The Tucker Report

For awhile during the year things looked pretty bleak. The Biden Administration’s efforts to pass legislation to advance the Democratic domestic agenda were going nowhere. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority threw its weight around to scuttle Roe v. Wade’s constitutional right to abortion thereby upsetting millions of women and a significant majority of all Americans. The Russian Army was rolling across Ukraine intending to drag that unwilling country back into the Russian controlled orbit. Inflation was rearing its ugly head in the U.S. causing the Federal Reserve to initiate huge hikes in the interest rate in an effort to control the inflation. And new strains of Covid were causing increased infections threatening the relaxation of Covid control policies.

Adding to the somewhat unhappy outlook for the year were the impending mid-term elections. The out of office political party (the Republicans) typically picks up a sizeable number of both Congressional and Senatorial seats in off-year elections and the Republicans were on the march. Their ads were everywhere, condemning everything the Biden Administration had done as both useless, destroying the economy and creating the inflation which was eating away at everyone’s pocketbook. The polls and periodic interviews with “real” Americans seemed to support the idea that America was unhappy with the economy and the Biden Administration and that a red wave was the likely result of the impending election. Conservatives everywhere were going to be swept into federal, state and local offices, including Trump supporting election deniers who would take over the election supervising offices in key states to ensure that Trump and other “true” conservatives never lost another election (because it only happened as a result of massive fraud by the socialist Democrats). The Democrats would lose control of both houses of Congress, the Biden Administration’s plans would be thrown into the wastebasket, and a new wave of retributive Congressional investigations would begin into Democratic “criminal” activity. Even the Democrats seemed to be resigned to this scenario.

But to America’s great credit, the ship of state righted itself. Voters proved smarter than pollsters and political talking-heads; Ukraine and its army proved they were not about to be forced back into a Russian controlled orbit; new vaccines and built-up immunity controlled new strains of Covid allowing the American economy, schools and everyday life to open back up and flourish again, and various states began enacting protections for abortions.

The voters showed, again and again, including in the red state of Kansas, they supported abortion rights despite the Supreme Court’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. The voters also showed, again and again, by supporting rational moderates and rejecting right wing extremists for state officials controlling elections, that they care about democracy and believe our electoral system is sound. The voters also showed that while they were unhappy with some aspects of governmental policies and some elected officials, they weren’t unhappy enough to just ”throw the rascals out”. The election was basically a split decision which is a pretty decent outcome for the Biden Administration and the Democrats.

The Republicans elected enough additional Congressmen to take over the House but by a very small margin, and they failed to elect any additional Senators leaving the Democrats in charge of that body. Trump anointed “crazies” were largely defeated for all offices from Senator and Governor down through local election officials. The Democrats, and apparently the country at large breathed a large sigh of relief. Maybe the election – denying, conspiracy theory loving, autocratic leaning, white Christian nationalist fever had broken and the country could return to normal political bickering.

Don’t hold your breath – it ain’t going to be that easy. Many new Trump chosen candidates may have lost, but many of his old supporters won, including extremists like Marjorie Taylor Green, House and Senate members who voted against certifying the 2020 Presidential election results, and, of course, Kevin McCarthy, the newly elected Speaker of the House, who is now owned completely by the wingnuts. Trump’s loyal and vocal, radical populist supporters still form the solid core of the Republican Party’s base (despite their possible preference now for strongly reelected Florida Governor Ron DeSantis). They demonstrated both their power and their direction in preventing McCarthy from winning the Speakership until he bowed to their will after 14 unsuccessful ballots. Consequently, we can expect the House to engage in tit for tat investigations of Biden Administrative officials, the FBI, Justice Department, and Intelligence community as well as Hunter Biden and the President himself. The House conservatives also give every indication of intending to undermine any ongoing or intended investigation or prosecution of Trump or any other significant conservative figure or organization. We can also expect the House to stymie all Democratic initiatives as well as proposing radical Republican initiatives such as Senator Scott’s idea of sunsetting Social Security and Medicare every 5 years.

