In 2001 when the United States was preparing to invade Afghanistan Vladimir Putin reached out to George W. Bush and agreed to provide logistical aid and political clout to convince the Uzbeks to let their country be a staging ground for the invasion of Afghanistan. Bush made some statement about looking into Putin’s soul. Whatever that meant there has never been any indication that we ever considered a way to have a positive relationship with Russia. And after the numerous CIA color revolutions in the former Soviet lands and now with the existential threat that we have handed the Russians in Ukraine I think we must consider we’ve made them permanent implacable enemies. And that’s not a good thing. The Russians are not the Iraqis or even the Iranians. In addition to a nuclear arsenal, they are intelligent, resourceful and highly vindictive. That’s not a good combination in an enemy.
I’m not thinking ahead to nuclear Armageddon. Let’s leave that scenario for another day. But what Russia might do is make us pay a price at home. What occurs to me is our porous southern border. And come to think of it, all of Europe’s borders. The United States and Western Europe have spent the last two decades saying that the world is welcome to traipse into their countries at will. Well, what if the Russians start sending some of our middle eastern “friends” with some munitions they provide and direct them to those borders. That would be a very frightening thing. Or how about men who claim to be Ukrainian refugees? Could we really know that they weren’t Russians? I kind of doubt it.
There hasn’t been much in the news lately about Al Qaeda or any of the other crazies that used to be in the news 24/7. But I believe they’re all mostly still there and now we’ve left them several billions of dollars’ worth of war materiel in Afghanistan and all that’s lacking is a little seed money and plans. And let’s not forget the Mexican Drug Cartels. They aren’t our friends. They have already set up shop in the border states and elsewhere and certainly wouldn’t object to some arms smuggling if the price was right. Things like infrastructure sabotage and downing airliners seem like no-brainers. How exactly would we find a needle of determined saboteurs when they’ll be hiding inside of a haystack of millions of illegal aliens that we’ve allowed to flood our country. I think the answer is we can’t.
We’re providing the Ukrainians with top-of-the-line American arms and we are assuming that the Russians won’t pay us back. Somehow that seems absurd. We’ve attempted to starve the Russians out with sanctions and we give the Ukrainians real time location of the Russian senior staff for missile targeting and we think they’ll just sit back and take it. That seems incredibly naïve.
In fact, I really wouldn’t want to be Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin or General Mark Milley. They’ve made this very personal for Vladimir Putin and his government. I don’t think they’re the kind who think of it as impersonal and just “business.” I remember reading about the prosecution of the Chechen war. It was a dirty, nasty slog where vendettas and revenge were an integral part of winning. I would not be surprised to hear that kidnapping and torture became a part of this war. The Ukrainians have already declared a blacklist of American civilians that they consider targets for assassination. It would surprise me not at all that the Russians have something similar.
So, the neocons have their war. They hate the Russians viscerally and now the Russians hate us too. Brilliant.