Stidmatt

Yes, it’s a crazy title, but I promise it will make sense by the end of the post.

Please start by watching this video by RealLifeLore on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfjTUvzaZ7s

A major goal of the Biden administration is the CHIPS ACT, which he claims will “bring jobs back to America” and make us less dependent on other countries, namely our ally Taiwan.

The first problem with this argument is that unemployment is not a big problem. Unemployment is around 3%, historically the floor for unemployment in the United States. Our economy is very strong; we don’t need to pump money into “creating jobs” when unemployment is so low. The US government should be countercyclical at all times, and since we are in a period of declining inflation, economic growth, and low unemployment, we should not pump more money into the economy beyond the standard baseline of maintaining existing infrastructure and scientific research. Now is the time to pay off our debt. Corporate subsidies in a time with high economic growth and low unemployment will only push up inflation and worsen inequality. We need to be paying off our debt right now.

I do not believe the CHIPS ACT is about economics. I believe Biden’s economic performance is because he has surrounded himself with highly competent individuals, especially Janet Yellen.

Janet Yellen is a New Keynesian economist who backed the Inflation Reduction Act, which hopefully will set a baseline for infrastructure upkeep going into the future. But I don’t believe she supports the CHIPS ACT because, from a New Keynesian point of view, it really doesn’t make any sense beyond the investment baseload it jump-starts.

What the CHIPS ACT is really about is reducing American dependency on Taiwan so that when China invades Taiwan, the United States can sanction China without harming our ability to create computers without getting militarily involved. The CHIPS ACT is primarily a foreign policy law.

The foreign policy of the Biden administration can be summarized as so:

• Losing the War in Afghanistan, claiming he wants to focus at home and not fight the wars of other countries. Biden is only the second President in history to lose a war.
• After eight years of being a frozen conflict, Russia invaded Ukraine further. The United States failed to provide Ukraine with enough support to fully repel the much larger Russian army immediately, leading to a stalemate further into Ukrainian territory compared to the aftermath of 2014.
• China relishes America reducing trade with Taiwan through the CHIPS ACT because it will reduce the probability the United States will defend Taiwan.
• Azerbaijan has ethnically cleansed Nagorno-Karabakh.
• Over half of the deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have occurred since October, despite the war being ongoing since 1948. Israel is striking Lebanon. It is quickly turning into a regional conflict. There is very limited evidence the Biden administration will do anything except send Israel more weapons, which are blowing up entire city blocks.

Biden is a failure when it comes to foreign relations. The world has become more dangerous since he entered office. It’s mostly a continuation of Trump-era policies in terms of foreign relations, without the crass speeches.

I cannot find any plans to expand free trade agreements with other countries. We haven’t signed a new free trade agreement since 2007. We are in the process of negotiating a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom.

The main issue with the TTIP, the proposed US-EU trade agreement, is it would have mostly been trying to extend the onerous US. patent and copyright rules to the European Union without significantly improving trade for individuals. This is certainly the reason why the text was never properly released so the public could analyze the text fully.

Significant differences exist between the international trade policies of the United States, China, and the European Union. When the European Union extends free trade, it generally benefits all people in the countries involved. When the United States signs a free trade agreement, it benefits massive corporations. When China signs an agreement, it is generally the leasing of land in exchange for significant debt for the country on which they are building infrastructure.

The European Union free trade model is the best, not just because it is far more effective at being implemented but also because it is better for everyone.

This explains why the United States has free trade agreements with all countries on the Pacific coast of the Americas except Ecuador, plus the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Jordan, Israel, Oman, Bahrain, South Korea, Singapore, and China.

China has free trade agreements with ASEAN, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Korea, Georgia, Singapore, Costa Rica, Peru, and Chile.

