Diplomacy and the Russian Invasion

The Elis of the State Department are hard at work to ensure that Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin can find a path to claim victory even as the armed forces of Ukraine are beating the snot out of Putin’s military. (As I have previously noted for those of you forced to endure a teachers union led education in the Portland Public Schools, an “Eli” is a graduate of Yale University. They reflect the “white, male and Yale” naivete of the State Department that sacrifices preparedness in pursuit of diplomacy while the bullies of the world savage the weak.)

There is nothing new in either the influence of the Eli’s on foreign policy nor their rigorous pursuit of the doctrine of appeasement. Since the end of the Korean War there have only been two American president’s who have ignored the doctrine of appeasement woven into the State Department’s advice on foreign policy. The first being President Ronald Reagan when he confronted Soviet aggression and demanded “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And the second being President Donald Trump who ignored virtually everything the Elis preached because. . . well, because they were Elis. They considered Mr. Trump to be a barbarian, while he considered them to be effete snobs. I’ll leave to you to decide who was closer to the truth.

Regardless, the Elis continue to work diligently to ensure that Mr. Putin is successful, albeit on smaller scale than he envisioned when he launched his four prong blitzkrieg against the smaller Ukraine a little over a month ago. First, President Joe Biden, before the incursion, suggested that a “minor” invasion – taking a land bridge from Russia to the Crimea by seizing the Donbas region including the port city of Mariupol might result in lower economic sanctions than would a full scale invasion. Mr. Biden then withheld economic and military aid to Ukraine until after the invasion began in an effort to see whether Mr. Putin would be satisfied with that “land bridge” – he wasn’t.

The State Department Elis’ assumption all along was that the massive military might of Russia would quickly overrun Ukraine and that a quick encirclement of Ukraine’s capitol city Kyiv would result in surrender. As a result Mr. Biden continued to slow roll needed military aid to the Ukraine military. (After all why suffer the wrath of Mr. Putin by supporting a losing cause.) They were wrong again. The Ukrainian military coupled with its armed citizenry have not only denied Mr. Putin (and the Elis) a quick victory but now appear to be recovering land lost in the initial onslaught. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky has embarrassed Mr. Biden and the Elis by first stopping the progress of the massive Russian military machine and then appealing to the world at large for assistance. Mr. Biden was trapped. He could not deny military aid to Ukraine for fear of being condemned as a feckless world leader who turns his back on nations suffering the brutality of an unprovoked invasion, and he couldn’t provide robust military assistance because he feared the wrath of Mr. Putin. So, in response, he publicly cheered for the Ukrainian people but continued to deny them access to the weapons that could provide the winning edge to Ukraine. And as he denied them such military aid, he worked incessantly on Mr. Zelensky to accept an agreement that would cede the “land bridge” to Mr. Putin in exchange for a cease fire. Retired General Jack Keane, current chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, has stated that there are at least three calls between Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelensky in which Mr. Biden urged Mr. Zelensky to accept such a deal. (Of course, try to get your hands on the White House telephone logs or recordings of those calls – they exist, but we’ll never see them in the next twenty-five years.)

You see, what the Elis are preaching is that Mr. Putin is likely to use some or all of his nuclear arsenal in response to the shifting tides of war. That when trapped between losing the war and facing his own people as a loser, that Mr. Putin will unleash a nuclear holocaust. In preparation for running this doomsday scenario, past presidents and secretaries of state have come forward to claim that “this isn’t the President Putin with whom they dealt.” The intimation being that Mr. Putin has become unbalanced and that he may do just about anything – the same garbage that the same people tried to peddle about Mr. Trump in his waning days in office.

So, is Mr. Putin unstable? Mr. Putin is an international thug and war criminal. He is, and has been, doing the same things since he ascended to power in the late 90’s – brutalizing smaller neighbors, creating false flag operations in justification, ignoring the Geneva conventions, ignoring diplomatic efforts and lying repeatedly as to both his actions and his intentions. There isn’t the slightest bit of evidence supporting the theory that he has changed other than speculation by those who have covered up his misdeeds, including a succession of presidents and secretaries of state, for the past two decades.

