America's Cold War relationships have created conditions for very hot wars to take place. The current war in Ukraine is part of that sorry Cold War legacy.
Washington regards the entire world as its "sphere of influence." But now Beijing is looking to follow the US playbook on hegemony and expand Beijing's network of military bases abroad.
Remember "the lessons of Vietnam"? For all of the talk in Washington of avoiding similar conflicts in the future, US policy has been to intervene even more aggressively than it did pre-Vietnam.
Moscow has used naturalization and immigration to effect demographic change and encourage conflict between ethnic groups in neighboring states. It has proven to be an effective foreign policy tool.
To no one's surprise, governments that interfere with their economies at every turn are at war with each other. Perhaps there is another path to peace.
The sanctions against Russia have the potential to spiral into something much larger. Indeed, many governments are using the current conflict as an opportunity to further push "green energy," rearmament, and other big-spending schemes.
Trying to understand the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the exclusive viewpoint of modern Western democracy is to ignore the long history of authoritarian leadership in Russia.
From globalization to sanctions, to international institutions like the UN, the US is leading a small global fragment that's little more than NATO and a handful of friends. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the global economy isn't signing on.
The states of Europe have more than enough wealth and military potential to deal with a second-rate power like Russia. The American taxpayers, on the other hand, deserve a break from Europe's grifting.
