Even though I’m convinced the United States and NATO are determined to sit out this Russian invasion of Ukraine, I don’t see any chance whatsoever that this conflict would not ultimately lead to World War III, unless the whole world intervenes.
As it is, we are already on that slippery slope towards transglobal conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin has began bombing nuclear power plants in Ukraine, including the biggest nuclear reactor in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which supplies one-fifth of all electricity in Ukraine.
The danger is mitigated for now, radiation levels remaining normal. But remember Russian planes are using bunker buster bombs capable of destroying hardened structures. You don’t even have to destroy a nuclear reactor’s radiation containment done. Even a hairline crack leads to the same result: a catastrophic radiation leak that cannot be put out like an ordinary fire.
Nightmarishly, such a leak literally transforms every molecule in the air into a bomb that doesn’t stop exploding—it just keeps emitting lethal radioactive waves that turn everything it hits just as radioactive.
A conventional bomb only explodes once, destroying itself as well. But an uncontained nuclear incident sparks an atomic reaction that lasts for thousands of years.
When the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which is also in Ukraine, was damaged in a peacetime accident in April 1986, the cloud of radioactive particles drifted across vast areas of Eastern Europe. Since countries around that portion of Europe are mainly dairy-producing and wine-producing countries, it took the rest of the world, including the Philippines, months to take out every suspected radioactive gallon of milk, bottle of wine, cheese, beef and cold cuts from grocery shelves all over the world.
US President Joe Biden emphasized during his State of the Union address that no American troops will be deployed in Ukraine. The US will, however, expedite the delivery to the Ukraine military of shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and Javelin anti-armor missiles to stop a full-on advance of Russian troops into Ukraininan soil.
Ordinarily edgier NATO allies have even supplied Ukraine with advanced aircraft and weaponized drones to actually participate in repulsing a ground invasion, short of actually sending airborne divisions to drop boots on the ground.
The strategy, it seems, is to arm the Ukrainian army to the teeth so that they can repel any invasion by themselves, while their international armorers watch the fighting on CNN, FoxNews and BBC. That is a naïve mindset uncharacteristic of the West that loves to rhapsodize about “dying for democracy” etc.
First of all, Putin is obviously not using ground troops so much in these early days of his invasion. He’s using long-range artillery and intermediate-range surface-to-surface missiles, firing unlimited volleys right from Russian territory.
Since US and NATO will not send troops into Ukraine, Putin knows they are even more unlikely to engage him on Russian territory. So as long as his military foot print is entirely on Russian soil, he can keep lobbing shells across European borders all he wants.
He also doesn’t need to occupy Ukraine. Just aim a few missiles at some residential buildings and it’s enough to trigger an exodus of refugees spilling across the border into Europe, leaving Ukraine empty and “ready for occupancy” for Russian settlers, the better with which Putin can pacify unrest back home. He can offer the Russian proletarium free fully-furnished housing in Kyiv and other upscale Ukraininan cities, ultimately consolidating support for his war efforts among his restive constituents.
Meanwhile, the US and European nations are still enamored by their own elitist thinking that if you seize luxury yachts and freeze bank accounts holding ill-gotten wealth of Russian oligarchs, you would bring this thieving fraternity down on their knees and, several layers of consequential analyses later, stop the war.
Listen, if there’s anything you don’t mind losing, it’s money that isn’t yours in the first place, especially since you know how easy it was to amass that wealth.
All Americans have to do to realize this is to read childrens’ bedside stories, like that one about cutting the goose that lays the golden egg. Made to choose between losing their stash of golden eggs and propping up their golden egg-laying goose Vladimir Putin, it’s a no-brainer to guess which option they’ll choose.
So I’ll say it again, economic sanctions against a country that is a sizeable chunk of the global economy will NOT work. By land area, Russia is as big as China and USA combined—even bigger if you hypothetically add back all those newly-independent Eastern European countries and Baltic states that were once part of the Soviet Union. The rest of the world trades with Russia not for Russia’s sake but for their own. So talking tough to Russia is like telling the ocean you’re imposing sanction on it by refusing to catch fish from it. Right. And where, pray tell, are you going to get your fish from, the aquarium?
The moment Ukraine falls, next would be Moldovia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuainia—who knows, maybe even Poland or Bulgaria. It would be the West’s most feared scenario—the 50’s era “Domino Principle” happening in Europe instead of Asia.
Those who refuse to learn the lessons of the mistakes in history are doomed to repeat them.**
(read more articles like this here: “theunheardside.blogspot.com” )
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