it as a sign that the US will focus even more on Southeast Asia.
Point? Ukraine does not matter that much. China, a country whose generals have explicitly stated that they want to militarily defeat the USA, matters A LOT.
Focus on Asia. Focus on Containing China. Leave Ukraine to Germany and France.
60% of global commerce passes through Southeast Asia. If China is able to do as it wants in that region, the US becomes a second-rate power
Since Peter the Great built the first Russian navy in 1700, Russia has sought a “:warm water” port. The Baltic is mostly fresh water and freezes over in winter, making Russia’s Baltic (and Arctic) ports mostly unusable several months of every year.
Peter and Catherine the Great fought the Turks for nearly 100 years to gain access to the Black Sea by way of the Ukraine and Crimea. They eventually got what they wanted.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was, I believe, an attempt to gain access to a port even further south, the Persian Gulf, for the same reason.
To believe Russia will NEVER make another attempt to gain warm-water access to the world’s oceans in naive.