The European Union has signed treaties with Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, Kosovo, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, South Korea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia since 2007. It already had agreements with the United Kingdom, Montenegro, Albania, Algeria, Chile, Lebanon, Egypt, North Macedonia, South Africa, Jordan, Mexico, Palestine, Faroe Islands, Morocco, Israel, Tunisia, Turkey, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, San Marino, Andorra, Switzerland, and Monaco. They are in the process of negotiating new free trade agreements with Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Cote d’Ivoire, Colombia, Peru, Cameroon, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Eswatini, Ghana, Ecuador, Canada, New Zealand, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Chile, China, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Mexico, Australia, Andorra, Indonesia, Monaco, Philippines, Timor-Leste, Tonga, San Marino, and India.

The European Union’s strategy is more successful. They have more agreements today and pending free trade agreements than all of the free trade agreements of the United States and China COMBINED.

America has a lot to learn about how to build relationships successfully worldwide. If current trends continue, the 21st century is the century of the European Union.

While America dominated in the latter half of the 20th century due to large investments in education made in California, leading to Silicon Valley, we have mostly been coasting on this success for the last 30 years. We are investing more, which is a major strength of the United States, plus the fact that we have a common language. However, in the 2020s century, given how the United States looks weak militarily given the failures in Ukraine and Afghanistan, more European Union member states hit their NATO targets, according to SIPRI. If European Union member states increase their military expenditure to 3.2% of their GDP, they will collectively spend as much as the United States. They spent 1.6% collectively and could increase that to the 2% target with minimal changes to taxes or services. The country with the largest gap, Luxembourg, would need to spend approximately $1400 per person to cover its funding gap. But it’s Luxembourg; they can handle it. The second largest gap is Belgium, which has a gap of only $360 per person, which they can cover. There is no reason why European countries need to choose between meeting their NATO targets and maintaining their health and education systems.

The European Union has a GDP on par with the United States, making it an equal partner to us in terms of military capabilities. As time passes, the European Union will likely see its economic integration level out the inequalities across the union as Eastern Europe improves. This could bring them to American GDP per capita in the long term to be an equal partner in terms of per capita performance 40 years before China comes close to our level of prosperity. If The European Union succeeds in expanding free trade agreements, they will hopefully see their growth rate outpace the United States in the long term to make this possibility a reality.

The United States is sitting at a major crossroads. The European Union is getting to a point where it can act as a military force in its own right. Once their military expenditure increases to the point where it equals the United States, the need for NATO will significantly diminish. If their free trade agreements around the world succeed in boosting EU GDP growth over the next few decades, not only will they have strong relationships globally, but they will have more resources to counter Russia without being as dependent on the United States. It is obvious to me that the unwillingness of the United States to send Ukraine enough aid, especially when we send Israel everything they ask for to bomb refugee camps, all of this on top of our failure in Afghanistan and refusal to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for their actions supporting terrorism, makes America look weak on the global stage. The slowness in the movement of aid to Ukraine, which allowed Russia to attack so quickly, only further strengthens those who doubt whether America is a reliable ally. If American membership in NATO seems superfluous, military decisions might be made more through the European Union and less through NATO. If the Biden doctrine continues, the European Union might sign some agreements with Canada bypassing the United States and Turkey if we remain unreliable, making NATO irrelevant. I don’t want this to happen, but unless the United States regains its ability to be a reliable partner, this is the future we are looking at.

When it comes to the CHIPS ACT, this is a movement away from free trade. It is a movement towards a world where might makes right. It changes to a world order where America is less able to defend our allies, and our ability to muster international support for smaller democracies like Taiwan, South Korea, Georgia, and Ukraine will evaporate.

The only option for Europe with this foreign policy of the United States is to make the EU a military organization on par with the United States, significantly reducing the importance of NATO. It will isolate America globally, and if we are attacked, why should anyone defend us? China has twice the personnel of the United States. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the European Union has approximately 2.6 million military personnel, compared to 2 million in the United States. From a manpower standpoint, the European Union should be able to stand independently today. This doesn’t mean we should dissolve NATO, but it does mean that if the US was an unreliable partner, it is possible the European Union could stand on its own.

This is the road we are currently pointing towards, but it is not the world I want.

