Money, in all its forms, represents some kind of value and worth. It replaces goods or effort. Before there was money, barter was the only form of exchange. Everything had a value. Land, buildings, animals, crops, slaves, and even women as wives. What was the cost of a certain amount of food for my family for a specific mix of items I had?

With coins, exchange was simpler. A person didn’t need specific items that the other person wanted. Money could be exchanged for the desired item. Money was the stand-in for worth, worth of any kind.

Governments produced money in various formats to represent the wealth in their domains. In the beginning, it was in the form of coins of assorted sizes and weights made of precious metals. The value of the coins was guaranteed by their content.

Paper money eventually became the standard. In theory, anyone could print it. In fact, governments usually retained the exclusive right. The value of a government’s money and the trust in it were signs of trust in that government. In 1865, Confederate money was not very trustworthy, and people were less willing to accept it as payment.

When a country has its own currency, it has some control over its economy. It may do a bad job, but it is impacting its own economy. Some countries have decided to use the U.S. dollar as their currency. They are small countries that never had their own currency.

Most, if not all, of the countries in the Eurozone gave up their own currencies to adopt the Euro. Many of them had gone through dramatic reevaluations or hyperinflations.

Perhaps the most dramatic was the hyperinflation of the German Mark under the Weimar Republic in the 1920’s. Facing huge reparations debts after World War I, the government just printed massive amounts of money.

Before World War I, one US dollar could buy about four Reichsmarks, but by late 1923, the exchange rate had skyrocketed to four trillion Reichsmarks.

Paper Marks were so worthless that children played with them as stacking toys.

Because the Germans were certain that the Weimar chaos played a role in Hitler’s rise, they were determined to avoid a repeat of that kind of inflation after World War II. With an industrious workforce, excellent industrial capacity, and inexpensive energy, Germany could produce high-quality products for export and compete on price.

Southern European nations, such as Spain, Italy, and Greece, routinely inflated their currencies. They have massive government overheads before anything could happen. The workforce of these countries was not competitive. The delays involved before anything could be done meant investors went elsewhere. Pensions and government wages were denominated in the local currencies. Reducing the amounts would be difficult. It was politically easier to devalue the currency than to reduce pension payments.

Before joining the Euro, each country controlled its own currency. Their decisions did not directly impact the others. It is true that one country could devalue its currency to gain a competitive trade advantage, and others would respond. But if a country had inflationary issues, it didn’t harm other currencies.

Lenders evaluated each nation’s currency separately. The German Mark was stable and trustworthy. The same could not be said about the Greek Drachma or the Italian Lira. If loans to a nation were denominated in that country’s currency, it could determine the value of the loan by devaluing its currency. Lenders knew that and set interest rates accordingly.

After the Euro, loans to countries were made in Euros. A crisis occurred when Greece couldn’t pay its Euro-denominated loans. The lenders had counted on other Euro countries bailing out Greece. They did. But their voters realized the trap the Euro was.

It was possible because Greece is small. The next crisis will be in a bigger country. Also, the Greek problem happened while the Eurozone had some viable economic powers. It doesn’t anymore. That sounds harsh, but it’s true.

YouTube producer The Wealth Records does an excellent job creating short videos (about 20 minutes) on economic and international subjects. They have a “Table of Contents” page showing their videos.

They have a great video on why the Euro was built to fail. There are also shows that will surprise people who aren’t following the news about Europe closely. They describe the disastrous situations in various European countries. This information explains why the Euro will come under pressure and why there is no strength left to hold it up.

France is locked into promises it can’t afford and has a dysfunctional political system. It is far bigger than Greece. There is no way its financial collapse can happen without severely impacting the Euro.

Germany was the tent-pole holding up the Euro for decades. It had everything investors wanted when they sought a safe place to put their money. As the center of the Euro, Germany’s rating reflected well on the other Euro countries. That is no longer true. Germany is in economic and political crisis.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz leads a marginal coalition government and has managed to push through a change allowing the government to spend more than it takes in. Regardless of the reason, Germany’s deficit spending means no Euro country even pretends to want a balanced budget.

