by John Bernard, ©2025
(Feb. 19, 2025) — Just a little something to consider vis a vis Russia/Ukraine. I DO NOT offer this as a defense of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine but rather to offer a little historical insight for how we got to this point.
As a history professor I once had correctly stated, “The story of Russia is that of a nation in search of a warm weather seaport.”
The entire modern world, by design or fate, has managed to deny Russia access to international commerce by denying it sea access. After several generations of that, genetics are remapped so that each successive generation is taught that warfare is a necessity.
Everything we have witnessed in the last 150 years — the wars, expansion, annexations, threats, etc. — have primarily been to this endgame: financial and cultural survival. Stalin’s flirtation with Communism managed to divert the entire world’s attention away from Russia’s history, making them the unforgiveable boogeyman.
There are those saying Trump has lost his mind over this.
Actually he hasn’t.
More recently, Russia annexed Crimea for two reasons: (1) they needed a warm water seaport, and (2) a large majority of those living in Crimea identify as Russian, not Ukrainian.
That eastern strip of land would give Russia land access to Crimea.
The 1989 realignment was rushed and created a Ukraine that Russia would not have agreed to given time.
Last, Zelensky, the professional actor, and Europe decided to pour salt in Russia’s open wound by announcing their intent to add Ukraine to NATO which would effectively increase NATO’s border with Russia AND which gave Putin further impetus to attack Ukraine, arguing that annexing Ukraine was now a national security imperative forced on Russia by Ukraine, Europe, the USA and NATO.
Had Trump won in 2020 he would have squashed the NATO talk and negotiated an easement to Crimea – end of problem! Not so simple now…
So yes, Zelensky, Europe, NATO and US war hawks inarticulately and unintentionally invited Putin’s incursion.
Biden and the Dems are historically stunted, martially incomprehensible, diplomatically childish and basically bumbling fools who failed to contain this on their watch!
SF
John Bernard