I want to live in a world where war is less common and authoritarian regimes become democracies. This was the policy of the United States and our allies for most of the 20th century, and it succeeded. Invading democracies unilaterally to create a democracy is not the best way to do this, but when there is a movement to overthrow a dictator from the people, it is right to support the democratic movement. When a government (e.g., the Taliban) is using its power to attack other countries, it is our responsibility to defend and overthrow the dictatorship if possible. It is a tricky line because democracy must start from within, but if a dictatorship is brazenly attacking its democratic neighbors (e.g., Russia), it is wrong to stay neutral. The difficulty of the Iraq war is that, yes, Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who committed genocide against the Kurds. He was indefensible. But diverting resources from Afghanistan after we had to take out the Taliban because they were allowing al Qaeda to gain power and be a global threat was the wrong thing to do. Simply invading without nation-building will lead nowhere. In the case of Afghanistan, there was a constant flow of money from the Gulf States into the country to support terrorism, which made it nearly impossible to eliminate the Taliban. We needed to shut down all trade with the countries that sponsor terrorism or allow their citizens to send money to terrorism because it turned the Taliban into a Hydra. I believe that was our major error that made the Afghan war last far longer than needed, ending in a total victory for Wahabbism. Modern warfare is fought through trade just as much as through guns.

On top of that, we also need to make it as hard as possible for our allies to backslide after democratization. Europe and South America have the right idea: reducing travel and trade barriers while building institutions that make trade easier for everyone. This has clearly succeeded. The difficulty is that Ukraine is not at the point where it meets EU acquis but is (ignoring the invasion for a second) an extremely viable candidate for NATO membership. But for every other European democracy, the EU model has proven successful in increasing democratization and stability.

The United States has a vital role to play in this defense of our world. Is anyone so stupid as to believe that if the rest of NATO were to fall, the United States would be able to stand to a full land, sea, and air invasion from authoritarians? Al Qaeda terrorists weren’t even stopped by the State Department in 2001, which led to the 9/11 bombings. Nothing stopped the Boston bombings. Domestic terrorists, primarily white nationalists, are an even larger threat, yet very few resources are going in to counter their beliefs and arrest their leaders. The United States alone versus a unified Russian/Chinese invasion would be a stalemate. They have over twice the number of total troops as we do. All of NATO versus a Russian/Chinese invasion would be a resounding victory for democracy. The same goes for the European Union. The EU could have a stalemate by itself against an invasion, too, but unified with the United States would be a resounding victory. Especially if South Korea, Taiwan, and India came to our defense. We would defeat them not just in terms of pure manpower but also superior technology. A NATO-South Korean-Indian-Taiwanese alliance would be unstoppable. NATO goes both ways, and America is safer because of it.

If the United States values global peace, trade, and freedom, we need to strengthen NATO, defend Ukraine, shut down sponsors of terrorism, and expand NATO to include other global allies, including South Korea, India, Brazil, and Taiwan. We must also include more small democracies such as Costa Rica, Uruguay, Chile, Georgia, Armenia, etc. The two major authoritarian states today, Russia and China, would be completely unable to counteract such an alliance. There are only five states today with more than 10 million people, a GDP per capita over $5,000, and a democracy score under 4. These are Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

In contrast, there are 19 countries with a population of over 10 million, a GDP per capita of over $5000, and a democracy score of over 7. We have slightly fewer people than those five authoritarian regimes, but we crush them when it comes to GDP.

Could the United States stand on its own? Yes, but it is unfair to smaller democracies who want to survive. Not only that, but it is against the interest of the United States. We also are far stronger when we have large alliances and trade networks spanning the world, which moves us from being a poor target for authoritarians to being a suicidal target. We are less safe when authoritarian regimes can wipe out smaller democracies, whittling down our list of allies. This is a menace that needs to be stopped early.

Americans are safer when there are more democracies and when we maintain good, close relations with all democracies that respect the rights of all people within their borders.