Adding to these reasons why we haven’t really turned any political corner yet are the facts that: I) the Evangelicals and white Christian nationalists haven’t gone away or changed their stripes; 2) the conservative Supreme Court hasn’t changed ( notwithstanding new Justice Jackson) and can be expected to continue ripping apart progressive laws and court decisions since the Eisenhower Administration; 3) the Fox News rabble rousers and the liars and conspiracy theorists are still with us; and 4) radical progressives in the Democratic Party keep giving all of the above lots of reasons to remain angry and alienated.

But wait, the year is likely to prove even more contentious than the above suggests. We haven’t even mentioned the report of the January 6 Committee which is smoldering over at the Justice Department ready to light a new Trump directed legal conflagration. On top of that are the other on-going Trump investigations, including the Special Counsel looking into Trump’s handling of classified documents at Mar-A-Lago (more on that below), the Georgia District Attorney’s investigation of his attempted interference with the Georgia presidential vote count, and the New York investigations into his business and tax practices.

On the other side of the political ledger sheet will be investigations by House committees into Hunter Biden’s business affairs and any questionable involvement therein of Joe Biden while Vice-President or President; and now, thanks to Joe Biden’s inexcusably negligent handling of classified information, a Special Counsel investigation into that. Ordinarily, one could assume because there are investigations into both Presidents’ handling of classified information, political expediency would lead them both to be resolved without charges being filed. But since they are both being handled by Special Counsels, political expediency may not be a factor.

Finally, there is the ongoing war in Ukraine which shows no signs of settlement and every possibility of growing larger. Despite growing disagreement in conservative Republican ranks with our ever-growing funding of the Ukraine war effort, it seems evident that the U.S. along with NATO allies will not only keep supporting Ukraine but will also, somewhat reluctantly, start sending more modern weapons systems, including tanks, to Ukraine to counter any Russian effort to turn the war in its favor. More importantly, during this year, the West will have to take a closer look at whether this isn’t the best opportunity to really hand Putin a defeat and force him out of office. At the same time, they will probably have to face down harsher nuclear saber rattling from Putin, who knows his army can’t win against a Ukraine armed with modern western weapons. This, not the Trump litigations or the machinations of the Republican radicals in charge of the House, may well be the most important issue of this year, both for the President and for the country.

THT

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Wow! No summer political doldrums around here. It has been an extremely eventful summer and it is still not over. One major event after another has our political heads spinning as we try to figure out what it all means to a country in the greatest political crisis since the Civil War. Let’s take the above events one at a time and try to assess their meaning and importance.

Liz Cheney’s primary loss in her congressional house seat race was not a surprise, but the size of it (about 70-30) was. As the only major Republican politician leading a charge against Trump’s continuing lies about his loss in the 2020 Presidential election and spearheading the Congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s role therein, Cheney had a Trump conservative target on her political back. But given her Republican genes and policy bonafides, one might have thought she still should have had a decent chance of winning. The size of her defeat simply underlines the Trump wing’s control of the Republican Party. But, she could have her revenge if she leads a 3rd party conservative ticket in the 2024 Presidential election, splitting the conservative vote and handing the election to the Democrats.

The Mar-A-Logo warrant backed search for documents held at Trump’s Florida residence is all about missing classified documents. It’s certainly true that nothing like this has ever happened to a former President before, so “yes” conspiracy-minded conservatives, Trump was treated differently by law enforcement authorities than other former Presidents. Why did the federal authorities pursue it with a search warrant? Because nobody in the military or intelligence communities, or anybody with half a brain and a care about our national security, trusts Trump with classified information. He’s a loose canon who views his own interests as paramount. Remember, he’s the President who held closed meetings with Russian President Putin with no other American present and no notes taken. But he was given plenty of notice and opportunity to disclose to federal authorities exactly what he possessed and to negotiate transfer and arrangements for using them, but he didn’t. Why? Because unlike almost any other former President, he continues to harbor a deep disdain for the federal government and believes himself largely above its laws. That’s why his supporters ginned up a loud complaint about continuing harassment of Trump by federal authorities, supported by their totally inept claim that Trump had automatically declassified any materials brought to Mar-A-Lago without going through any legally required declassification procedure. Who wins this legal and publicity battle will largely depend on what classified documents Trump was maintaining at his resort residence and what the redacted FBI affidavit shows about the reasons for the search. Criminal charges would be an extreme outcome of this investigation, and probably should not be unless something truly egregious is involved. Fights between former Presidents and the National Archives are not completely unusual, and should not, except in extremely serious circumstances, result in criminal charges.