Is Mr. Putin capable of using “first strike” nuclear weapons.? Absolutely. But that risk is no greater today than at any other time since he ascended to power. I don’t want to downplay the danger of any country with nuclear weapons, but ever since the 60’s when the United States and other nuclear armed countries, began operating under the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD) we have been one madman away from nuclear Armageddon. There is nothing today that changes that equation. So rigid is that concept that most nuclear powers have put in place “fail safe” standards that prevent a single person from launching nuclear weapons. We have it and so does Russia, so does China. I have no idea what Russia’s protocols are but the Elis of the State Department do and they know that the risk of a nuclear exchange with Russia is relatively low. Add to that, senior military officials in the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, China, Pakistan and India (and even Israel which to this day does not acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons) have established a “back channel” communications to further ensure there are no “mistakes”, including mistakes by their nations’ leaders. (You may recall that General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an unnecessary call to his counterpart in China to assure them that Mr. Trump was not about to unleash our nuclear weapons as a means of staying in office – a canard invented and repeated by the media and many of the politicians that were so sure that the “Russian collusion” dossier was true – idiots all.)

So why is there this paralytic fear of Mr. Putin? It probably has more to do with protecting the power of the Elis   than anything to do directly with the likelihood of a nuclear holocaust. The Elis of the State Department have shown a remarkable trend of being wrong with regard to the world’s tyrannical regimes. They have been wrong about Mr. Putin and Russia dating back at least to the days of former President Barack Obama who ridiculed then-former Gov. Mitt Romney concerning his assertion that Russia and Mr. Putin were at the top of the list regarding dangers to America. They were wrong about Syria and Mr. Obama’s “red line” on President Bashar al-Assad use of chemical weapons (in cooperation with Mr. Putin). They were wrong on the strength and intention of the Taliban in Afghanistan leading up to our disastrous withdrawal. They were wrong on the intentions of the mullahs of Iran regarding Obama signing the agreement that purported to limit Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons – it didn’t as the Iranians consistently violated the terms and conditions of the agreement. They are still wrong about Iran as John Kerry prepares to yet again give away the store on yet another pointless agreement with Iran to do the same thing – again with the same results.

The State Department’s inability to discern the difference between friend and enemy has likewise led to the shunning of long time allies like India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emeritus, stabbing France in the back over a submarine deal with Australia, spurning Canada over oil and gas transport and virtually ignoring the nations of South and Central America; all the while embracing sworn enemies such as Iran, Venezuela, and even Russia prior to its invasion of Ukraine.

In essence, the State Department importance as the nation’s premier (most important) agency is on the line and it is not doing well. Its insistence on relying solely on diplomacy in dealing with dangerous belligerents is proving wrong – wrong at every turn, wrong at timing, just plain wrong. The invasion of Ukraine is an instance which no one can ignore. The State Department and Mr. Biden knew as early as March of 2021 that Russia was moving troops to the border of Ukraine with the intent to invade and yet they did nothing to help Ukraine prepare to resist the invasion – instead they approved lifting sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in an effort to placate Mr. Putin. Diplomacy without strength is like spitting into the wind. Had Mr. Biden and the Elis of the State Department authorized the same weaponry then as they have today, there would never have been invasion because Mr. Putin would have seen a well armed and well trained army of resistance. It’s been a disaster and the Elis of the State Department are to blame.

Their only hope is to engineer a settlement by turning the screws down on Mr. Zelensky (not Mr. Putin) and then claiming that “diplomacy” worked and that they were the heroes for saving the world from a nuclear holocaust. Put that bat guano in the same bucket as the Russian collusion story, the Iranian nuclear deal, and the withdrawal of security in Benghazi, Libya. And yet look for the Elis and Mr. Biden to restrict weapons and timing of delivery to further press him for a compromise giving Mr. Putin much of what he wants. The better solution would be to give Mr. Zelensky what he needs to drive the Russians all the way back to their borders and no further. Humiliating Mr. Putin and his armed forces will do as much to refocus foreign policy towards stopping belligerency than any deal engineered by the State Department to cover for their woeful performance to date.

If you want a better, more intelligent and honest assessment for foreign policy you need to clean house at the State Department from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the janitor. You don’t have to be an Eli to understand that bullies only understand strength – well, in fact, maybe it is everybody but the Elis that understand that lesson learned in kindergarten.