Tag Archives: America first

Climate, Crime, Culture, Economics, Elections, Governance, Politics 2023

BEING A LONG SHORTLY – 1

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How do we screw up?  Let us count the ways.  To take a clear look we need, first, to LIST all the ways the United States is, well, doing the wrong thing.  It’s a little difficult to determine which errors are in reaction to the actions of others, and which are proactive attempts to change America’s direction, both domestically and internationally.  It will take more than one post to cover all those we can list.  Where to start?

America is not functioning the way it did when we were the strongest, most free and most prosperous nation, a beacon of freedom and opportunity.  The single, most potent disrupter and destroyer of “the American way” is and has been, socialism and then Marxism.  It would be useful if we could simply mount a campaign to “say no to Marxism,” and scrub it from the public mentality.  Unfortunately, and criminally, its perverse pervasion amidst so many of our institutions and attitudes, politicians and civic leaders, schools, administrations and educators, and other millions of social services, workers and “charities,” makes its removal a painful, macro- and micro-scopic abrasion of every layer of society.

So, there is a list of problems in need of Americanist repair, but virtually every one of them (poor Prudence has 39, a starting number) is confused by Marxism – Communism – which is antithetical to our Constitutional Republic.  “Leaders” seem to be oblivious to its infection.

FOREIGN AID

Foreign Aid is a problem, for example, to which most Americans pay little or no attention.  It’s not a “big” number in “budgets” of hundreds and thousands of $Billions, but it is a honey-pot for some of the most questionable, if not reprehensible, governments in the world; and, it represents our political support for philosophies and actions that are the OPPOSITE of what “America” stands for.

So, “foreign aid,” this backwater line-item of expenditure, makes a patriot wonder about the meanings behind the actions of others.  And, it should cause every American to reflect on how it is that so many elected and deep-state bureaucrat “leaders” manage to gain and retain power when they are so opposed to what America stands for.  Clearly, over many years, lies are fed to American citizens and, more disturbingly, to our elected “representatives,” sufficiently to coax continued financing of those opposed to us and our way of life.  This tiny corner of our “government” shows us the nature of most of our debilitating problems.  (America, awake!)

If one were to pray to God to expose the lies being told – and the liars who tell them – then he or she would also need to pray for exposure of the truth and the tellers of truth… so that we would know who to follow.  We’d have to exercise good, thoughtful judgment.  One thing, then, that we must not overlook, is that behind or amidst every problem that we might examine: problems that threaten our Republic and the unity required under “e pluribus unum,” are lies – lies of initiation and/or lies of maintenance.  The original lie of any conspiracy or fraud, must forever be reinforced with more lies, great and minor.  If we can identify the lie, we may be able to identify the liar.  It is a key responsibility of citizenship.

Lately, and we’re looking back to World War II as the beginning of “lately,” there has developed an apparent increased density of lies emanating from “government.”  This phenomenon has been possible only thanks to a compliant – if not subservient, press.  Our Constitution protects and, in effect, promotes a “free press,” but the meaning of the term and the protection, is seriously diluted, “lately.”

In keeping with the Communist Manifesto, news has, for many outlets, become mere propaganda, justified by political and racist hatreds. Very lately we’ve learned of direct involvement by federal law-enforcement agencies with various information outlets so as to alter Americans’ understanding of the truth.  More than once, this illegal interaction has affected elections at the federal level.  Virtual Communists within our own government of, by and for the people, seem to be converting a manifesto into actions.

Communism, socialism and other far-left movements have to lie.  The truth of their ideas and beliefs is so ugly and inhuman that only a smattering of disturbed people would join or follow them if the truth of them were made clear.  As might be said of “Satan,” the use of some truth about conditions that are not perfect, and lots of sympathy for people in imperfect situations, will confuse enough people to effect a shift of power toward the left.  Later is soon enough for the confused to learn the truth of socialism-Communism.  Those who are challenged with the murderous and economic destruction of socialism-Communism will fall back on the claim that leftist governance has failed only because those who have tried it were not as smart as those, like Hillary Clinton, who hope to try it today.