The missing January 6 text messages are a big deal! One of the key issues about the Jan. 6 insurrection is why there was no National Guard backup for the Capitol Police on Jan. 6. They should have been at least on standby, if not on premises, from the outset given the information law enforcement authorities had about the march on the Capitol in the days before. During the insurrection, numerous frantic calls went out to the White House, the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security pleading for National Guard support which went unanswered for hours. Now, it seems all of the phone and text records of senior Trump officials at those departments ((as well as the records of the Secret Service) on that day have been intentionally eliminated. It seems logical to assume (and therefore highly likely) that these records would have demonstrated something that the Trump Administration didn’t want publicly known: to wit, that these officials were given orders from Trump himself not to interfere with the mob at the Capitol because they were doing Trump’s bidding. It is imperative that we get to the bottom of this issue as it could be the final piece of evidence needed to file criminal charges against him for seditious conspiracy which would probably be the most serious charge any of the investigations could lead to. If substantiated by compelling evidence, these charges must be brought to openly declare and prove that in the American democracy, nobody is above the law, including a former President.

The enactment of the Democrats’ climate bill (“Inflation Reduction Act”) earlier this month is a big step forward for this country and a major political victory for the Biden Administration. The earlier and much larger bill which contained billions of dollars for social programs in addition to an even larger climate change provisions was killed by unanimous Republican opposition and the opposition of Democrat Joe Manchin. The whole project seemed dead in the water (and with it, most of Biden’s aspirations to pass meaningful legislation). However, through quiet conversations between Biden and Manchin they managed to revive a much smaller but still very significant version of it (without most of the social provisions), and they got it through the Senate by hoodwinking Republican leader Mitch McConnell for once. This gives the Biden Administration and Democrats generally a significant and badly needed boost going into the mid-term elections later this year. It also shows the importance of flexibility and compromise if Congress is ever going to break through the existing partisan gridlock.

We have an overload of major problems facing our country and the world, including but not limited to an impending climate crisis of biblical proportions; a growing chasm of income inequality leaving millions unable to meet basic needs of food and shelter while the ultra rich luxuriate on their mega yachts; a very dangerous competition for world domination with Russia and China with an active proxy war going on in Ukraine; a culture and political war so deep, many believe civil war could break out; a public which is armed to the teeth with assault weapons supported by a political party which thinks armed neighbors are an effective means of public safety; a conservative Supreme Court which wants to eliminate all social, political and economic progress made in the last 75 or more years; and a political system so polarized it has rendered the federal government largely dysfunctional for the past generation.

In this situation, it is a breath of fresh air to hear about the impending likelihood of a new supposedly centrist political party being formed in the fall named “Forward”. According to newspaper reports at the end of July, this new party is being spearheaded by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former Republican Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman. It involves a merger of the “Renew America Movement” formed in 2021 by “dozens” of former Republican officials in the Reagan, Bush I and II, and Trump Administrations, Yang’s “Forward” party, and the “Serve America Movement” which is a group of Democrats, Republicans and Independents founded by former Republican Congressman David Jolly. Although it is too early to tell how much of an impact this new political party could have, it will be a major blessing if it undermines what remains of the Republican Party under Donald Trump. Liz Cheney would probably be a great fit for this new party as one of its leaders!