All the nations in the Euro are facing financial and political chaos. Why would anyone put any faith in a currency when every part of it could pull it apart in a different direction?

When historians describe revolutions, they discuss the events leading up to them and precisely define the significant dates and events. Some who are living through those times may sense that things are unstable; some want change, while others want everything to remain as it is. No one knows the triggering events or dates, or what the future will look like.

Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu led his country for more than twenty years. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice often recounted the sudden, unexpected, and violent end of his rule. In 1989, amid all the revolutions in the Warsaw Pact countries, he was giving a speech to

Rice explains the lesson from this:

[In a] system [where] people have no peaceful way to change their government … every authoritarian fears … the Ceaușescu moment. … the moment when their people lose their fear of them, and when all that stands between them and their people is a ragtag effort to mobilize that last measure of force to quiet the voices of their people, and it rarely really works.

John F. Kennedy said something similar when talking about the civil rights movement: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Rice and JFK described the need to ensure that the rights to expression and change were available to socially approved groups. Those are not the groups whose expression is currently being suppressed. But the truth still applies.

This principle is not limited to states that are formally autocratic or dictatorial. The leaders of European and Anglosphere nations are concerned with maintaining power at all costs. They are destroying anything and everything for a temporary gain, with no regard for the long-term damage to institutions and trust.

The courts and “intelligence reports” help overturn election results and block the path to power of those who won’t go along.

In Germany, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) is gaining support for its positions against open immigration and in favor of ending sanctions on Russian fuel. So far, the other parties have refused to join them to form a ruling coalition. There is also talk of outlawing them as a “Nazi” party under the German constitution.

The French government and economy are in chaos. President Emmanuel Macron is unpopular and continues to seek a prime minister who can form a government that will last over the weekend. Macron could call parliamentary elections, but the establishment doesn’t want to see the results. Marine Le Pen is the most popular politician in France, but she has been convicted of a campaign-fund violation and banned from running for office. Her party might win anyhow.

In the same Romania where Ceaușescu was overthrown, the voice of the people was ignored. Calin Georgescu won the most votes in the first round of the 2024 presidential election. He favored closer ties with Russia to secure cheaper natural gas and cutting aid to Ukraine. He was ready to advance to the runoff. Instead, the sitting president released intelligence reports alleging a Russian interference campaign. Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of voting. The whole mess wasn’t settled until May. Eventually, the pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine faction achieved its objectives.

In 2022, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his followers had reason to be concerned about the honesty of the election he had lost. A Britannica article noted that:

They added, sardonically,

Konstantin Kisin was born in the Soviet Union. He moved to and became a citizen of the United Kingdom. He was a comedian and became a social commentator. He is genuinely concerned about the treatment of speech in the UK. In a conversation with former Australian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, he discussed the issue of individuals being arrested for statements made on social media. Kisin noted that there had been four hundred arrests in Russia and 3,300 in Britain.

The United States government had complained about attacks on U.S.-based social media companies for posts the British government didn’t like, but which were well within our free speech limits. UK Prime Minister Starmer is very unpopular and is trying to limit the expression of that fact.

I don’t know when it will happen. The word “comeuppance” refers to the moment when what is due is meted out. The so-called establishment is ruling for its own agenda and in the short term. That can’t continue. I don’t know what the spark will be. I don’t know when it will be. Too many people are on the short end of the stick and ready to shout, “Liar!”

It is bound to happen.

British voters have constantly used their votes to express their anger and frustration at the deterioration in their living standards and physical safety. Their desires had been ignored. In 2024, Labour won a large parliamentary majority in an election where voters gave up and stayed home. The turnout was embarrassingly small.

The public wanted national leaders to break from Europe (Brexit) and prioritize national interests. That never happened. They repeatedly demanded a halt to massive immigration. Leaders insisted on staying fashionable and bowing to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Union (EU).

Energy costs are exorbitant because the leadership insisted on following various international “Green” and “NetZero” plans. Energy costs in the United Kingdom are four to eight times higher than those in the United States. Industries can’t compete when this adds to the production costs.

