CALLING PUTIN’S BLUFF

It has now been nearly a month since Vladimir Putin sent 190 thousand troops to invade the peaceful democracy that has been Ukraine for 30 years. Before he even began his illegal war, and before we were even discussing his “War Crimes,” and “Crimes Against Humanity,” he was loudly warning the US and NATO not to interfere because he has nuclear weapons and would rain destruction upon us.

Shortly after this, President Biden announced numerous economic sanctions against Russia, sufficient for Putin to claim that the West was waging “economic war” against Russia. We and other NATO countries have continued to supply Ukraine with weapons including both SAMs and anti-tank weapons as well as small arms and ammunition. What they have been begging for is a “No-Fly” zone to protect innocent civilians from Russia’s indiscriminate bombing, or at least to give them the aircraft to fight for themselves. We’ve given everything except the “No-Fly” zone and the aircraft, supposedly fearing that Putin could interpret this as an escalation.

All of the above is good, and President Biden has done a good job so far, but the time has come for an “Executive Decision.” Biden needs to show strength and resolve. He does not want the MIG-29s from Poland to enter Ukraine from a US airbase in Germany because Putin might interpret this as co-belligerency. Let’s get serious. When you exclude Russia’s nuclear weapons, they are massively outclassed in a conventional war against the US and NATO, both in weaponry, technology and manpower. As much as we do not want to fight Russia and begin WWIII, neither does Putin want to fight the US. He knows the end result of the use of even tactical nuclear weapons, and while his mental state is in question, he does not appear suicidal. Moreover, does anyone seriously believe Russia would launch an attack against the US or NATO simply because Ukrainian pilots flew 29 jets out of Ramstein Joint base in Germany? No! Therefore, let’s give them the jets and let them protect themselves.

The surest guarantee of WWIII is to have learned nothing from history and take the same path the Allies took before WWII; appeasing Hitler as he promised he didn’t want any more land after whichever country he had just invaded. Nevil Chamberlain returned to London to tell the British people that Herr Hitler had promised, “Peace In Our Time.” Let’s learn from this and stop Putin now, in Ukraine, before we have to do it everywhere.