The Republican Party, led initially by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, has been vilifying the Democratic Party for over 30 years in apocalyptic terms, has been actively blocking virtually all Democratic legislative initiatives for the last 20 years (with the exception of this year’s infrastructure bill), has blocked any action on the ugly and tragic gun culture in this country, has failed and refused to do anything about the looming climate cataclysm, refuses to recognize or deal with the dangerous and growing problem of income inequality, and intentionally keeps reducing federal tax revenues in order to undermine the federal government’s ability to enact social programs. The Republican Party has been largely captured by radical conservatives, evangelicals and macho white nationalists. A majority of them still support Donald Trump, who was hands down the worst U.S. president in history. They are unable to differentiate truth from falsehood, consumed by conspiracy theories, and believe that the last election was stolen from Donald Trump. Because of the latter believed falsehood, they are actively passing laws at the state level to make it more difficult for everyone to vote except their own supporters. The Republican Party also thinks everyone should carry a concealed weapon and be subject to the moral authority of some church (how they square those two ideas is beyond human comprehension). The Republican Party claims to be the party of individual liberty and freedom from government interference except when it comes to women and abortion. The Republican Party does not believe the federal government is a force for good, except for the Defense Department, and have actively worked for the past 30 years to undermine its effective functioning.

The Republican Party has been unable to reform itself and ceased some time ago to be a positive force in this country. The few remaining good leaders in the party need to abandon it instead of tacitly helping the Trump wing to flourish. The Republican Party needs to be replaced by a more responsible political party and we hope “Forward” is it.

The Democratic Party is better motivated to use the federal government in the public’s interest, but it also has serious flaws. It increasingly looks at all issues through identity group lenses – particularly race. That is a prescription for increasing friction among racial and other identity groups, not reducing them. A significant segment of the public already feels they have been disadvantaged by policies that benefitted other ethnic and racial groups. Adopting policies and programs that intentionally use race or ethnicity, rather than financial status, as a qualifying factor, as Democrats tend to do, will create problems, not solve them. The Democrats also need to learn more fiscal restraint – just throwing money at problems doesn’t always solve them and often leads to corruption and waste. A new more responsible, centrist political party will force the Democratic Party to moderate its more extreme ideas.

The next few months should be a barnburner! Hopefully, we’ll be on the outside and not the inside.

THT

In the space of a few days, the conservative majority Supreme Court has taken a giant step forward in achieving the conservative and evangelical dream of erasing the social and legal progress of the last 50 years in America. They overruled Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in this country. They eviscerated the power of the EPA to combat climate change by regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and the power of other regulatory agencies, including the FTC, the SEC and the FCC by withdrawing their authority to take any action which could be considered to involve major economic or political significance without the express approval of Congress. In two cases, they poked more holes in the church-state barrier by, in one case, supporting the right of a high school football coach to publicly exercise his faith on the field after a game; and in the other, supporting the right of religious schools to receive public education funds when private (non-religious) schools receive them. Finally, they overruled a 100 year old New York law limiting the right to carry concealed weapons.

Let us be absolutely clear about the motivation and impact of these decisions. With the exception of the decision overruling Roe v. Wade which was a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice Roberts voting against, all of these decisions were completely along party lines with the 6 conservative Republican appointees voting in favor and all 3 Democratic appointees voting against. They were not decisions clearly supported by existing precedent, nor were they decisions clearly dictated by the facts of the case. In the case of Dobbs v. Jackson, dealing with abortion, it was not necessary to overrule Roe v. Wade to decide the case favorably for the pro lifers; all the Court had to do was uphold the Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks. Furthermore, none of these decisions constitute good public policy, nor would they be supported by a majority of Americans. What they were obviously was political decisions hewing carefully to current conservative Republican ideology despite what these justices said at their Senate confirmation hearings. They demonstrate a Supreme Court majority throwing aside their professional and legal duty to decide cases on the facts and the law in favor of pursuing a political ideology.

