Foolish Mammon

One cannot look upon the horrors of war wracking Ukraine and think anything of God can be found in its cause.

However, for all of Putin's evil and, in particular his anti-monarchism I cannot fault him from desperately scrambling to break NATO's encroachment and encirclement of Russia, from securing Crimea (which I personally maintain did belong to Russia to begin with, its transferral to Ukraine was a mistake and even if there was some funny business in the plebiscite that transferred it to Russia, that it was always going to be a majority landslide was without doubt), and for playing economic hardball with Europe by turning off the gas and refusing to buy western products, particularly food. Make no mistake, Putin closing his markets to us is hurting European economies more than anyone wants to admit.

Now we have the foolishness of America lowering the value of its own dollar, artificially bringing down the price of oil to the lowest it has been worldwide in a decade. Anyone with a shred of sense should be looking at this sudden abundance of cheap oil with wide eyed alarm, and it is another attempt to break the Russian Economy (and that of Iran's) for the sake of this new influence war where world leaders no longer care about how much they are destroying civilization in the process. For some, unknown bloody reason the west is trying to provoke the Russian bear who is sending subs off the coast of that Feminized embarassment to civilization known as Sweden just to remind people the ursine has claws and teeth still.

I stand here and watch two markets crash, the American and the Russian and have no doubt Russia will likely hit the ground first but I know all too well how this is not going to matter a damn. Russia, people often forget, is filled with Russians. And Russians don't give a damn. They will gladly endure the sufferings of crippling depression for a few short years if it means humiliating America, who they see as a hate filled enemy. And the west continues to pound the same war drum it pounded against the taliban, against Iraq, against Assad in Syria and now we are portraying Putin as some kind of Hitlerite monster.

Its almost as if we want a war.

Now do not make the mistake I am advocating appeasing Putin, I am not. Russia, historically is terrible at offensive wars against the west unless they are part of a wider alliance. Putin knows this and a war would be next to fruitless for Russia, no, Russia knows it fights best when it fights defensively and without the Soviet Union it does not have to prop up shadow wars in far flung nations to project itself anymore. If anything, Putin knows if he is going to fight a war, he's going to fight it on Russian soil where the West, historically, will never win. Its the difference between a risky gamble and a sure thing, this is why I am unconvinced at best and cynically sceptical at worst at the fearmongering of the media towards Russia, which is arguably becoming more Christian and Holy in spite of its dictatorship compared to the West and its shadow police states (remember those? And we think we're the good guys). Meaning we do not have to give Russia anything, I am just saying provoking the bear is foolish and, worse than that, useless. The Russians will endure any hardship if they see it as the fault of foreigners. Which lets be fair, as bad as Putin is, their suffering will be our fault.

Personally the Ukraine crisis could be solved with a hefty dose of Realpolitik. Acknowledge Crimea as Russia's internationally, boot the fascists out of Kiev and have the government there give legal status to the Russian language and ensure protection for the Russian population there (which is a very sizeable minority anyway) instead of demonizing them. Work out economic deals and concessions with Russia IN RETURN FOR Russian acknowledgement of Ukraine as within the European sphere. What does this achieve? Putin saves face domestically, he is known as the president who got back Crimea and their economic concerns regarding Eastern Ukraine (which are beyond substantial) are protected. What do we get? Ukraine as a Western aligned buffer state, albeit one with trade concessions to Russia but which benefits from the EU (it won't but if I get started on the foolishness of the EU's actions regarding Ukraine I'd be here all day) and, more importantly, we open up the Russian market to the European and the American markets again, facilitating trade and the flow of goods back and forth which can only ever be a good thing.

No one really wins in this scenario but you know what the point of it is? No one loses either, and a war is stopped. But no because of Europe's self destructive ambition at creating a secular, culturally myopic mittle europa and America's desperate attempts to maintain international hegemony at the cost of everything else, we will never stoop so low as acknowledge the Russians as people, Russia as a great nation with concerns and interests of its own and we will not assume Putin is a reasonable man who understands realpolitik and can make the best of a bad situation. It is domination or destruction, a total war mindset completely out of proportion to the problem at hand. We will not deal with a dictator.

Oh but we're fine with dealing with repressive Suadi Arabia, the monstrous regime in Peking and perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to the horror of radical Islam here at home.

And people wonder why I so adamantly despise ideological governments.