I was playing a game of Stellaris on my computer today and as I was conquering an authoritarian regime to turn them into my vassal, I found myself at war with a horde similar to Genghis Khan, Hitler, or Putin. I pushed them back to the point where they had only one planet left, and thought that was enough. That system was not accessible to me because one of their vassal states (think Belarus to modern Russia) had closed their borders to me and we were not technically at war.n They came back stronger to the point where I didn’t have enough military strength left to defeat them sufficiently. They then came back stronger than before, and got me to the point where I then became vassalized. I know need to regroup and fight for my independence. I hope I will be able to grow back fast enough. I have lost most of my mineral production because they took so many of my systems, so this is going to be very difficult.

This literally just happened in this game of Stellaris. It has a lot of great lessons to teach, and I think anyone interested in politics should play it.

Mark Zuckerburg took down Sean King’s page today from Instagram because of what he has been sharing from contacts inside Gaza.

The same groups who oppose the war in Gaza today and are calling for a ceasefire are the EXACT SAME GROUPS which actively trafficked Jews out of Nazi Germany and were involved on the underground railroad. The American Friends Service Committee, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and Jewish Voices for Peace are those same organizations. While there have been some changes in organizational structure over the last 160 years there is a very clear line of descent from the organizations which were active on the Underground Railroad and were actively moving Jews out of Nazi Germany and the organizations calling for a ceasefire today.

The marches on the ground today in New York City calling for a ceasefire are being led by Synagogues who have members who I know, unlike Benjamin Netanyahu, had family in the Holocaust.

We are the same families. I have family records in my house right now tracing back that far. I have DNA which proves it beyond a doubt.

The people being silenced right now are the exact same people who are the loudest at decrying anti-Semitism, and if there was an attempted genocide of Jews, Sean King would be one of the very first people to decry it. The UUSC and AFSC were two of only a handful of organizations which actively worked to help Holocaust victims. I cannot stress enough how the people who are defending Palestine are the people who were literally trained by people who were the most vocal critics of Hitler.

The Venn diagram of organizations which truly support the rights of Palestinians to exist and organizations which oppose Nazism is a circle.

Zionism is not Judaism. While some Jews are Zionists, many are not. Modern-day Zionism is founded more from Evangelical Christianity in the early 19th century which then penetrated into some Jewish organizations. Many Jewish organizations today are still not Zionist. This is what I have learned not just from research but from a sermon given by the Rabbi from the Synagogue my Universalist congregation is in covenant with.

Netanyahu does not speak for the Jewish faith.

Listen to the Underground Railroad.

Listen to Holocaust victims.

Ceasefire now.

RealLifeLore released a video yesterday on Nebula describing the intricacies of Maduro threatening to annex most of Guyana’s territory.

I believe this is part of a general strategy to distract from Ukraine.

First, let’s start with the catalyst for the recent increase in armed conflicts around the world, the refusal of NATO to let Ukraine and Georgia in as members in 2008. Most Ukrainians opposed joining NATO then, and their application was blocked along with Georgia’s application. Regardless, it was a mistake and Russia invaded Georgia only a few months later.

In 2014 the Russian Invasion of Ukraine happened following the Euromaidan. With no security guarantees, Ukraine lost control of Crimea and parts of Luhansk and Donetsk.

After President Obama made it clear Russia could not invade further, the war softened to a stalemate for the next 8 years.

But in 2020 Trump signed a treaty with the Taliban to give them control over Afghanistan. Biden recognized this agreement, although it was not legally binding since it had never been ratified by Congress, and on 30 August 2021, the United States and our allies withdrew from Afghanistan. Biden then made a speech on how the United States would focus on our problems at home instead of problems abroad.

Putin heard this speech and further invaded Ukraine 6 months later. NATO has provided support to Ukraine, but not enough to allow them to fully repel the Russian invaders. Constantly fretting about letting the war escalate in order to not “provoke” Putin has become this generation’s “peace in our time” refrain.

