“Dear Democrats and NeverTrumpumpkins: after five years of demonization of Putin and Russia, are you happy now? You own this, and there’s nothing your idiot president can do about it. Congratulations.”
—Matt Walsh, as Russia moves into Ukraine
(found here)
I was, frankly, surprised Putin actually barged into Ukraine because Russia doesn't exactly have the healthiest economy (despite its oil-pipeline stranglehold on Europe, a stranglehold that means Putin gets to determine European policy since he's providing nearly 40% of Europe's natural gas, plus about 2.5 million barrels of oil to Europe as well). Why, then, would Russia waste energy and manpower on an incursion into Ukraine? It would have been enough just to pretend to want to invade, to keep our senile old fart in the White House in a perpetual tizzy; he'd have had another aneurysm, eventually, while rambling about "going toe-to-toe with Putin." Note that Putin never acted rashly on Trump's watch; it's normally during a Democrat's watch that such things happen.
But the counterargument I'm hearing is that Putin has his own vision of manifest destiny that involves bringing former USSR countries back into the fold, so to speak. My friend Neil recently mentioned the term irredentism (see here, def. 2—taking back a former territory) in conjunction with Russia; how right he is. Putin has correctly read the tea leaves, and he understands that Europe, with its lack of stomach for a real fight and its paltry military forces that generally rely on US protection (the UK excepted, of course), won't do much to help Ukraine despite being much closer to the problem than the US is; Putin also understands that, with a Democrat in the Oval Office, the US military, with its ass-backward Democrat priorities, would fight a war against improper pronouns long before it would ever stick its neck out to help Ukraine. Putin probably also understands that even Trumpian GOPers with a geopolitical outlook don't look favorably upon Ukraine, a corrupt state that has been a playground for the Biden family. Why fight for such a lost country? So Putin saw his opportunity and seized it. And then there's the ethnic-Russian angle: eastern Ukraine is home to many ethnic Russians who are already welcoming Putin with open arms (some background here). Does the US even have a dog in this fight?
What will Biden do now, aside from nap longer and have his daily pudding and ice cream? What will anyone do? Dictators around the world are watching closely as formerly powerful nations have their mettle tested. Some of them doubtless fear a 2024 return of Trump, who is still feisty and coherent despite attempts to smear his state of mind (and remember that he took at least two cognitive tests and released the results! will Biden do that? hell, no, and for obvious reasons). But for now, in 2022, a potato lives in the White House, and if he ever kicks off, his second-in-command is a cackling maniac who is only articulate so long as she's talking about her own ethnicity. Otherwise, she's as word-salady as her boss.
I don't hold out much hope for the world.
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