In the 1964 Presidential election campaign Senator Barry Goldwater was feared by the American left as an existential threat to human survival because they believed he could lead the nation to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R. Has President Biden’s lawyerly tunnel division brought the nation to the same place, or an even worse one, than Barry Goldwater might have if he had one them 64 election vs L.B.J.?
I don’t wish to take a side in the narrative vs. anti-narrative manner of blue versus red politics and social media since I am an independent. Neither will I take an anti-narrative position in contradiction of the prevailing Ukraine war narrative that blue and red together voted to fund 100% in the U.S. Senate. The narrative and the error position of the U.S. Government are plain enough. I simply write my independent and objective ideas on this topic. Because Blue control of most social media and search engine sites tend to de facto censor reader prospects, and blue as well as red sites each expect at least mild compliance with blue or red political positions with conflicting or independent positions marginalized, harassed or attacked, my present post-Obama era writing is encountered by few readers so I have even less reason to not just write what I think. If I was a college professor I might have student protests or have my contract canceled. In the United States corporatism and networking compels general compliance and sycophancy for promotion.
Former Senator and Vice President, President Joe Biden, has moved the nation into the most confrontational position he or anyone else possibly could have over the Russian reconquista of Crimea and part of Eastern Ukraine (Borderland) that probably should have been named South Russia to disambiguate the historical balance of ownership. The President has a kind of tunnel-vision that leads him to see the darkness ahead as the only possible course to take to get over or beyond the mountain though the monster of nuclear war may be lurking within (or not). That is a gamble he is willing to take even if he is unaware there may be alternatives to the tunnel that goes deep into the mountain and perhaps not through to the other side. I believe Mr. Goldwater may have been a little more intellectually adaptable.
I want to note here that I should be happy to have a chance to use Cold War rhetoric that I have been gathering dust since I left college as an undergraduate. And I have some improvements on the venerable rhetoric such as military education in Nuclear Biological and Chemical defense. At Army chemical school we road around in helicopters a bit with radiometers simulating nuclear radiation detection. We also used charts and other items to make fallout pattern predictions. We sacrificed Armadillos at Ft. McClellan’s Plains of Mars facility and read the entrails for predicting. Modestly I recall that by the fifth armadillo entrail reading I was able to predict fallout within twelve hours and thirty miles of a simulated incident, and that I am making a joke. It is necessary to explain that jokes are jokes in political writing so the droll won’t take them literally.
A solution to the problem of war in Ukraine could still be made that would not make Ukraine’s President happy at all, yet would end the war, secure the peace and provide a means to rapidly return to a normative condition economically speaking not seen in Europe since 2014. Eastern Ukraine could be named Southern Russia and West Ukraine recognized by Russia as an independent state. Sanctions on Russia would end directly and a Marshall plan to rebuild Western Ukraine proceed. Russian would need to pay to reconstruct Southern Russia since they did commence the military phase of hostilities. Arguably the military operation pre-empted further hegemonic N.A.T.O. expansion into all of Ukraine occupied by non-Russian elements.
Political concessions and compromises are sometimes useful to end or avoid hostilities. Peace is usually preferable to war, and more constructive. *
Consider some of the potential problems riding a juggernaut down into tunnel darkness.
Russia and the Soviet Union together experienced between 20 and 40 million dead during the Second World War. They have concerns about facing a super-N.A.T.O. dream team made of the former fascist powers plus the former Warsaw Pact nations, and former Russian allies Britain and the United States. If Russia is backed into a very dangerous corner with President Biden demanding regime change in Russia publicly (as if he were a kid with no Presidential power to act on what he wishes) militarily or financially it is possible that nuclear war could occur. The Biden administration may believe a nuclear war is unthinkable if they don’t escalate the Ukraine conflict with select special weapons. What would happen if Russia did feel that nuclear war was their sole, remaining practical choice to complete financial or military defeat by the Super-N.A.T.O. team?