London’s financial district is doing well, but much of the country is in financial distress. The median income for much of Britain is lower than that of Mississippi, America’s poorest state.

Voting didn’t make the point. Previous voter displays didn’t make the point. The effort this time is amusing. It is the “Raise the Colours” campaign.

By itself, the St. George Cross is the flag of England. It became a part of the British Union Jack. The national flag would be ambiguous. They needed something different but still local The English flag was perfect. How better to clearly “root for the home team?”

That’s the irony. Local governments are willing to fly various flags to show how accepting they are:

Those same “tolerant” leaders are the most adamant about tearing down the “colours.”

Flags may seem minor. They’re not. America’s national anthem turns on the question “Oh say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave?” When you fly a flag, you show loyalty at some level. As I write this, the college football season is about to start. Countless people have pulled out flags, jerseys, and other symbols to show their team loyalty.

Immigration is the most divisive issue between the leaders and the public, not only in Britain, but throughout the European Union.

When a large mass of people arrives, it has the impact of an invasion. There was an insufficient supply of housing, schools, and other public services to serve both the Indigenous population and the newcomers. Somebody lost. It was not the newcomers. People who had saved for housing found the cost had exploded. To make it worse, the newcomers were housed in expensive hotels.

Schools were also overwhelmed, as were other public services.

Those who dream of free national health here in America should subscribe to a British newspaper for a year. Indeed, you don’t pay at the time of service. You pay your general taxes. The politically connected never have a problem. Wealthy people get concierge care somewhere. The average person pays by waiting in the queue. Newcomers significantly stretched the queue. That meant the complaints about funding and delays in the National Health Service (NHS) exploded.

I will now turn to the main problem, which I need to emphasize is cultural, not racial. Britain had long welcomed Commonwealth citizens of many races who blended in very well because they understood the nature of British law and respected it. They came to Britain to enjoy its benefits and abide by its laws. I will call them part of “the home team.”

The latest newcomers did not come from Commonwealth countries, had a vastly different view of appropriate behavior, and expected Britain to adopt their way of doing things.

The newcomers had a different view of women. Suddenly, life was unsafe. The biggest scandals involved the towns of Rotherham and Telford. Thousands of British girls as young as eleven were raped, abused, and groomed as prostitutes by Pakistani newcomers. The police were useless. The government did nothing to protect its citizens from this evil.

Instead, it came down hard on those who complained about the lack of prosecution. Sir Niall Ferguson noted a truly Orwellian new term. A “Non-criminal Hate Crime” (NCHI), which described an action resembling a hate crime but was performed by a “protected” newcomer.

It was evident that the government would not enforce fundamental laws to protect society when the newcomers harmed others. Either they feared being called racist, or they were simply cowards. Instead, they were overly harsh against the British. The Crown Prosecutor, through this, later became Prime Minister. Since his name is Keir Starmer, he is derisively called “Two-tier Keir.”

The same leaders who refuse to prosecute the Pakistani rapists support their views on Jews and Palestine and fly the green and white Pakistani flag and the Palestinian flag from government buildings and flagpoles. Yet, if Brits show the English flag, it is considered an act of “right-wing hate.”

Starmer’s government is highly unpopular. He is cutting social programs and other subsidies while allocating funds to support Ukraine and other European Union priorities.

Given parliamentary government rules, he and his Labour Party could delay an election for four years. That assumes the current system holds together that long. Some earnest people are starting to doubt that.

Sir Niall’s piece, mentioned above, is entitled: The Rot in Britain and describes some of the problems.

I encourage you to view the following YouTube videos describing the situation.

• British journalist, broadcaster, and politician Peter Whittle produced a video entitled England Awakes to explain the history of the divisions in Britain. It runs for twenty minutes and is outstanding.

• British Historian David Starkey has a weekly YouTube channel. One session started with a discussion of the flags, sectarianism, and the impact of immigration. Some sections are on different topics, but it is interesting.