Putin is a fascist on par with Mussolini. He has labor camps for North Koreans, murders all political dissidents, and invades neighbors as Hitler did with the Sudentenland. The players on the side of freedom are divided among those of us who believe we must defend our allies with as much force as Roosevelt did, those who support the fascist invader as Prescott Bush did, and those who want to compromise as Chamberlain did. I believe our response to the invasion of Ukraine needs to be as resolute as Roosevelt’s response to Pearl Harbor, but before we witness an attack on NATO territory.

Over the last year Ukraine has made some small advances against Russia, and Russia has not had any territorial gains in well over a year. The United States has been debating about increasing aid to Ukraine and Hamas made an attack against Israel in October in order to prevent that aid passage from going through. Doing this undermined those negotiations. Israel further undermined the possibility of the US sending much needed aid to Ukraine by attacking every civilian target in Gaza imaginable, which has delayed the shipment of much needed arms and ammunition to Ukraine.

I believe this is deliberate given how the Israeli government has been increasing ties to Russia and has been the only major “ally” of the US and NATO to not provide any assistance to Ukraine, despite the fact that Ukraine is the only other country in the world to have a Jewish President and Prime Minister. So much for Israel being a Jewish State. That has now been wholly debunked. If the purpose of Israel was to be a safe haven for Jews and strength of the Jewish people, they would be supporting Ukraine. Netanyahu has absolutely destroyed all credibility of his government.

Questions on whether the US is a reliable partner is now substantially increasing across the world given the events in Afghanistan and Ukraine. Republicans routinely either praise or hesitate to condemn Putin. The Republican noise machine now has convinced 44% of Republicans that we should reduce aid to Ukraine.

It is not a big leap of logic to see how the Israeli government creating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza while refusing to allow Palestinians to enter refugee camps outside of Gaza as they take out Hamas installations is counter productive to their nation’s security. It also is not hard to see how the timing of this offensive while we have a massive debate on whether to send more arms to Ukraine is particularly convenient for Netanyahu’s buddy Vladimir Putin. There is definitely collusion to undermine NATO. Undermining NATO is a direct attack on the United States.

Despite the delays in ammunition shipments Ukraine continues to beat Russia on the battlefield due to better training and more modern military equipment. If we provide the Free People of Ukraine with the aid they need so they can repel the Fascist Russian Horde from their territory, it will send a clear message that Democracies are protected, and future invasions of Free Nations will not be tolerated.

If we do not send aid to Ukraine it will show that America’s resolve is weak. Our institutions fail by giving too much power to the minority, just as our institutions failed Ukraine and Georgia back in 2008 when they applied for membership. It will bolster anti-NATO and anti-American attitudes. It will strenghten plutocrats. It will weaken American national security. The value of NATO will decline. Countries will see no point in joining and we will see more countries leave the European Union.

American national security is in ensuring we do not have more humanitarian crises like have happened in Afghanistan, Gaza, and Ukraine. It is paramount that we do everything we can to show state sponsors of terrorism like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that we will defend ourselves and our allies. We must show tyrants like Putin that if they invade democracies that we will help the defender. It is critical for the security of Taiwan and South Korea. As China watches the United States waffle on whether we will support Ukraine they are wondering how much resolve we will have in defending Taiwan. This is why China is building its military today. North Korea wonders if now is the time to attack South Korea.

If Ukraine goes, so will Guyana, Georgia, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Those five countries will only be the beginning. Russian hostilities with Sweden and other countries will increase if we see a decline in the perception of US power. Russian support of politicians like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, and Victor Orban will increase. If we are perceived as weak and Ukraine loses, we will likely end up with more conflicts than NATO can respond to in reasonable time. That is the worst case scenario.

We are seeing domino theory in real time right now with the situations in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, and threats against Guyana. Domino theory was not created by the US government, it was official Soviet policy, and it remains official Russian policy today. “We Will Bury You” was a promise. We are seeing a repeat of the Soviet takeovers of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary today in response to our withdrawal from Afghanistan. The series of invasions and coups which occured in the 1940s is why NATO was created, to protect against future invasions by the Red Army. Putin sees our withdrawal from Afghanistan as a retreat, and he is happy to oblige and repeat history.