So, as we look at problem areas for America, keep at the forefront of your analysis that the far left has to dissemble, distract and deflect in order to make its claim to power.  It is better to have truth as our number-one ally. 

UKRAINE

Ukraine is a problem, whether you think their defense is appropriate for them to pursue, or not.  For the record, it is Prudent for everyone to defend his or her family, home, property and country.  It is natural and logical to ask others to help in that defense.  But the Ukraine situation is not as simple as that – how they became a target of their Russian neighbor; how the United States became their main armorer; how the United States got involved with overthrowing the Ukrainian government in 2014 – the waters in Ukraine have been seriously muddied by the United States.  Russia… Putin, refers to the current Ukrainian regime as “Nazis.”  Sadly, he is remarkably close to truth in so describing.

The late, great Senator, John McCain became the public face of U.S. support for street-riot opposition to the government of Viktor Yanukovych, who had been duly elected, and who favored closer economic ties to Russia over connection to the European Union.  The U. S. favored the opposite.  The main opposition to Yanukovych came from what is called “the far right” inasmuch as national socialist oligarchs govern all that differently than Russian socialist oligarchs.  But the national socialist party, Svoboda, had descended from neo-Nazis.  During the Maidan protests (Maidan is the central plaza in Kyiv) an even more Nazi-like party, Right Group, gelled and became more violent than Svoboda, including firearms.  Hearkening back to the Nazi occupation during WW-2, many Ukrainians still perceive Nazi collaborators as heroic in helping rid the country of Soviet Communists who, under Stalin, had starved millions of Ukrainians during collectivization.  Both Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy stood shoulder to shoulder with the fascist leader of Svoboda as they promised support for the protesters.

So far, no government of Ukraine has operated without corruption and oligarchic power-brokering, keeping the rich, rich.  Russia’s primary bargaining chip to pull Ukraine eastward, was gas pricing, with Ukraine highly dependent on low gas prices from Russia.  They were deeply upset when Yanukovych rejected their final offer in favor of the EU.  Vice-President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, managed to gain a position on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company, Bourisma, immediately following the ouster of Yanukovych.  Petro Poroshenko, one of the richest men in Ukraine, became Prime Minister and merged a Neo-Nazi militia, the Azov Regiment, into the National Guard.  At the time of “The Maidan Revolution” both Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. Ambassador, and Victoria Nuland, his Assistant, were actively manipulating people and events to place the government of Ukraine on the pro-Western trajectory it claims now.  No wonder Putin is so angry.  There ARE Nazi’s in Ukraine, whom the Russians consider the descendants of Operation Barbarrossa, that killed 20 million Russians in WW-2.

We are told every day that defending Ukraine “for as long as it takes” is the same as defending democracy, which doesn’t actually exist in Ukraine – Zelensky has eliminated opposition parties.  Who are the liars in this mess that grows more dangerous with every Biden breath?  The larger question is: why would any of us vote for people who lie about Ukraine or who are too ignorant to say something true about that benighted real estate?  Helping displaced people is a totally separate question.

NORDSTREAM

The Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines should be as neutral as pipelines usually are, but these have been elevated to powder kegs by someone’s utterly stupid sabotage of them.  Given that Russia has been seeking bids to repair the pipes, the initial charge by the U.S. that Russia may have destroyed its own pipelines… makes less sense than when first postulated.  The apparent culprit is the United States, itself, and parts of that story are spilling out, most particularly in the deep reporting of Seymour Hersh.  The U. S. has pushed hard on a key economic sore point for both Russia and Europe.  Watching the gang of less-than-honest advisors and ambassadors “handle” America’s relationships with Russia, Ukraine, China, Iran and North Korea, gives a Prudent person pause and worry.  It’s almost as though war weren’t coming quickly enough, and these boobs were testing ways to hasten it along.  Don’t hold your breath waiting for the truth about the Nordstream operation from the federal government.