In one way, it is sad that we hear so little about the chaos and turmoil in Europe but hiding information and “lying by omission” is a widespread practice among our media. A great deal of chaos is happening in Britain and continental Europe.

So, I am watching the Brits “Raise the Colours” as they “Root for their Home Team!”

In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin spoke of Nazis among the Ukrainians. That sounded odd to many Americans, but it is true. In the 1930s, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and headed by Josef Stalin. His orders from Moscow resulted in a famine from 1931-1934 called the Holodomor. Approximately 5 million people died. When World War II started and Germany invaded Russia, those who did not speak Russian had good reason to hate Stalin. They joined the German forces to oppose him and willingly participated in any role offered.

That animosity continues. During and after World War II, Russia and Ukraine were both “Soviet Socialist Republics” (SSRs) ruled from Moscow: Crimea and the eastern oblasts (regions) known as the Donbas were part of the Russian SSR. Nikita Khrushchev assigned these predominantly Russian-speaking regions to Ukraine as part of some political maneuvering. At the time, it was symbolic and meaningless. It posed no threat to Russia’s access to the warm-water port of Sevastopol or the culturally Russian residents of the Ukrainian SSR.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, everything changed. Ukraine and Russia were now different countries, and the cultural Russians were not only in a different country, but they were also in a country with a majority extremely hostile to them.

I have previously written about NATO’s broken promises and expansion eastward. In another article, I discussed America’s role in the 2014 Maidan “color revolution” in Kyiv. This was particularly harmful. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was democratically elected and trying to ride a middle road. He was not hostile to the Russophones and was about to sign a 99-year lease with Russia for the naval base at Sevastopol.

That could not be permitted. A “spontaneous, grassroots” uprising started as a “color revolution.” Without spending the time here, we now know the funding details of these color revolutions. They include serious amounts of money from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). It was clearly “Astroturf.” U. S. Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy went to Kyiv to openly support the revolution.

With the success of that revolution and the clear anti-Russian attitude of the Americans and NATO, both sides decided it was time to go all out. There was no room left for the moderates or compromise.

Putin moved immediately to make sure he had the base at Sevastopol. He moved into Crimea and claimed it as part of Russia. He also moved to support the Russophone regions bordering Russia.

Nicolai Petro has written a book about Ukraine with an intriguing title:
The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution.

Petro was part of a YouTube conversation discussing how the post-Maidan government was treating Russian speakers and the Russian culture. The government essentially gave the Russophobes a free hand. All students must attend a Ukrainian language school. Russian language schools are not permitted. Ukrainian is the required official language. Even in a restaurant, you may be forced to order in a language other than Russian.

Then, there is the persecution of the largest version of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The Russianlife website describes it this way:

Vladimir embraced Byzantine Orthodoxy and introduced it to Kiev Rus in ca. 988. This date is also known as the Baptism of Russia.

The article also mentions a monastery.

The first monastery was Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, {The Monastery of the Caves} established in 1051 and operational to this day.

Initially, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was affiliated with the church headed by the Moscow patriarch. In 2019, a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), aligned with Kyiv, was granted independence from the Moscow Patriarchate by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Now, your church choice is read as a loyalty flag. Monks of the UOC are banned from the Monastery of the Caves. In August 2024, Zelenskiy signed legislation banning religious organizations linked to the Russian Orthodox Church from operating in Ukraine.

Our leaders had ample resources to understand the risk of stirring up a hornet’s nest in this part of the world. They made an explicit promise to Gorbachev they would not move NATO eastward. But their egos are too big, and their concern for others too small. They don’t care how much bitterness they unleash. Only their goals matter.

Donald Trump’s instincts are to try to prevent World War III, but he reportedly went along with allowing missiles to go deeper into Russia and talk about ever more sanctions. Does he think that will move us further away from war?

In viewing the status of women, the period starting about a hundred years ago in North America and post-war Europe is a unique period in the median lifestyle of a woman in society. Both her home and her neighborhood shopping are entirely different. Indoor plumbing provides immediate, hot, and cold water on command. Washers and dryers simplify tasks that once took significant effort.