Leaving aside the abortion, gun control and separation of church and state issues for the moment, let’s look at the more esoteric issue of the power of the administrative agencies like the EPA, FTC and SEC. All of these agencies were set up by Congress to regulate specific areas of the economy and to be largely independent of the executive branch. Their regulatory authority granted by Congress generally included the right to issue binding regulations (after public review and comment) and the power to take enforcement action for violations. The general background and motivation for their establishment was the realization by Congress that it did not have the time, nor the expertise to continually regulate large sectors of the economy. So the Congress itself, over many decades starting in 1887 with the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to regulate railroads, set up these various administrative agencies (and there are several more) to take over a regulatory function which the Congress felt itself ill equipped to perform. Now the conservative majority Supreme Court, disregarding decades of practice in this country, has taken on itself to undo a major aspect of what Congress itself set up over decades. It has told the administrative agencies, you can do the minor things within your statutory purview, but any major issue has to go back to Congress for approval. This is, of course, not what Congress had in mind when it set up these agencies, because if it were, Congress would have said so in the enabling legislation.

Now, in a perfect world, where Congress functioned rationally, effectively and on a timely basis, this might work. But as the rest of the country well and unfortunately knows, but the Supreme Court apparently either doesn’t or doesn’t care, the Congress of the United States is a completely disfunctional body and has been so for at least the last 20 years. They are not going to deal with major issues of regulatory authority that are referred to them. They didn’t want these issues in the first place and that’s why they set up the administrative agencies. So the Supreme Court has thrown a huge monkey wrench into the functioning of the federal government. But, surprise, surprise, that has been a major goal of the conservative movement for 30-40 years. They don’t want a well- functioning federal government, they want a small, ineffective federal government with a very large defense department. Again, the conservative Supreme Court majority is happy to assist the conservative movement to realize its dreams regardless of the facts or the law or the public good.

Turning to the Dobbs v. Jackson case which overruled Roe v. Wade, the majority opinion of the Court asserts as a major basis of its ruling, that there never had been a right to have an abortion in this country until Roe as there had been state statutes in many states for many decades prohibiting abortion. This majority opinion completely (and probably intentionally) overlooks the fact that in the 18th Century in America, abortion was completely legal up until the time of “quickening” (fetal movement) at about 4 1/2 months. (This is according to Univ. of Chicago Law Prof. Geoffrey R. Stone who was the law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Brennan at the time of Roe v. Wade’s decision.) This means that this was the case at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Under the “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution which is supposedly practiced by the conservative majority of today’s court, this was undoubtedly the understanding of both the drafters and the adopting voters of the Constitution, and should be the leading guide to interpreting the Constitution.

Abortion did not become illegal in this country until after the Second Great Awakening (religious revival) in the first half of the 19th century when religious leaders decided that life began at conception and that taking any life was contrary to God’s commandments. Hence criminalizing abortion was a recent, religiously driven public policy decision. According to studies, abortion has been practiced since ancient times. In ancient Greece and Rome, if there was any punishment for abortion, it was only because the husband complained that it violated his rights. There is no express statement about abortion in either the Old or New Testament of the Bible. Today, abortion is prohibited altogether in only 24 countries. 73 countries basically allow it on demand with varying gestational limits. Access to safe abortion has been recognized as a human right by numerous international authorities.

In the New York gun law case, the conservative majority used exactly opposite reasoning than in the abortion case. The New York law had been in effect for over a century as a reasonable and normally contitutionally protected means of protecting public safety by limiting people’s ability to carry concealed weapons. In the Dobbs case overruling the right to abortion, the conservative majority, (overlooking 18th century and before history) used the absence of a long history of permissible abortion as a grounds for denying its right. In the gun law case, the conservative majority found that the long history of gun control, including the 100+ year history of New York’s law, could not limit the (recently discovered) public’s right to bear arms for self-protection supposedly created by the Second Amendment (if you completely disregard the “importance of a well-regulated Militia” language which preceded the right to bear arms language. In other words, this conservative Supreme Court majority will bend and twist the Constitution and its reasoning, however necessary, to reach its desired political conclusion.