ENERGY

Pulling the plug on American energy production is one of the stupidest moves a federal government has ever made.  It seems inevitable that a leftist administration would be the one to attempt it.  It was known to be likely if Joe Biden became president in 2020: he campaigned on a “green” platform.  So, he has made it difficult and costly to develop oil and gas fields and bring them on line.  Doing so, along with the somewhat silly added regulations and restrictions on the uses of natural gas and refined products, has had an immeasurably small impact on the earth’s climate, if any, and probably won’t ever have more than that.  This is not to say that his destructive policies have not had AN impact.  Keeping the wealth of natural resources out of the American economy – and other economies – has lubricated the acceleration of inflation that hurts everyone while weakening the nation of the United States just as threats to the nation are the greatest they have been since the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Controlling America’s energy production and keeping its costs low strengthen’s America strategically and domestically.  Forcing more of our citizens into subsistence economics weakens the nation, and removes millions of people from the “improvement track,” where adults gain in skills and earning power – and living standards – and their expanding hope for the future encourages them to have children who can advance in skills, learning and hopefulness.  Creating economic hardship is the exact opposite of what political leaders should ever do or ignore; indeed, failing to partner in the economic advancement and safety of your citizenry, is one of the clearest marks of failure by leaders.

The ”green” agenda is founded on a number of fallacies, including our ability to modify the climate of the planet.  Politically, the green movement has as much of its impetus a newfound political, regulatory ability to PUNISH economically successful people.  The rapidity with which President Biden reversed energy policies, ostensibly to undo anything connected to Donald Trump or any of his supporters, marks his, and his leftist, “green” voters’, intense desire not to govern as partners in success, but to damage the economies of non-leftists.  It exemplifies failure.  Energy is strength and security, and it defines the scope and efficiency of an economy in a world of specialization.  To weaken energy is to weaken the economy and every citizen’s position in it.  To reduce hope in an economy is to strike at the purpose of nationhood.  For Joe Biden, it fails beyond “us versus them” in a political sense, reaching the nadir of “me versus all who question me.”

_______________________ Our problems exceed a single posting.

Biden, Economics, Education, Environment, Foreign Policy, Politics 2023

CHINA SECOND

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“Beijing, China – December 27, 2011. Young soldiers marching in the Forbidden City.”

Forty years ago a local newspaper asked its readers about the coming millennium and what each thought would be the great progress, or major changes, that might be made in the next century.  Prudence wrote back – long before she realized how Prudent she was – that the next 100 years would be based on China and everyone’s reaction to or accommodation of, China.  In the mid-‘80’s the United States was feeling pretty good about itself: strong, prosperous, winning against the Soviet Union and mostly at peace.  People were proud of being American.

Starting with the Carter administration, followed by a period of clear thinking in the Reagan administration, and then under full steam in the Clinton administration, the United States has followed policies that have enriched and built-up Communist China.  Carter changed our policy regarding Taiwan’s independence.  Clinton accepted millions of “campaign” funds from Chinese sources and weakened restrictions on technology transfers.  It was a transfer from the “Loral Space” corporation that enabled China to accurately launch and control missiles.  Supercomputer technology was allowed to transfer in the late ‘90’s, after overriding Defense Department objections and rules.  A lot of money moved toward the Clintons during the two presidential campaigns; dozens of Chinese operators accepted plea deals or fled the country to avoid prosecution.  Almost singlehandedly, Bill Clinton – with unknown levels of action by Hillary Clinton in the background – relinquished U. S. superiority in missile and space technologies, perhaps 20 years or more of advantage over the Chinese.  Everybody has a price… well, not everyone, but definitely that couple does.  It is beyond the scope of Prudence’ recollections to plumb the extent of influence selling through the Clinton Global Initiative: Hillary’s bribery laundering mechanism.