Ancient royalty would envy the modern person about meals. A hundred years ago, we had literal “iceboxes” with ice, milk, and beer delivered daily. Our refrigerator freezers let us shop and store milk, beer, ice cream, TV dinners, and many international foods. Stoves, ovens, and microwaves can heat food with little physical effort.

More importantly, these tools and aids give women time to explore their interests. They can pursue their education or career. Homes have lighting and entertainment, allowing for simple relaxation.

Now that you have settled in and are ready to take that all for granted, I am going to be rude. Those who engage in Bible studies read about women going to the well and carrying water home. You may think a life different from yours is a thing of the past. It is not.

A recent conference in London called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship featured a remarkable number of common-sense discussions by notable people about the state of the world.

One talk was especially riveting for anyone remotely interested in improving the lot of women in the world. Robert Bryce’s The People Climate Activists Leave Behind can be summarized in the title of one slide:

At least 47% of the world’s population lives without that freedom. One slide had the following information:

Consider a world without electricity and appliances or running water. There is no water in your house unless you go to get it and carry it back to the house. How do people in your home get clean clothes? You wash them by hand. Bryce notes that 2.5 billion women and girls still wash clothes by hand.

Cooking meals is much more difficult and dangerous in a world without gas or electric stoves. You burn whatever is flammable. Often, that is biomass, including dung.

Given that level of misery, you would think the wealthy women of the world would want to get electricity to the poor as soon as possible to alleviate the problem, get those women a better life, and open a world of education for them. Sadly, the more fortunate women are too busy saving the planet to help.

The great cause of the day is “NetZero” and “Renewable Energy.” Bryce has a chart showing the top 25 organizations in what he calls “The Climatism Industry” are part of a $4.7 Billion Per Year Business. That’s almost two dollars a year for every woman washing clothes by hand.

The World Economic Forum, European Union, and establishment political parties are locked in on this. He cites the case of a country called Ginnea-Bissau. It is desperately poor, with a per capita income of $982 and CO² emissions of 0.17 tons. But that doesn’t matter. The World Bank still wants them to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030. These people use virtually nothing, but if they use anything, the fanatics demand they cut.

As you can tell, if I hadn’t kept using Mr. Bryce’s name, I would be guilty of plagiarism in this article. I admit it is a “book report” of his speech. I will repeat the link and urge you to watch:

I could quote more from the end of his talk, but I want you to hear his excellent phrasing directly. He has a superb way of getting to the heart of the matter and coining phrases that will stick with you. His entire talk is excellent, but the ending is terrific.

I will wrap this up by saying we have a choice. Even if we could go carbon neutral, we can’t be sure it will matter in terms of saving the planet. By denying the world’s poor access to cheap energy, we are undoubtedly keeping them from reaching their potential. This is especially true for women.

Anyone who wants the best for the world’s women might at least consider this when they are asked to donate to groups working to keep energy from the world’s poor.

We are currently seeing Trump Derangement Syndrome, but I’ve been around for a long time, and I’ve seen enough similar instances to call it Republican Derangement Syndrome. I recall Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes being assumed wrong because of their party label. I’ve also seen Democrats treated as if they had 4- or 5-digit IQs.

Donald Trump’s maneuvering on tariffs is essential for several reasons. His background gives him a different understanding of what is important and why products must be made here even if they cost more. Understanding that his starting position in any bargaining situation is not his final target is also helpful. He rattles cages and shakes things up to get things moving.

Free Trade and Comparative Advantage

In an ideal world, there would be no tariffs. Everybody would determine their cost to produce various products. That would include natural resources, proximity (coastal people fish, inland people hunt), manufacturing capacity, access to energy, skill sets, etc. Whenever one group had a comparative advantage in producing a given product, they would focus on exporting that product and use the revenue to buy products that others make more efficiently.

Reciprocity

The most apparent reason for tariffs is reciprocity. Why do we give them Free Trade if they don’t want Free Trade?