Elections have consequences, and Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans had better start paying strict attention to that, or more extreme measures may be necessary! Your hard fought social and legal advances of the past 50 or even 100 or more years may be in serious jeopardy!!

THT

UKRAINE AND THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION – FATES INEXTRICABLY LINKED

Given the way it came about, it is deeply ironic to say the least, but it is becoming ever more evident that the fates of Ukraine and President Biden are inextricably linked. President Trump and the Republican Party were responsible for trying to establish the link in the first place as they sought to undermine Biden’s candidacy for President by claiming he (and his son Hunter Biden) were involved in Ukranian corruption. They of course failed in that effort (at least so far) which instead led to the 2nd Democratic failed effort to impeach President Trump. And, of course, contrary to Trump’s strenuous efforts which continue to this day, Joe Biden was elected President defeating Donald Trump.

But the linkage between Ukraine and Biden was reinvigorated by Donald Trump’s old buddy Vladimir Putin when, without any cause or justification, he invaded Ukraine with the intention of forcing it to become Russia’s vassal state instead of a potentially successful independent democratic state oriented towards Europe. The Biden Administration has led the forceful Western response to Russian aggression against Ukraine, imposing heavy economic sanctions on Russia, and supplying billions of dollars of military and other aid to Ukraine. Biden has repeatedly stressed American support for Ukrainian independence and against Russia succeeding in any way with its military aggression.

For awhile, the Ukrainian military were successful in thwarting Russia’s attacks on its major cities, but recently, as Russia shifted its focus to the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east, the tide seems to be turning. Russia is taking over more and more Ukranian territory and has established a link between the Russian puppet regime in the Crimea and the eastern regions of Ukraine taken over by Russian forces. Ukranian casualties are high and their military resistance seems to be weakening. Russia has successfully blockaded the major Ukranian port of Odessa thereby preventing Ukraine from shipping abroad large quantities of wheat which many areas of the world desperately need. Without further and far more vigorous Western support, Ukraine is in serious danger of losing its battle against Russian aggression. But even more importantly for us, after the Afghanistan debacle, the U.S. cannot afford another black mark on its record by losing yet another overseas war that it has made a significant commitment to- particularly to Russia!

At the same time, Joe Biden’s approval rating with the American public, and the chances of Democrats holding onto any part of their Congressional control, are fairly quickly slipping away. Biden’s domestic agenda is largely at a standstill, dozens of people every week are victims of senseless gun violence, his Justice Department is apparently doing nothing about Trump’s sustained efforts to thwart the 2020 presidential election and rig future elections, the economy is rocked by inflation and apparently headed for recession, the stock market is in a freefall and the Supreme Court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Biden Administration and liberal democracy looks like its headed for a major defeat about the same time as is Ukraine.

Joe Biden and the Democrats seem to be at a loss as to what to do to turn their situation around. The bipartisan gun bill in Congress is like applying a spot bandage to a severed artery. Travelling to Saudi Arabia to plead for them to open the oil spigot will be similarly completely ineffective in controlling inflation. Sending smiley old Joe out into the country to plead his case isn’t going to change many minds. But what will is dramatic action and leadership, and Ukraine offers the perfect opportunity. The major question, of course, is whether Joe Biden is really capable of delivering dramatic action and leadership!

In years past, when Presidents were in trouble and an election was impending, what was the favorite game plan? Why, a little overseas war or international incident. Many studies have confirmed that US Presidents often increase their popularity at the onset of wars or other security crises. It’s the “rally round the flag” effect. The beauty of the Ukraine war opportunity is that the war is already on-going and we are already involved in it as a cheerleader and supplier of arms and equipment. Furthermore, to make it even better, both the American people and the Republican Party are already strongly supportive of Ukraine and antagonistic to Russia. So the question is, can we find a strategy which the American public will support and which will substantially increase Ukraine’s chances of actually defeating the Russian invasion?