For more than a century the “West” treated China as a football, kicked around and taken advantage-of by multiple European countries and by the U. S.  Communism, starting with the Soviets and spreading aggressively, finally began to focus American attention on the most populous country.  Japan went to war in China long before it attacked Pearl Harbor.  Their presence and brutality solidified the division of China into Nationalists and Communists  China suffered as many as 20 million deaths and multiple millions of other casualties.  The uneasy alliance of the Nationalists and the Communists against Japan held until Japan was forced by the U. S. to retreat.  The corrupt Nationalists, saddled with terrible, deadly decisions they had made during the war with Japan, wound up with their only “friends” being the U. S., who protected them as they fled to Formosa Island, later called Taiwan, a de-facto independent nation, but only because the U. S. maintains its “defense” of Taiwan. 

China has matured under communism, but, thankfully, large fractions of the population still understand when they’re being tyrannized, as recent demonstrations have shown.  Unlike Americans, Chinese citizens are acutely aware of their government’s lies and how dangerous acquiescence to Communist dictates actually is.  Americans seem to be divided over whether one recognizes government lies or accepts them as true.  The latter are largely Biden voters and, earlier, Obama voters.  They also become very angry when events like the 2020 elections are questioned, probably out of fear that the questioners may be right.  Fortunately, every “good work” President Biden has done has reinforced their belief that he really did earn the highest presidential vote total in history.  China is actively and fairly successfully taking advantage of this American gullibility: enough trade and McDonald’s restaurants can convert anyone into an honest ally.

America has a bad habit of absorbing the first blow… even telling its adversaries where to land it and then, how to obtain American financing for their expenses.  It’s not clear that we will rise up and demand victory over our enemies in the absence of a Pearl-Harbor-like attack.  Such it is with so-called climate change and the Paris Accords that are a guilt-laden means of extracting reparations from us while we hurt ourselves economically to save the planet.  We are not alone in the west in cutting our energy use, raising its costs and reducing our productivity and prosperity, all to reduce CO2 emissions.

But, did you know, China, in the Paris “accords,” agreed only to top out its estimated peak CO2 emissions by 2030?  Did you know China will still be building coal-fired generating plants until then… or that it will bring on line more coal-fired plants in 2023 than the U.S. has altogether?  All the Western industrialized nations COMBINED don’t emit as much CO2 as China does, now – by about HALF – yet we are flagellating ourselves with ideological restrictions on energy use, restrictions that won’t change the temperature of the Earth by one whit, 80 or 100 years from now.  What in God’s name are we agreeing to?  And, why?  Is it just to make it easier for China and its Communist tyranny to de-construct the U. S. while they become the dominant economy and military power?

We, Americans, the conscientious ones, at least, tend to look for good in everyone.  It is a weakness that could, one day, leave us under tyranny.  China has brought to bear numerous weapons of “war” that are daily undercutting America’s strength, alliances, economics, education – right down to kindergarten and throughout higher education – Chinese millions and billions of dollars are buying our philosophies.  Surely we don’t expect education establishments that bend to woke demands from young, unaccomplished students, with speech codes and lists of allowable pronouns, to stand up for America against China, do we?  We must wonder why the Biden administration cancelled enforcement of reporting requirements for universities to reveal how much in foreign grants and investments they accept.  We know that the University of Pennsylvania, for example, created the “Penn-Biden” center – sort of a think-tank – with tens of millions of Chinese dollars.  Following his vice-presidency, Joe Biden was paid nearly $1 Million for a single speech / seminar in at least one year.  That’s a nice gig… makes one wonder how they chose Joe Biden to pay that high fee to for little work.  Perhaps they were paying for the opportunity to review classified documents that Biden stored there.

Without American technology, China would be a much smaller economy and far less militarily developed.  Yet our own tax policies made it profitable to move manufacturing to China and then ship the products back to the U. S.  Unfortunately, China doesn’t allow manufacturers to operate unless they share their technology with the Chinese.  This form of unfair trade practice soon produced planes and weapons that look a lot like the latest developments inside the U. S.  We are not smart about our relationship with China.  Sadly, many, many people in permanent government are satisfied to get paid off by China no matter what the cost is to our security.  Chinese spies make certain to get close to a number of House and Senate members to keep legislation dormant that might put a stop to Chinese intrigues.