We must defend Ukraine and demonstrate that the free world will not be bullied by tyrants. That is the only way to ensure peace and freedom around the world given the situation we have today.

All of this could have been avoided if Biden had simply sent the document Trump wrote with the terrorists to congress where it would have failed to gain support. All of this could have been avoided if we had just given Ukraine and Georgia NATO membership in 2008. But we made the wrong decision in both of those cases, and now we have to deal with the consequences.

Chamberlain was wrong, and so are the people who are arguing we should not support Ukraine. Ukraine has never provided aid to terrorist groups like Israel did with Hamas in the 1980s. Ukraine does not negotiate with terrorists like Israel did with Hamas only two years ago. The two could not be more different.

Putin will stop at the same point where Hitler stopped because they think the same way. He will go as far as Stalin did if we let him. The only way to defeat a fascist is to completely overpower them.

We must defend our allies and hold them close to us diplomatically to show tyrants everywhere that our freedom is what makes us strong and fascism will always lose.

Slava Ukraine.

Several major wars are going on right now in the world today which have seen over 10,000 deaths in the last year:

• Israeli-Hamas war
• Russian Invasion of Ukraine
• Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
• Myanmar Civil War
• Al Qaeda Insurgency in the Maghreb
• War in Sudan

There are other more minor wars in the world, but these are the major points of conflict.

I have written several articles about the Israeli-Hamas war. I believe the reasons behind the conflict are numerous and complicated. The only solution given Hamas’ financial resources outside of the territory is a ceasefire and the provision of services and food to the Palestinians.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ongoing conflict which is due to borders which were set by the Russians in the 20th century, and how the Azeri government is a dictatorship. There is only one side here that is not violating international law, and that is Armenia. This is complicated because Armenia is propped up by the Russians since Turkey is part of NATO. This is a rare but not unique example where a NATO member is on the wrong side of history. It also is more complex because the fighting is in Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region of Azerbaijan that is not recognized by any state.

The Myanmar Civil War has been ongoing since independence from the United Kingdom. The 1962 coup d’etat replaced the democracy with a military dictatorship which lasted until 2011 when a democracy was reinstated. In 2021 there was another coup d’etat and the military is currently under control of the country. In this case, the only reasonable position is to oppose Tatmawdaw which deposed a democratically elected government.

The al Qaeda insurgency in the Maghreb is due to a constant flood of money supporting al Qaeda, and weak state institutions in the Maghreb. Until Mali, Niger, and Chad have an improvement in their quality of government they will always be at risk of civil war.

The War in Sudan can be explained by weak institutions and the fact that until 2019 it was a dictatorship under Omar al-Bashir. It has been only 4 years since Sudan started to democratize, and the economic issues facing the country are severe. On top of that, their current government is under military leadership. It is going to be a long time until Sudan can develop unless there is significant foreign aid. It is a true tragedy.

All of these conflicts are primarily internal conflicts. There is usually foreign aid involved to at least one side, but they are not from organized armies from states spilling across international borders.

Then there is the War in Ukraine. The War in Ukraine is the only truly international conflict between two states where fatalities are over 10k. It is the only true land grab invasion by a hostile foreign enemy power. It is not from a rebellious region of an authoritarian state like Azerbaijan. It is not a situation like Gaza, where despite being trained in political science I am not sure what word best describes Gaza. Bantustan might come the closest. It is not like Burma because it is not a military coup, and Ukraine has had free and fair elections for 20 years now. Ukraine has corruption issues, but not nearly as bad as the other countries on this list, and they have been making incredible strides toward democratization over the last decade.

The situations in the other 5 regions are sad and distressing, but there are a multitude of reasons for all of them, so there will be complicated solutions to each. Ukraine is different because of the blatant aggression by the Russian government against the Ukrainian people. It is not complicated. The most similar war I can think of to Ukraine was the invasion of Poland by Russia and Germany in 1939. Ukraine did nothing wrong. Ukraine was actively doing what it needed to do to move towards eventual NATO and EU accession.

