Is it a good thing that a nation sleepwalks or drifts into war? Shouldn’t it be a clear cut, well-considered decision? From Francis P. Sempa at realclearwire.com:
The United States and its NATO allies are slowly drifting into a war against Russia. The Biden administration and some of our NATO allies, while feigning caution and prudence, have gradually increased their involvement in Ukraine’s war effort. Some Western strategists talk of defeating Russia and forcing Vladimir Putin from power, even trying him as a war criminal. Victory, they say, is just around the corner as along as we continue to arm Ukraine.
I’m reminded of a memorable scene in the movie Nicholas and Alexandra. Russia’s generals and politicians are confidently planning the mobilization of millions of troops against Germany on a huge table-size map. Against the advice of elder statesman Count Sergei Witte (brilliantly played by Sir Laurence Olivier), Tsar Nicholas II orders a general mobilization. Witte, old and gray, slumps in his chair and softly repeats the word “madness.”
Witte had convinced the Tsar in 1905 to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War that was driving Russia to revolution. If Russia mobilized in late July 1914, Germany, France and England would mobilize, too. “Nobody will be able to stop,” warned Witte. And when Witte senses that the Tsar and his generals are not listening to him, he prophetically warns: “None of you will be here when this war ends. Everything we fought for will be lost. Everything we love will be broken […] Tradition, virtue, restraint—they all go […] And the world will be full of fanatics and trivial fools.”
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 