Whew!

When one reads or hears enough bad news about the international stupidity the White House, Intelligence agencies and our State, Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security and even Transportation departments put forth for policy in the name of the American people, it’s enough to depress even the sunniest of optimists.  Then we look at our solid-looking cities, highways, airports and shopping centers and we try to imagine that no one could ever defeat us or ever force us into subjugation.  After all, this is such a nice country and such nice people, nobody would even try to take us over… we’re the United States of America for Heaven’s sake!  Still…..

Still, China is a serious, uncompromising threat to the nature and value of the United States.  What can the individual American do?  First, learn the truth of The Biden administration’s relations and relationships with China and its dozens of tentacles that are reaching directly into our government, business and financial institutions, for indeed they are.  Then prepare yourself and as many as you can influence, to vote against those who ignore or accept or even encourage greater business connection to China.  If you get to speak to an elected official, locally, state-level or federal, ask what he or she is doing about disassociating our nation and economy from China and from the Communist Party of China.  Ask about the crucial products that we depend upon that are sourced only from China.  What is she or he going to do to change that?  We still have enough power and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  Our historic weakness toward China is a genuine grievance.

Then, publicize what you have learned about that official’s position and encourage all you can to VOTE for America First policies.  What?  There’s some better policy than America First?  Are you nuts?

Biden, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2021, Race, Representation, Trump

TIME NOT ON OUR SIDE

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Time may not be on our side.  One cannot overview the world and our political circumstances… and the calendar, without realizing a little fear for where things might go from here.  Where is that?

Let’s look at some of the pressures building up.

First, the political time-line.  Mid-term elections are the historic relief valve for sometimes hasty or confused political decisions made during presidential elections two years earlier.  There certainly were those in 2020.  Because the national conscience is so, well… impacted by beliefs concerning the 2020 elections – stolen or not stolen – the release of tensions in the 2022 mid-terms is a little harder to predict than what a lot of pundits are trying to foresee.  Most are making judgements on “normal” political considerations and it doesn’t seem Prudent to do so.

The weird eminence that most have already discounted, but who is the key to millions of voters’ decisions, is Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House.  She has been a unique Speaker, at least.  For decades she has appeared to be simply a fierce partisan and has been appreciated, if not revered, by partisan Democrats who were happy to be “winning” barely-understood battles through her slick machinations.  By rights, she should be at the end of her career, and she probably is, but it’s a career that descended into a previously unrecognized socialism starting under Obama and deepening with hatred under Trump.  In those 12 years, Democrats became uneasy.  While enjoying victories Nancy engineered, no matter how messy, Dems also became concerned about the leftward lurch, yet had no other port in which to seek refuge.  Over the Trump years, leftist hatred for “America First” left many Democrats adrift.  What are they going to do in 2022?

If “centrist” or “American” Democrats abandon the Pelosi-led leftists (not that Pelosi was elected to lead the leftists: she has run, skipped twisted and kneeled as needed to stay ahead of them) will they suddenly vote Republican?  That doesn’t seem Prudent.  Will they fail to vote in standard numbers?  That question forces Prudence to wonder about what “the Black vote” might do.

Blacks have slowly been drifting away from their Democrat plantation, with an interesting increase in that trend in 2020.  Despite Covid, Blacks did well economically under Trump since 2017.  Despite, also, a perpetual anti-Trump media blitz accusing Trump of racism, Blacks could see that his policies helped all races.  Like all underdogs, Trump was seen somewhat sympathetically by Blacks who understood too well how prejudice hurts.  Have Blacks been treated better by increasing leftism?  Were they advanced by BLM-led riots and Antifa hatreds that damaged so many black businesses and jobs?  Have they been helped by Democrats’ union-led resistance to school choice?  Has weakening public safety served Black families or neighborhoods in any way?  Are they particularly likely to “reward” Pelosi’s weird coalitions with more power, more votes?  That doesn’t seem Prudent, either.  But, will they vote for anyone else?

