Ukraine Couldn’t Turn Into WWIII
And Other Lies You’re Being Told
I don’t do partisan politics on here because it’s useless. Particularly on the subject of Ukraine and if America should be involved in the war there. Both American political parties are fully on board with sending increasingly lethal, and more expensive, weapons systems to be used against Russian forces in combat. Many, if not most, neutral observers would call that an act of war, justifying if not necessitating retaliation.
We have been told many times on all the mainstream media outlets by various so called experts, that the West sending arms to be used to kill Russian soldiers, and openly bragging about providing intelligence to assassinate Russian generals with those weapons, couldn’t possibly lead to retaliation. Now, I was only and enlisted sergeant who collected human intelligence, not some big wig general who couldn’t win a 20 year war in Afghanistan, but I’m not sure in what world this view actually makes any sense.
Typically, if someone joins a fight against you, you are going to consider that person an enemy. Particularly if that person says things like you can’t be allowed to remain in power. If someone said that about me, I would probably take that as a threat.
Proxy wars used to be fought with a least a veneer of plausible deniability
This article isn’t about Russia/Ukraine per se, but about how conflicts have a way of escalating and having unintended consequences. I realize that people who #standwithukraine and think Putin is the devil incarnate just a few years after laughing at Mitt Romney and his 80’s foreign policy don’t think there could be any such thing. But history says otherwise.
Back when Democrats were anti-Iraq war and France was not on board with George W. Bush going to war there, they liked to say things like criticizing France was unpatriotic because France helped the United States fight Britain during the Revolutionary war. And that’s true. But how did that work out for France?
Britain and France had more often than not, been at war for 700 years or so prior to the American Revolution and France was stinging from their recent loss in the Seven Years War. Supporting war in the British colonies was not exactly out of some love of the American cause, but because it was a chance to stick it to Britain. But at what cost?
So at a time of extravagant spending, rising debt, inflation — particularly in the cost of bread, increasing taxes and a general feeling that the rulers didn’t much care what the people had to say, France engaged in a costly war for other people’s independence. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar.
If that’s a little too far back in history, what about World War I? A catastrophic conflict that virtually wiped out an entire generation of French men and killed an estimated 15 million people worldwide. And why did this happen?
Many of us will remember the name Archduke Franz Ferdinand from some long-ago history class. His assassination is credited as the cause of this global conflict but how did a rogue citizen of one country killing the next leader of another turn into 15 million dead? How did Gavrilo Princip firing a bullet lead to Japanese and Russian troops killing each other?
Unintended consequences.
The extremely simplified version of events is that Europe was full of mutual defense pacts and treaties, which all seemed like good ideas at the time. If we all have powerful friends then we will all be deterred from starting wars with each other. Makes sense, right? Much like the “Mutually Assured Destruction” policy of the Cold War. “If you nuke us we’ll nuke you back, so you better not nuke us first.”
Only this policy didn’t account for the actions of a rogue actor. When the heir apparent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was killed by a Serbian, they were rightly upset and demanded reparations from Serbia. Serbia went along, but eventually felt like the demands were too much and refused, leading Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia.
Well Serbia was allied with Russia who declared war on Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary was allied with Germany who declared war on Russia. But Russia was also allied with France who declared war on Germany and on and on it went until eventually you have British ally Japan, also at war with Russia.
Unintended consequences.
But of course, we’re told today that none of these things can happen today. Russia isn’t that powerful. Russia is isolated. And no, Russia doesn’t have the GDP to fully compete in a full-scale war, if Western powers were to actually declare war. But that requires no small effort on the part of the US and NATO, who are not as powerful as many people think.
Most NATO partners aren’t even meeting their pledges of spending 2% of their GDP on defense, and the U.S. is already facing munitions shortages from supplying Ukraine. Not to mention being $30 Trillion in debt already.
And is Russia as isolated as people say? Russia has already been receiving drones from Iran, who has previously been dismissed a “tiny country”, albeit with nuclear ambitions and fanatical rulers. And now Russia is receiving military assistance from China:
So in a year we have gone from a risk free way to stick it to Putin, to potentially imposing sanctions on China. How do you think China is going to respond to sanctions? Oh not to mention China has it’s eyes on Taiwan and that’s a fight we may not be ready for.
Do you see the tit for tat escalation? A little here, a little there. Now another country is involved. Now they have a grievance, and they escalate, then we escalate.
What about asymmetric warfare? Countries no longer need massive conventional armies to be formidable and hurt their enemies. There are serious concerns over the security of our power grid. China has enormous cyber capabilities. What if China blacks out the American west coast in response to sanctions? What is the US response? How long until the unintended consequences spiral out of control?
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” — Einstein