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As someone who was a former participant in the ‘Cold War Era’ as an active-duty airman back in the 1960s, but even more importantly as a tyro military historian, it is painfully clear that we, in the erstwhile ‘Disunited States of America’, now face one of the most important challenges we’ve ever encountered since the days of World War II. I refer to the present Russian imperialistic aggressions threatening the Ukraine, of course. And make no mistake…the word ‘imperialistic’ is absolutely apropos here, after countless political analysts have cited Vladimir Putin’s burning desire to ‘restore’ the former glory (as he sees it) of the Soviet regime.

Merely the latest such analyst to cite this ambition is COMMENTARY MAGAZINE’s political writer Brian Stewart (a New Yorker, coincidentally) in his excellent and succinct February 2022 article ’Protect Ukraine Now’.

For anyone who remains unfamiliar with this small but keenly insightful magazine, COMMENTARY has been characterised as a conservative Jewish intellectual review, and while I am myself not Jewish (or even a religious ‘believer’, for that matter), it is one of the very (I emphasise ‘very’) few magazines (printed or otherwise) that I presently subscribe to. And yes, I’ve subscribed to just about all of them at one time or another, including the latest iteration of ATLANTIC (under the aegis of its new multi-billionaire majority owner, Laurine Powell Jobs…yes, THAT Jobs family dynasty…whose $19.5 BB aggregate worth is staggering to even get one’s mind comfortably around), which has under her whip-snapping exhortation been turned into an effete propaganda organ and sounding board of the wealthy, progressive leftist (white) liberal upper elements in our society. And also HARPERS, which seems to have suffered the same fate (“hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil”…unless it relates to the doings of the imagined, fanciful plethora of white right-wing extremist factions in the US).

None of these ostensibly ‘enlightened’ purveyors of contemporary social concern may be relied upon to provide journalistic content that is devoid (as free as any magazine may be) of sharply partisan political biases and it is an easily discernable fact that hardly anywhere these days do any of them strive to provide truly objective, keenly intelligent commentary on social, political or economic issues, since virtually all of them are influenced to varying degrees by the formidable wealth of elite white liberal leftists. Got bazillions of dollars to make-mad with? Buy a renown national magazine and use it to promote your narrow, highly-emotionally-charged sociopolitical biases! QED.

COMMENTARY Magazine, on the other hand, while palpably sympathetic to Jewish/Zionist causes and concerns, does, to its vast credit, provide highly cogent analyses on many subjects of national concern. The commentary and opinions expressed therein are therefore both valuable and typically as deftly wielded as a skilled surgeon’s scalpel (to me, at least, and I feel to anyone who strives to remain well informed, in as intelligent a manner as possible).

In the February issue of this 56-page monthly journal, in addition to an excellent article on the rise of a ‘counter-revolution’ against the massive leftist liberal progressive effort to emasculate, disengender, enfeeble and racially ‘reorganise’ America that has been extant since about late 2019 (titled ‘Yes, There Is a Counter Revolution!', by Executive Editor Abe Greenwald), is Brian Stewart’s equally thoughtful ‘Protect Ukraine Now!’

Stewart is but the most recent analyst to blast the present Administration’s functionally inept and grossly incompetent strategic responses (not just to America’s pressing internal and domestic affairs) to the very real, looming threat to our vital interests as American champions of freedom and equality, posed by Russia’s new ‘Tsar’, Vladimir (The Impaler) Putin and the People’s Republic of China’s present Imperial Dynastic potentate, Xi (Pooh Bear) Jinping.

In the past several years a number of equally excellent, insightful and commendable books have been published on both topics (just to name several among many, are Steven W. Mosher’s ‘Hegemon’ and ‘The Bully of Asia’, Angela Stent’s ‘Putin’s World: Russia Against the US and With the Rest’, Edward Lucas’s ‘The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West’, Irish journalist Eamonn Fingelton’s ‘In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony’ and Taras Kuzio’s ‘Putin’s War Against Ukraine’). Today, however, all the early warnings of Putin’s desire to recapture a vestige of what he perceives as Russia’s past, lost imperial glory haunt us, in the actual face of Putin’s latest egregious military aggression against Ukraine.

Those who do not study European history, and especially those who have never bothered to acquaint themselves with the Ukraine’s unique importance as some of the most productive agricultural land in Eastern Europe, are also doubtless unaware of that poor nation’s repeated sufferings at the hands of covetous neighbor states in the 20th century, not least of them being Hitler’s Third Reich, which desired to subjugate Ukraine and put it to work producing food for an expanding German population.

Or for that matter, Russia’s equally grasping desire for the same purpose! Although they are Slavic predominantly, the Ukrainians are a mix of Slavic and Germanic peoples, and older Ukrainians will never forget how Stalin brutally treated the nation in the 30s, 40s and early 50s, literally starving them in a not-so-subtle effort to subdue their rising nationalist feelings with a program of deliberate, cold-blooded genocide (this was done by commandeering and sending back to ‘Mother Russia’ nearly all of Ukraine’s annual grain harvest, leaving only a bare, insubstantial and inadequate minimum of food for the Ukrainians themselves to survive on).