So, on the backdrop of multiple failures of the “Biden” administration and severe economic news, what will be the “shape” of the change in fortunes for our two parties?  Over the next 11 months, how virulent will the Pelosi Left become?  Clearly their anger has been kindled by the loss of legislative momentum thanks to West Virginia Senator, Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator, Kyrsten Sinema.  Even 3 counties of Maryland would like to become part of West Virginia.

In 2020 we suffered through months of cultural destruction and destructive rioting and looting and economic despair in numerous cities.  Many strange, leftist mayors and governors have been exposed as feckless, ignorant and ideologically foolish.  Americans are practically fleeing their jurisdictions for states that seem to honor the Constitution more.  Yet the Pelosi House insisted on passing the enormous, so-called “Build Back Better” bill that would have transformed fundamental freedoms and democratic-republic structures created by the Constitution.  Against the backdrop of systemic failure at the southern border and the flood of illegals swept into the country by administration policies, the congress spent inordinate time on the “BBB” plan and the pointless “January 6th” commission.  Not a word is spoken in congress about what Americans are truly upset about, not least of which is the southern border.  With that legislation apparently doomed, what will the 117th Congress do to improve Democrats’ re-election chances in 2022?  Most options are likely to do damage to the republic at least domestically.

_________

Internationally, the Biden bindlestiffs have made a mockery of leadership and of honesty.  Without fundamental honesty, there are no diplomatic maneuvers that will work, almost regardless of what’s at stake.  In matters of war and alliance, conditions, tensions, and opportunities for gross, deadly errors, can spiral out of control quite abruptly.  Let’s look at the simplest area of tension: Iran.

The postulate is the following: Iran hates the United States as much or more than it hates Israel.  Iran is a theocracy determined to correct spiritual wrongs to the point of suicide.  To correct those wrongs, Iran will use nuclear weapons.  The inherent danger is that first the Obama regime and now the Biden regime DON’T BELIEVE THESE THINGS.  That is, they’d rather believe that Iran is as rational as other nations, desirous of better living standards for its people, better economic conditions internally, and willing to negotiate to achieve those ends.  All this talk about “death to America” and wiping Israel off the map is just talk, just posturing.  Because they don’t believe the United States can be guided by religious concepts of good and evil, neither can any other nation.  The United States can show them how love is better than hate and kindness and generosity will prove that the U. S. can be a reliable partner in seeking a better life for Iranians.

As the imbecilic John F. Kerry, onetime Secretary of State once said: “Would that it were, would that it were.”  For a man who has but the mildest relationship with truth, he places a lot of faith in the words of Iranian negotiators.  He apparently believes that Iran is enrichening Uranium purely for domestic power production… to improve the standard of living for Iranians.

Trump, to his America-first credit, had a sense of when he was being lied-to, and that extended to Iran.  He recognized that the “Iran Nuclear” agreement (never proposed as a nation-binding Treaty because it would never pass the Senate) was a pack of lies, which, naturally, Biden has been begging Iran to renew under his administration.  Iran has refused, so far.  With all the cash and lifting of sanctions that Obama and Biden have given them, the Iranians no longer need to negotiate further concessions under the agreement – they received what they needed for free.  Now it is merely a matter of time before Iran starts issuing nuclear-backed threats toward Israel, which the Biden regime will perceive as opportunities to go “back to the negotiating table.”  To their credit, Israel (and other nations in the Mideast) will take steps to prevent an Iranian strike.  The U. S. won’t, failing to realize that Iran will likely strike both the Little Satan and the Big Satan simultaneously. 

PRUDENT JUDGMENT: VERY DANGEROUS UNDER THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION.

