04/23/24 The West Must Win

There is not a neighboring European or country in Asia which has had any interaction with Russia and Russians in their long histories which has not come to regret ever trusting their motives, intentions or words. Russians are about as close today to being the ruthless Vikings of old as exists. They will lie, cheat, steal, kill without aversion to getting whatever their want of the moment turns out to be. What they want is whatever others have that is convenient for them to take. Fins, Poles, Latvians, Georgians, or Ukrainians harbor no illusions over who and what Russians are. They are carrying forth a legacy of empire in which they see themselves as the high caste and the rest of the world their vassals. There is no such thing as an agreement, treaty, armistice or détente that is anything more than a chess move to allow Russia to seek out the next weakness in opponents to exploit. To Russians everyone is an opponent, every breath is taken toward conquest. The collapse of the Soviet Union represented the limits of extension of Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe. The Russian Federation under Putin is an attempt at a secondary rally in…