Today, despite the unfortunately significant levels of internal corruption and political turmoil that exist in the Ukraine, the nation does NOT wish or want to be ‘reabsorbed’ into any greater Russian aggregate of semi-independent socialist republics, and in fact a majority of the Ukrainians strongly desire to be allowed to formally join the rest of Europe’s NATO organisation as a member-state.

This naturally has infuriated Putin, whom a number of studies have clearly demonstrated has not-so-subtle ambitions to be a new Tsar of a ‘reunified’ and reconstituted Russia’.

In recent years this ambition has been seen in Russian actions taken to subdue the rebellious former Georgian Socialist Republic (Stalin’s native homeland, ironically), then to regain the Crimea, and now to ‘reunite’ Ukraine with Mother Russia. In each case, so-called ‘false flag’ subversions have been staged by provocateurs to provide a pretext for follow-on aggressions and this has been a heavily underscored tactic in the Russian/Soviet playbook for decades. [It was also a favored tactic of Hitler, when he began to ‘reclaim’ Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1939 of course, and an ancient strategy referenced by both Carl von Clausewitz in the early 1800s and Sun Tzu in the 5th century (ACE). In the case of nearby Belarus, Putin had a willing sycophant in that nation’s head of state, Alexander Lukashenko; consequently, it was merely a walk-through to add Belarus to Putin’s fancied ‘new empire’.]

As has been noted by so many observers of the American political scene since Joseph Biden was elected President, Biden has about as much strategic acumen as The Three Stooges. [His VP (Kamala Harris) is almost worse, given her persistent and disconcerting nervous smiling behavior that is such a disingenuous characteristic of her public appearances that some suspect it might actually be Risus Sardoncus (AKA: rictus grin)!] Consequently, this major deficiency, when factored in with Biden’s apparently growing mental confusion and the fact that he utterly lacks any sort of forceful leadership charisma, means that although we Americans are presently up to our arses in hostile alligators, our Executive Chief gator-tamer is about as effectual as a chunk of dangling, tasty (but) rotten gator-bait.

Even at a minimum, the only way we can possibly meet the challenges tossed at us by Putin and Xi Jinping with some adequacy (not to mention North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and a host of other ‘meat eater’ regimes) would be to have a capable, resourceful leader who is able to meet or match these formidable opponents on their own terms. If anyone needs an illustration of the possible adverse consequences of failing to do so, think back to British Chancellor Neville Chamberlain and his pusillanimous placating of Adolf Hitler’s demands, back in 1939.

It is clear as clear can be that the threat of minor hand-slapping (read: the threat of imposition of economic sanctions, which constitutes Biden’s only apparent response to Putin’s outrages to date) are absolutely wasted on both Putin and Jinping. Both have their sights set on grabbing territory that they feel has either been wrongfully ‘taken from’ or denied them (e.g. Ukraine and Taiwan) and events have demonstrated well-enough that nothing short of a formidably armed response (in the form of a military presence, face-to-face) will achieve the slightest deterrent effect.

As political analyst Noah Rothman recently noted (in a COMMENTARY opinion, March 2022 issue), “If we are serious about Russia we must prepare for pain.”

Rothman opines that while it won’t be pleasant by any remote interpretation, only armed force and a willingness to meet aggression with direct action will have the slightest effect on either Putin’s or Jinping’s nefarious resolve. And it will definitely extract a painful penalty that Americans will feel palpably (not to mention Ukraine and its peoples) that furthermore we must be willing to face with resolve.

As the old saying puts it, “Freedom isn’t free”, so if we’re as serious about preserving human rights as everyone is constantly telling us we should be, we’ll have to be ready to bleed a bit (and perhaps a lot). Hopefully, any such forceful confrontation will NOT result in the use of tactical nuclear weapons, since any such expansion of the violence would likely be catastrophic, but that’s clearly the level of resolve required to deal with the Ukrainian crisis (and that facing Taiwan, should Jinping force our hand there, as well).

As many know, Putin and Jinping recently agreed on a Russian-Chinese sphere of influence (mutually advantageous), cooperative détente that states that the two nations are “…in agreement over the need for mutually beneficial defense and economic interests to protect the world from Western (e.g. American) interference in world affairs”.

Shades of the ‘Cold War’! And speaking of the 'Cold War', it has frequently been mentioned that Putin believes that a ‘Cold War’ mentality still motivates America, provoking its attitudes in Europe (NATO, et al) towards Russia. Whether or not that is true to some remote extent, Putin himself is perhaps the most dedicated perpetrator of that philosophy, ironic as that may be, for he actively regards Russia as a positive, ‘benevolent’ component of whatever smoldering tensions may vestigially still exist with the United States.

If an element of the American right does nurture a covert ‘Cold War’ antipathy to Russia, it is only because it has become increasingly evident that Putin and his ambition to restore Russia’s place as a formidable world power is presently doing exactly what America has long suspected him of trying to do: attempting to regain lost Soviet territory and ‘rebuild’ the former Russian empire.