There is no valid reason to defend the actions of Russia, even fewer than there were in 1939. The reason Germany invaded Poland in 1939 was to reclaim its territory which was transferred from Germany to Poland in the Treaty of Versailles. The invasion of Poland in 1939 is one of the closest examples I can think of to what is happening right now.

But even the argument of reclaiming territory doesn’t work in terms of Ukraine. Ukrainians and Russians are different people. There was no forced movement of people on the scale of the post-World War I when the Soviet Union broke up. The people of Ukraine chose independence from an authoritarian state in 1991. Ukraine and Russia speak different languages. They have different value systems, and this can be easily seen in their systems of government and how they rank on every freedom index in the world. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is so patently absurd, that it is less absurd than if the United States were to invade Canada, which I do not support. Unlike Ukraine and Russia, the United States and Canada share values. We are both democracies, we are members of NATO, and we are former British colonies. While Ukraine and Russia have a shared history, Russia has veered deeper into authoritarianism, and Ukraine has been becoming more democratic since independence. Even if their similarity score on objective lists may be similar, their trajectories are quite opposite. Most importantly, Ukrainians have clearly shown they do not want to be Russian. End of story.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is one of the most patently absurd and pointless invasions we have seen in a very long time. The other invasion by Russia, the invasion by Georgia is tied to it in how absurd it was. Even if Ukraine were to be annexed by Russia it would be a rebellious province until they regain independence. But the issue is that given the behavior of the Russians and the speeches made by Russian officials, it is clear they intend to commit genocide against Ukrainians, and many experts already believe this is the case.

The invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to grab some of the most fertile land in the world and commit genocide against the people. It is a patent land grab of fascism, reminiscent of the actions of Hitler and Stalin.

It is a common motif in American politics to talk about what people would do if they were alive when Hitler was marching his army across Europe and committing genocide against people. This has been for most points in my life a mostly hypothetical question, and the invasion of democracies is very rare in the modern world.

But it was not hypothetical in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia, and it was not hypothetical in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. This stage of the invasion however in how long it is taking, the absolute brutality of the Russians against the Ukrainian people, and their refusal to distinguish between military and civilian targets, all to prevent a free people from taking their rightful place as a member state of NATO and the European Union, makes it impossible to be neutral. This invasion is more serious than the invasions of 2008 and 2014. The question has been whether politicians would have sided with Hitler through armistice or financial support, or would have opposed him outright. You cannot be neutral on a moving train, and there is no neutral position on this issue. You are either pro-Ukrainian, or you believe Ukraine should be annexed by Russia.

Today we can see clearly where politicians stand. The only morally righteous answer today is the same answer which was the only morally righteous answer when Nazi armies plundered France and the Vichy terrorized the people. We must oppose fascism and provide support to the free peoples of the world. Fascists will never respect autonomy, they will never respect the right of self-determination of free peoples. They will always continue to expand their reach until they are met with force.

Always be suspicious of any politician who attempts to excuse the actions of people like Hitler, Stalin, and Putin. Their motives are never righteous.

The invasion of Ukraine is the most black-and-white good vs. evil war I have seen in my life. It is unique among modern conflicts in how Ukraine is restrained against military targets, they have no desire to commit atrocities against the Russian people, (unlike the Bosnian War where there were war crimes on all sides) and their people have shown a clear and consistent desire to reform their country to improve their lives and join the European Union and NATO. Ukrainians don’t want to hurt Russians because Russian civilians don’t deserve to be treated the way Ukrainians are being treated, and it would prevent their accession to NATO. The Geneva Conventions are what separates us from countries like Russia.

When politicians today state that we should stop supporting Ukraine, this is morally the same as a politician standing up in 1943 and advocating to end support for de Gaulle and Free France.

We must continue military assistance of Ukraine so they can repel the Russian horde off of their land and reclaim their territory, and the minute the last Russian brute leaves Ukrainian territory, we must grant them immediate membership in NATO.

Send Ukraine arms.

Long Live NATO.

Slava Ukraine.