The next simplest, as in somewhat more complicated, problem area is the Western Pacific, including both Taiwan and North Korea, but also India, unfortunately.  Here is the postulate: China intends to take over Taiwan; China virtually controls what North Korea does at any point; China will not move against Taiwan if it believes the U. S. will fight for Taiwan’s independence; China is beginning to think that the U. S. will not make any serious moves to stop China (the Biden family’s compromised position vis a’ vis China is a factor, here); and, finally, North Korea will make some sort of military moves against South Korea at the same time, seriously complicating United States’ response to the Taiwan crisis.  There has been shooting along the frontier of China and India within the past 18 months.  It is not inconceivable that China would stir that pre-heated kettle at the same time or before, that it moves against Taiwan.  This feint would likely involve Pakistan, as well, another nuclear power that hates India.  Every nation in the arc from the Arabian Sea to Qinzhou will suddenly be seeking a side in the conflict.  The failure of the U. S. to decisively defend its allies will transform the entire region and its oceans… and world trade.

PRUDENT JUDGMENT: EXTREMELY DANGEROUS UNDER THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION.

Finally, of the 3 hottest spots, Ukraine and Russia are preparing for some level of shooting.  The U. S., thanks to Obama and Joe Biden’s family, has meddled in Ukraine for years.  Ukraine is a big country that encompasses wide swaths of fertile land, great waterways, warm-water coastline on the Black Sea, huge coal deposits and iron ore, manganese ore, and other ores, which yield a large steel industry, heavy machinery manufacturing and, its greatest political weakness, a natural, relatively unimpeded pathway for oil and gas products to be transported to Western Europe.  The same can transport armies, too.

For more than a thousand years the Russian people have had strong cultural and religious ties to Kyiv, now the capitol of Ukraine, and to Crimea, Odessa and Sevastopol.  Strategically, the naval value of Crimea is perceived as so crucial to Russia, as with the USSR, that taking the Crimean peninsula “back” from a recently independent Ukraine was worth the international condemnation.  It’s a done deal and will never be negotiable.

In addition, the industrial heartland of Ukraine in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnetpropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhya, covers much of eastern Ukraine from the Dneiper River to the Russian border.  Russia depends on many of the manufacturers in the region for not just machinery, but military and aerospace equipment.  Not having complete control of them is a sore spot.  Further, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson districts have significant Russian populations and Russian-speaking populations, which has formed an excuse for Russian regulars posing as irregulars or subversives, to create an enclave of sorts with a militarized line facing Ukrainian army regulars.

Sensing weakness and indecision from the Biden administration, and determined to not have Ukraine join NATO, Putin and the Russian Federation is looking for the opportune time to, in effect, take control of eastern Ukraine, if not all of Ukraine, by military force or forced federation.  When they move, what will Biden do?  Both Democrats and some Republicans have made tough-sounding statements about standing firm with Ukraine as if the status of Ukraine were a vital national interest.  Perhaps it is.  But setting up a line of U. S. troops to deter Russia seems unduly provocative.  If the situation were reversed and the Russians were placing troops to deter the U. S. from taking over cartel-dominated Mexico, let’s just say, we would certainly not find that a reason to stand down, would we?

What seems “small” to most Americans, in geopolitical terms, could place us in a hot confrontation with a huge nuclear power, 4,000 miles from our border, where both the land location and the naval one make us the underdog.

PRUDENT JUDGEMENT: VERY DANGEROUS UNDER THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION, and more dangerous than it appears.

____________

The shift away from “America First” thanks to the 2020 “elections,” has caused friends and foes, alike, to re-evaluate their relationships with the U. S.  The brutal withdrawal from Afghanistan, apparently executed by military idiots and a bumbling president, has changed strategic calculations by many nations.  The English-speaking world no longer reveres the U. S. as the leader of their coalition, and certainly does not respect Biden as it did Trump.  A strong, pro-national leader is not only respected, but understood by other nations, including adversaries.  There is a profound logic to leadership that clearly is patriotic and who speaks clearly of his – or her – intentions.  No nation likes surprises, internationally, nor confusing messages.  Every leader can make clear judgments about clear leaders, even about those they view as opponents.  This is not our current situation.

It has been said many times that the most dangerous circumstance is when other nations are unsure about what America will fight for; it is yet even more dangerous when America, itself, is unsure.  God save us.