Whether you substitute ‘Putin’ for ‘Stalin’ or not, it amounts to the same thing: the fear that Russia (ex-Soviet Union) is a loose cannon, unwilling to settle for even a fraction of loss of former Soviet/Imperial Russian glory is quite realistic!

Thus, we presently have a crucial need for two things (to reiterate a point already made): a strong leader and a formidable, capable military, both of which must possess strong resolve. As regards the latter part of this construct, it is highly unlikely that, with all the disruptive, near-obsessive concern in America we have with rectifying perceived racial and gender inequities (especially as they impact our military organisations), we presently do NOT possess anywhere near the level of war-making ability America built a reputation for having in previous eras. In fact, were we, in our currently grossly unprepared state, to attempt to fight even a limited ground war in the Eastern European region (i.e. Ukraine), it would probably be a walk-over in favor of Russia’s amassed combat forces (estimated to be in excess of about 190,000 troops at this moment) just outside Ukraine.

Lacking as we do even a small remnant of the formidable (post WWII) ground support fighting capability that existed back in the 50s and 60s, with only a small remnant of the formidable A-10 ‘tank killers’ (that were so devastatingly effective against Saddam’s tanks in Iraq) facing numerous heavily-equipped Russian armored divisions, and having believed ever since the end of the ‘Cold War’ that there would never again be a face-to-face armed confrontation in Europe between East and West, a substantial number of defense experts reluctantly agree that we are in essence completely unprepared for such a face-off as Putin could engineer.

Further, having switched gears for several previous decades from precisely this sort of massive ground forces assault preparedness scenario to one of constant anti-terrorist/guerilla warfare operations, America’s defense capability to cope with something along these lines would literally find us pants-down in the face of Putin’s actions.

All of these situations have occurred over and over in the Ukraine in past decades but the present ‘younger generation’ (those who are vehemently behind the progressive leftist liberal movement that has swept up America over the past three year), disdaining to acquire any vestige of historical mindfulness, are completely unaware of this fact. The horrific events, first of Germany’s brutal sweep through Ukraine in the early days of WW2 and finally the even more savage and barbaric retribution Russia exacted as they advanced back over the same area in their vengeful defeat of that same German army, later in the same war, might as well be storybook tales to most of these ‘junior members’ of American society.

To complicate matters even further, (and perhaps equally distressing), our American military is now so utterly bogged down dealing with highly esoteric matters bearing on fancied racism, sexual preference and gender ambiguities (more than it is with ensuring that we have a first-class, cohesive and suitably capable...read ‘ruthlessly efficient’ and ‘adequately ferocious’...fighting force at our disposal), that it is divisively fragmented and esthetically emasculated to the point of near functional ineptitude.

[Recall, if you will, that this also ended up being a decisive factor in the collapse and fall of Rome’s once invincible and mighty legions, more than a thousand years ago, when Rome was faced by barbarian hoards who were encumbered by no such dysfunctionalities on the one hand and a ‘softer’, much more diverse culture than ever before on the other].

Sadly, both Putin and Jinping, absolute rulers of two of the largest (and most oppressive) regimes in modern history both know the foregoing facts all too well and had graphic proof of exactly how gutless and irresolute America actually is (and would be, as an adversary in a new ‘hot war’) in the form of our sudden, unplanned and ignominiously abrupt total withdrawal from Afghanistan. It has already been noted time and time again by many that that particular episode in recent American military annals will go down in the books as one of the supreme indications that America, formerly a formidable champion of rectitude and justice across the world, has morphed into a toothless, aging tiger that no longer posseses either the strength or determination to pose a significant threat to anyone!

Jinping, for his part, is keenly observing the present Putin/Biden standoff, mindful of the fact that if Putin succeeds in invading Ukraine in the days immediately ahead without a substantive American response, this will be a red flare signal shot high into the political skies of the entire world verifying America's terminal decline. It will also verify that the Republic of China’s days are similarly numbered…

For these reasons among many, America needs to step up to the plate resolutely and reassert its determination to not let such atrocious disregard for national proprieties go unchallenged, with whatever force is necessary and before it is too late.

The entire world is watching…and waiting…as the wolves continue to encircle their targeted victims, licking their Lupine lips in anticipation.*

It also goes almost without saying that this is likely to be a (if not THE) telling and decisive moment in Joseph Biden’s tenure as America’s Chief Executive...that will assuredly have an impact lasting far beyond the year 2024.

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* Postscript

1) A note of clarification: No disrespect is intended here towards the magnificent Lupine relatives of our marvelous domestic dogs, for they are simply doing what nature has programed them to do: kill for food, so as to survive. Human 'wolves', on the other hand are equipped with a large forebrain replete with complex frontal lobes, and typically kill quite often merely on an emotional whim (sometimes even for perverse pleasure) or in a passionate attempt to validate personal or national egos. Nuff sed...

2) Let us also not forget a lesson that was made all too clear to Germany in the early stages of the Second World War: that a simultaneous 'two-front' war (e.g. Russia and China) is a precarious dilemma to be facing at best and and unwinnable at worst!