Protectionism

Tariffs and other trade barriers are used to protect an industry or product. Countries often do this when they are in the early stages of industrialization and want to protect their “baby companies” from more established foreign competition. Agricultural tariffs, strict limits, and other delays protect local crops from foreign equals. European countries are famous for this. Some products have subsidies higher than the annual income of the African farmers who produce competing products blocked from European markets.

Protectionism seems unfair and one-sided. It appears to risk tariff wars with no real purpose or benefits.

Punish Bad Actions

What purpose could there be to the kind of trouble President Trump is causing by raising the tariff issue?

First, he has a legitimate concern about Canada and Mexico and their lax attitude about bad things coming from their countries into the U.S. These problems have been ignored for a long time. Victor Davis Hanson, a scholar at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, has produced two YouTube videos describing multiple severe imbalances and problems that Trump is trying to address with Canada and Mexico.

The presence of drug cartels and other illegal activities in Mexico is well known. They are letting China ship auto components to Mexico for final assembly to avoid tariffs on Chinese goods. Hanson also discusses the massive flow of people into the U.S. and the massive amount of money from drugs and remittances that goes back to Mexico. He notes that much of the non-drug money comes from social services funds.

Both countries are letting China ship Fentanyl precursors to their shores and allowing or even aiding the shipping of some version of the product to the USA.

There are problems in Canada, with the help of Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party. An article by Chris George has details on both the production and shipping of Fentanyl and Canada’s role in making money laundering easy. It has links to other detailed articles on the subject.

The Liberals are trying to make Trump the “bad guy” in their upcoming national elections, and our media’s Trump Delusional Syndrome won’t let them bother to look for truth. It is a shame. It’s better to pick on Trump than stop the flow of drugs.

Other Reasons to Protect Domestic Production

Trump is a builder, hotelier, and former President. These positions require an awareness of logistics and supply chains. A builder needs certain components and workers on-site at specific times to use both efficiently. Hotels have problems if the supplies for the day’s events are not available that day. When COVID hit in his prior term, he constantly needed to get various supplies and equipment to different hospitals at different emergency schedules.

A nation must make many of the things it uses by and for itself to have the first call on these things. During the Covid crisis, nations limited certain exports to ensure they had enough for their own people. This is reasonable. But it means that every country needs to make sure it can produce the essential materials on its own for its own.

We must forego paying the lowest possible price for every item we use. Trump is putting tariffs on steel and aluminum. We will also have to pay more for medicines. Yes. We could get them cheaper if the foreign government subsidizes their producers to lower costs. We need to produce enough of them here to ensure that if there is a crisis, we can meet our needs.

War and Logistics

War is a specific crisis where a nation can’t depend on another country for essential supplies. America was coming out of the Depression and had vast amounts of unused factory capacity and resources. We became the “Arsenal of Democracy” and produced virtually everything the allies needed in overwhelming numbers. The Axis powers couldn’t destroy our weapons at anywhere near the rate we were making them.

No serious nation can have any component of its military hardware produced by a possible enemy. Neither can it depend on such a nation for any essential product, including energy, food, or medicine. These must be produced internally.

Reasonable Costs

The need to ensure that critical products are produced here will increase the costs of those products. It will help the economy by creating more jobs. We can reduce the impact if we pick the most cost-effective energy policy.

These policies are needed. There are priorities far more critical than getting every product at the lowest possible price.

Trump learned in the 2016 campaign not to trust anything he heard from the so-called experts in the defense and intelligence establishments in Washington. They were not only wrong, but they also deliberately lied and lied about him. His campaign and term were tied up by the lie about "Russian collusion" and a fictional episode in a hotel room. These stories have been told so often that many still think they're true.

Washington Post reporter Jonathan Capehart may be one of those believers. He recently said:

I thought the low point for America on the world stage was the Trump‑Putin press conference in Helsinki in 2017, when the president of the United States sided with the president of Russia against his own national intelligence apparatus.

It is easy to understand why Trump would believe almost anyone other than people he knows to be liars. That is why he named Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. She doesn't trust them either.

