Donald Trump Stops World War III: Did His Message to Putin Make Him More Re-electable?

A peculiarity of our system of government is that it changes hands and character on a regular basis. Compared to a dictator (because that’s what he is) like Putin this completely negates any person or party’s lust for global domination or long term conquest.

Vladimir Putin can put plans in effect that span decades.

An American President can only put plans in effect that are valid until the other party takes power. After that, all bets are off, no matter which party is at what point in making plans. Look at the Tokyo and Paris Climate accords and the situation with Iran and the American stance towards developing Iranian nukes.

This is a double edged sword.

It makes it difficult to play three dimensional chess with the future but …

It keeps an American President with a lust for power from trying to take over the world with the most powerful military and ensemble of allies in the world. This is something that a justifiably paranoid Russian leader can count on. We as a country and a group of allies are not interested in conquering Russia.

This actually argues for the expansion of NATO because as long as America is the de facto head of NATO there’s just no way that NATO has the capacity to conquer Russia. America, even Democrat war hawks, don’t want a war that will be hugely costly and unpopular with their political base. It’s not that anyone is being altruistic or has a thing for being “the good guys”, it’s that it would be political suicide for an American President and his party. That’s never going to change as long as our system of government and the dynamic tension between the two parties stands.

NOTE: Democrats make all kinds of irrelevant noises about peace but don’t fool yourselves. Democrats are the Party of War because Democrats will use war as a tool of internal domestic politics. Republicans use war as a tool of external foreign policy as a rule. It’s a vital distinction.

In this manner NATO stands as a guarantee of Russian security and eliminates the threat to Russia of any European aggression.

I’ve said before many times and will say again … It’s not the intentions that matter in military planning, it’s the capacity and capability that count. That not only applies to a potential adversary’s military capacity, it also applies to an adversary’s political capacity. You have to take into account all the potential enemy’s capacity including political, social, economic and everything else that applies to capability and capacity.

Because of American predominance in NATO there is no realistic capacity to invade Russia in a war of conquest such as Russia has seen historically.

Vladimir Putin knows this.

So when we see aggression westwards from Russia, any “We’re paranoid because we’ve been burned before. We’re just trying to protect ourselves.” kind of statements from Russia are not reasons. They’re excuses. Another vital distinction.

The thing about all this is that it forces Vladimir Putin to walk a fine line. He can either keep the Russian Bear in its cage inside his own borders and work with what he has or he can contemplate conquest to increase his nation’s global power index.

The fine line he walks is that if he attempts conquest he also risks creating the very situation he claims he’s acting against. He gives the West a good reason to fight him and drive him even further down the ladder of global power.

Vladimir Putin knows this … too.

The solution for the West is actually fairly simple. If we tell Russia that we have no designs on conquering the Rodina (the Russian Homeland) and indeed do not have the capacity to be an aggressor towards Russia — but if he insists on a fight he’s going to get one he can’t win … The geopolitical situation in Europe remains stable.

That only works if Vladimir Putin knows we’re not kidding around and will indeed fight him if he sets himself up as needing to be fought.

The situation we face right now is that ol’ Vlad is doing a cost/benefit analysis and the cost of aggression might weigh out on the side of being a benefit.

This is what happens every time American Leadership of both the United States and and American influence globally becomes weak.

This isn’t really a matter of opinion involving any sort of questionability. It’s a historic, strategic fact that has to be faced by every American POTUS.

The problem for us right now is that we have a Party in power that believes that any and all problems can be solved if they can just find the right words to say. They don’t understand for some unfathomable reason that actions have to back up words. We see this across the entire gamut of social and political maneuvering by the Democrat Party. From cancel culture to political correctness to domestic social policy to foreign policy.

As long as people that believe in magical thinking are running this country we are never, ever going to be safe. For them to say we’re not in danger when we are is just more magical thinking.

This is why the Democrat Party has to be disabused of this stupid practice and brought back towards center. As Trump points out, they’re not always going to be in power but … They can do a lot of damage when they are. While they are not always going to be in power the reverse is also true. Sometimes they will be in power and that has to be accounted for too.