Let’s go to war with Russia

Obviously, the answer to that question is no right now because our government is pushing the United States of America toward war with Russia.

So far, Ukraine is fighting and dying with American weapons, technology and military expertise in its year-long conflict with Russia. Ukraine appears to be holding its own, but it would be a mistake to believe that Russia will give up and give up on its imperial ambitions to annex a chunk of its western neighbor. Certainly, in my opinion, Russia would never surrender Crimea.

The American mainline media is fond of describing Russia as a regional power with an incompetent military and unstable leadership. I’m not sure that’s true.

Napoleon thought he had defeated Russia when he captured Moscow in 1812. In Napoleon’s mind, all that was left to do was for Russia’s military leaders to admit that they had been defeated and formally surrender.

But the Russians never showed up to surrender. Instead, winter set in and a cataclysmic fire burned much of Moscow.

Rather than spend the winter in the burnt city, Napoleon decided to lead his troops back to France. Then the Cossacks appeared. The Russian cavalry harassed the French army on the long retreat and Napoleon lost ninety percent of his troops before reaching safety.

During World War II, Hitler invaded Russia in the summer of 1941 and drove the Russians back across a broad front. The Nazis built it on the outskirts of Moscow but they never captured the city. The Germans besieged Leningrad for 900 days but the Russians refused to surrender, although one million Leningrad citizens died of starvation during the siege.

Are there lessons to be learned from history? I think there are. Russia may seem on the brink of defeat in its war with Ukraine, but that’s what Napoleon and Hitler believed when they fought Russia.

But what do I know about military strategy and geopolitical matters? After all, I’m just a retired professor who lives smack dab in the middle of flyover country.

This is a fair point. On the other hand, what do the bozos in Washington know about military strategy or the tangled history linking Ukraine and Russia? Obviously not much.

The brainless diplomats and policy machinists who are recklessly pushing our country into war with a nuclear power probably think it’s fun to mess with Eastern European affairs. Who knows? He might get a lucrative book contract from this uproar or a teaching gig at Harvard.

But what is their goal? Is it to weaken Russia or is it to weaken the United States?

I, for one, do not favor feeding Russian bears. I don’t want my children or grandchildren to suffer or die because some fool in Washington has no idea what the Russians are capable of.