Trump has a clear plan and goal for resolving the Ukraine problem. He understands that Putin did not create Russia's requirements vis-à-vis Ukraine. They were described in an internal U. S. State Department document before Putin was born in 1952. That paper was written in 1948 by George Kennan, a former ambassador to Moscow and the author of the famous "X" paper in Foreign Affairs, which was influential in setting our containment policy against the Soviets.

A Foreign Policy magazine article by Frank Costigliola in early 2023 explained Russia's views on Ukraine and his warnings over time. In 1948, Kennan wrote:

"[T]here is no clear dividing line between Russia and Ukraine, and it would be impossible to establish one." Second, the Russian and Ukrainian economies were intertwined. Setting up an independent Ukraine "would be as artificial and as destructive as an attempt to separate the Corn Belt, including the Great Lakes industrial area, from the economy of the United States."

* * *

Again, Kennan likened the Russian view of Ukraine to the American view of the Midwest. A separate, independent Ukraine could "be maintained, in the last analysis, only by force." For all these reasons, a hypothetical triumphant United States should not seek to impose Ukrainian independence on a prostrate Russia.

Trump understands the arrogant view that NATO can expand right up to Russia's border is a primary point of contention. NATO has no right to insist that Russia trust its motives are now and always will be pure. Russia's view is simple. NATO is a military alliance built to protect against the Soviet Union, which no longer exists. It has no purpose now other than to threaten a much smaller and weaker Russia. Having all the countries on its borders a part of NATO and able to launch attacks and missiles with virtually no notice is unacceptable. Russia will not accept Ukraine as a member of NATO.

Americans aren't used to living in a world where invasions are a frequent part of their history. For Russians, it has been, "How have we been invaded? Let us count the ways!" Russia will insist on keeping Crimea to have a warm water port at Sevastopol and to ensure it doesn't become a NATO port. They will also refuse to yield the provinces or oblasts in the eastern area of Ukraine known as Donbas.

Trump is determined to reduce the spending and risk involved in having our troops deployed all over the world. He is willing to have Americans as a buffer in Ukraine if they are unarmed civilians and America is making money instead of spending it. A mineral rights commercial deal does that. They will not be a threat to Russia but will still serve as a "tripwire" to let the Ukrainians know that we will be unhappy if the Russians attack and harm our people. Troops cost us a lot of money, and we get nothing. Mineral rights are profitable.

Trump is also getting tired of being lectured by a bunch of self-righteous, arrogant, cheap-skate European leaders who haven't noticed their countries no longer lead the world. He is trying to determine what to do about international organizations and courts that issue arrogant rulings they can't enforce but cause PR issues.

NATO is causing all kinds of grief. The latest is an episode in Norway. After the recent tiff in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy, an arrogant Norwegian fuel company, Haltbakk Bunkers, decided to stop refueling U.S. military ships. We don't need this grief. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) had the correct answer. Let's leave NATO.

Trump is also determined to prevent the outbreak of World War III. Britain and France are talking about a "coalition of the willing" to keep killing young Slavic men. Oops. I mean to keep fighting a losing war to try to win back territory from Russia. They are doing this even though their economies are in chaos, and fuel costs are disastrously higher. They could use the money to help their people, and ending the sanctions would help economies worldwide.

They are also talking about putting their troops on the ground in Ukraine. That's another reason to leave NATO or be very clear about our understanding of Article 5, which says that an attack on one requires a response from all. Putin has been clear that if Russia itself is harmed by missiles made in a NATO country, such as France or Britain, he will consider it as an attack by that country even if rockets were launched from Ukraine.

If a pugnacious France tries to fight Russia by sending its missiles into Russia from Ukrainian sites, Russia will feel free to attack France directly. Trump must either withdraw from NATO or let these folks know how he will interpret Article 5 if the so-called "coalition of the willing" insists on continuing a war Trump is determined to stop. He must be clear that provoking Russia into an attack doesn't trigger Article 5 and World War III.

