Don’t tell Herr General McCain and his Oberleutnant Lindsey Graham, but the American people have no desire to mix it up with the Russians. Or anybody else for that matter. As the great maritime nation of the world we want the freedom of the seas, and the ability to engage commercially with the rest of the world. We fought World War One because the Germans tried to prevent our peaceful maritime commerce, and we’ll fight any one who tries it again. Russia is a land power, and would never be that stupid, so there’s no reason for us to fight them.
When McCain was at the Naval Academy in the 60’s his attitude toward Russia was formed. It was the Soviet Union back then, and as a Navy fighter pilot McCain was trained and prepared to go to war with them. Naturally combative, I’m sure he was raring to go. They were trying to take over the world, and destroy the United States, and they were our mortal enemy. I’m McCain’s age, and I was certainly willing to fight the Soviets if necessary. Most young men of my generation felt the same way.
But times change. The Russians aren’t Communists any more, and they’re not trying to take over the world. They’re trying to survive, as a nation and a people. They still haven’t fully recovered from the enormous loss of life they suffered in World War Two. They are trying to make a transition from seventy years of totalitarianism, state atheism, and unimaginable hardship. No one has suffered more in the last 100 years than the people of Russia. Read Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago if you want a taste of what these incredibly strong people have gone through.
Why did Putin want the Crimea, and the eastern Ukraine? Because of the ethnic Russians that live there, and they’re a dying breed. They’re in a demographic death spiral, and Putin wants as many of them as he can get. He doesn’t care about Poland. There are no ethnic Russians there. But there are a million of them in the Baltics, half a million in Latvia alone. That’s why he’s nosing around there. There are ways to satisfy Putin’s nationalistic solidarity with these people short of war. It will just take some diplomatic ingenuity.
Rex Tillerson is the son of a Boy Scout official, and has been a life long Boy Scout, and is proud of it. He was responsible for the change in national Boy Scout policy which allowed gays to become Boy Scouts. He rose, on his merits, through the ranks of one of the most powerful corporations in the world. What else do you need to know about his character?
With this pick as Secretary of State, Trump has announced a new era in Russo-American relations, one which is long overdue. Putin is in the process of attempting to re-Christianize the Russian people. He wants Russia to return to its historic role as the great Christian nation of the East. We are the only real Christian country in the world. Aside from Poland and a few other places, Europe is post-Christian. As fellow Christian nations, Russia and the United States should stand shoulder to shoulder against radical Islam. They hate it as much, or more, than we do. And they’re prepared to do something about it. Russia has reverted to what it has always been, an autocracy. Putin rules with almost complete power. If he wants to play rough, he can play rough.
And then there’s oil, there’s always the oil. Russia still produces more oil than any country in the world, and we’re on our way to being number two. Together, our oil industries could dominate the world of oil far beyond what OPEC was ever able to do. Add in the Canadians, Mexicans, Brits and Norwegians and you’re talking about close to half the world’s oil.
Having joint control of the world oil industry with the Russians makes us natural partners, and allies. And Allies are what we are going to become.
My hat is off to Donald Trump, a man capable of clear geopolitical thought. Who’d a thunk?
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