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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While the battlefield results are mixed, much of the action in the Russia-Ukraine war is happening beyond the warring countries.
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.
Rothbard the historian explained so well how the true progressive goal was always to remake America domestically by promoting war.