History has judged the victorious leaders in World War I harshly for their actions at the end of that war. Vindictive and harsh penalties imposed on Germany were seen as a contributing factor to the rise of Hitler and a significant influence in World War II. The post-war treatment of Germany and Japan was very different based on this understanding of prior actions.

When World War II ended, a "Cold War" began between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both sides had buffer zones. We had oceans and complained loudly when the Soviets tried to put nuclear missiles in Cuba. Two military alliances existed in Europe. The U. S. led the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Soviets led the Warsaw Pact. Their buffer didn't extend all that far. Finland sat on their border and was neutral. Heading west, NATO came as close as the middle of Germany, but there was some distance. They expressed concern when we talked about putting certain types of missiles in various European locations. Both countries measured travel times and missile speeds to determine how much time they would have to react after an attack. This caution was not paranoia in a world of "Mutually Assured Destruction."

The Cold War lasted about 44 years (1945-1989) and ended with the fall of the Soviet Union. In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev attended international meetings to discuss the possibility of a united Germany. This idea troubled many people throughout Europe, but Russia had special reasons for concern. Russia has no oceans as borders against enemies. It has been invaded endlessly. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia did not have the string of Warsaw Pact states as shields against Western Europe or Germany.

NATO's enemy, the Soviet Union, was gone. Russia wanted to be willing to interact commercially with Europe. It had crops and petroleum products to sell. Gorbachev agreed to the unification of Germany when he thought he was promised what he needed. But America's word was no good. He thought James Baker and others had promised that NATO would move "not one inch eastward."

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion
Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker's famous "not one inch eastward" assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University

(http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

Instead, NATO moved to absorb almost every nation up to Russia. Six former Warsaw Pact nations had become part of NATO before the Ukraine incursion: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Also, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were part of NATO. They weren't Warsaw Pact countries because they weren't separate enough from Russia to have a distinct role. Moscow's leaders wondered if NATO would stop before the Bering Strait.

Recent revelations about the actions of the Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) prove that the so-called "conspiracy theories" about CIA interference in European politics were not theories. NATO supporters complained about Russian interference and argued that support for the West and NATO was always and only purely "grassroots." Instead, it turns out that much of the green cash in the "green grass" supporting NATO was "astroturf."

When the public votes for a more neutral position or even a position favorable to using Russian energy resources, western leaders refuse to accept it. Romania's supreme court just canceled an election that produced an "unacceptable" result.

A.I.D. interference in Ukraine and the nation of Georgia has gone beyond Russia's stated redlines. To be clear, these are not Putin's arbitrary decisions but the Russian leadership's shared views. These nations border Russia. They are not ninety miles away like Cuba.

In 2014, Russia thought it would get a lease for the base and port at Sevastopol at the tip of Crimea. In February 2014, democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych tried to work with both sides. He was about to lease the Crimean port of Sevastopol to the Russians. When he tried to do this "balancing act" between West and East, a "Maidan Revolution" occurred with help from the National Endowment for Democracy and various NGOs. U.S. Senators John McCain (R‑AZ) and Chris Murphy (D‑CT) traveled to Kyiv to show their support for the revolution. Some embarrassing recordings surfaced. U.S. State Department official Victoria Nuland discussed who Ukraine's next leader should or should not be. Her choice did, indeed, win.

Putin's reaction was swift. He sent troops in to reclaim Crimea as part of Russia.

That was 2014. In 2021 and 2022, another set of warnings and misunderstandings existed before Russia went into Ukraine with the "Special Military Operation."

Again, there is a misunderstanding. Our leaders believe they are pure and wonderful and can't understand why anyone could disagree with them or feel threatened by them anywhere. Domestically, they refuse to believe voters could fail to see their wisdom. Internationally, they refuse to understand some nations view their actions as threatening. Those nations won't change their forms of government and their societies to meet some Kumbaya vision of Davos.

Those who want to keep their way of life see self-righteous nations trying to impose their will in every possible way. Countries aligned against them use force, sanctions, and courts to get the results they want. There is nothing friendly or benevolent in those actions. Those who resist will defend themselves in every way they can.