A limited nuclear exchange might be winnable for Russia in a sense. Five warheads fired onto five western cities followed by an equal retaliatory strike by the United State would probably end the conflict. Conventional follow up military conquest of Russia prob ably wouldn’t happen because of the concern about remaining U.S. and European cities being vaporized en mass in the traditional M.A.D. policy of Cold War 1.0 If for example, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Boston, London and Berlin were vaporized the economies of those nations with annihilated cities would be thrown into a slum p worse than that following the take-down of the World Trade towers in New York in 2001. Russia could survive the loss of Moscow, Novosibirsk and a couple other towns more easily than the west could survive its loss. In fact fewer people would be killed in Russia in the limited nuclear war than were lost during the Second World War.
For the United States to actually invade a nuclear armed Russia it would be necessary and probably not possible to take down all of the Russian nuclear weapons capability using a vastly greater number of nuclear weapons than would be used in a limited retaliatory strike, so it might as well jump to an unlimited nuclear strike on Russia hoping Russia hasn’t got time to reply in kind. In my opinion those are a pair of reasons why the tunnel approach to resolving the Ukraine conflict may not be an optimal choice, although President Biden prefers it and has indicated that the conflict may be protracted and even generational since it is one between “freedom and authoritarianism”. The Democrat Party’s force their way through lawsuits presumably is regarded as that of freedom rather than attempted one-party neo-authoritarianism obviously to avoid the appearance of waging a war of authoritarianism against authoritarianism. I believe the new language is not just dredged from the Cold War 1, it is necessary because he cannot say that it is a battle of free enterprise versus communism, because Russia has free enterprise too these days, generally speaking. Maybe a better description would have been Corporatism vs. Free Enterprise Developmental Corporatism with a Roman Republic style Dictator appointed to lead a quasi-Republic until the time of crisis and/or war is over (Romans selected a Dictator for a year (renewable) until peace resumed and civil crisis ended.
Barry Goldwater’s campaign slogan was “In your heart you know he’s right”. The 1964 national vote tally said “no”. Regarding President Biden being right I would say; I don’t think so. Maybe a re-election slogan for Joe Biden could be “Onward, onward into the tunnel road Old Joe- snatching conflict from the jaws of peace; where it stops, no one knows”.
* Peacetime may also be periods of inflated political egos and irrational market exuberance. Recently in support of the prevailing political narrative concerning the immanent danger to N.A.T.O. Russia presents by annexing Crimea and invading the Borderland (aka Ukraine), it has created timidity and analytical Lillyputianism disease wherein Russia is a vast right-wing threat to little n.a.t.o. that requires President Biden to rage defiantly like Churchill in his darkest hour (paraphrase) that Russia will not get a single inch of n.a.t.o. land because the U.S. will defend every single inch of n.at.o. lands under article 5 of N.A.T.O.!!!
The remarklable shrinking of N.A.T.O. defense capability versus Russia in the minds of the western media and U.S.Government calls for a comment.
1) The Soviet Union/Russia let the former Warsaw Pact countries it had occupied since it recovered them from N.A.Z.I. occupation during the Great Patriotic War (aka W.W. 2) voluntarily. It had only captured them because of taking tens of millions of casualties and with the Western allies as partners. Russia or the Soviet Union before the Second World War had no capcity to conquer Eastern Europe at all, and only invaded Hitler after Germany got Stalin to sign a treaty that green lighted Soviet invasion with a no competition agreement.
2) Russia today has no capacity to invade or to occupy N.A.T.O. nations, nor the troops to garrison N.A.T.O. nations. Russia has a somewhat modest modern military modeled on the U.S. military post-Vietnam volunteer force of quality rather than draft style quantity. Neither has Russia indicated an interest with fighting directly with N.A.T.O. in N.A.T.O.’s super-sized, post Cold War 1 condition that now has most of the members of the former Warsaw Pact nations including the former East Germany as members. N.A.T.O. was designed to battle the entire Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union. When the west flipped most of the Warsaw Pact to its side leaving just a diminished Russia facing it alone, Russia’s potential for invading N.A.T.O. became even more remote. Intelligent western leaders and media should be aware of that, unless of course they are simply too dopey and busy being queer. It is possible that queer Corporatist policies combined with liberal dope intoxication lead to diminished military ability of N.A.T.O. members and an enlarged sense of detachment with an integral, tranquil state of fear and paranoia and avarice. Winston’s unexpressed maxim be invoked that even paranoids have enemies.
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