In my prior post on this subject (“Ukraine: Russian-NATO Showdown”), I suggested some moves the U.S. could take. Following up on a recent editorial in the New York Times by Bret Stephens, I think probably the most saleable strategy for the NATO forces to take a more active role is to send a strong Naval task force into the Black Sea to force open the port of Odessa from its Russian blockade in order ostensibly to allow the shipment abroad of all the Ukrainian wheat being stored there which is so necessary in parts of the world to stave off starvation. This depends on Turkey which largely controls access to the Black Sea, but Turkey is a part of NATO and its current economic problems could benefit from allied economic assistance. If we can get naval forces into the Black Sea, this might well lead to armed conflict between NATO and Russian forces but allied naval forces should easily prevail. It could be followed up by allied naval pressure on the Crimea which would take Russian pressure off of Ukranian forces. At the same time, the U.S. and NATO forces should establish a secure supply corridor for military and humanitarian equipment and supplies well into Ukraine defended by jet fighters and anti-aircraft weapons. We could also send armed troops to defend the supplies and train the Ukranians in using western equipment. All of these steps would lend major assistance to Ukraine in its efforts to resist Russian aggression.

I think not only the American people but the Republicans in Congress will support all of this. It would not only go a long way to bolstering Ukranian forces and would send a far clearer message to Putin that he is not going to win this war. Getting the U.S. and NATO forces actively engaged even defensively against the Russians increases the risks of nuclear war. But the risk is manageable and must be run if we are ever going to confront and stop Russian military aggresssion. Russia is unlikely to want to go toe to toe with the U.S. and NATO forces as he is almost certain to lose. If President Biden can lead this country and its NATO allies into taking action somewhat along these lines, the fates of Biden and Ukraine will be much more favorably linked than they are now.

THT

Russian military aggression against Ukraine is not really about Ukraine per se. It is all about Putin reasserting a Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union territories, and telling NATO to keep out. It was preceded by several weeks of fruitless but theatrical negotiations with Ukranian and NATO leaders about whether they were going to cave and give Putin whatever he wanted in neutering Ukraine and backing NATO away from Putin’s claimed Russian sphere of influence. When these went nowhere, Putin dropped all pretense and commenced his military aggression against Ukraine to bring it unwillingly back into the Russian fold and to send a loud and clear message to NATO. Putin thought the European members were too complacent and disorganized to do anything, and America too fractured by partisan warfare and too tired of unproductive overseas wars to do anything more than complain.

Wow! What a massive miscalculation by Putin! Not only are the Ukranians successfully fighting back with everything they’ve got, Putin’s action has managed to re-energize NATO, the EU, and the Atlantic alliance to an extent not seen in 30 years. Germany has finally recognized the dangerous nature of Putin’s Russia and agreed to start funding its own rearmament, and all of NATO, including its own autocratic countries, supported the heavy sanctions imposed on Russia and its leaders. Even the traditionally independent and neutral countries of Switzerland and Sweden supported the sanctions! To make matters worse for Russia, all the NATO members, and even countries outside NATO, are sending arms and aid to Ukraine.

Putin has even managed to temporarily diminish the extreme partisanship in U.S. politics as members of both parties coalesce in opposition to Russian aggression and support of Ukraine. Finally, Putin’s aggression has thrown a lifeline to the Biden Administration, if it pivots (at least temporarily) away from its so far futile efforts to pass major social legislation, and embarks on a defense build up to counter Russian (and future Chinese) aggression. The country will support such a move because of the widespread public horror at what Russia is doing to Ukraine, and it might even prevent a Republican takeover of Congress this fall.

However, as satisfying as all these results have been, they will largely have been futile if Russia succeeds in taking over all or substantially all of Ukraine through its military aggression. Furthermore, the U.S. and NATO bear considerable responsibility for Ukraine being in the predicament it is in. When the idea of expanding NATO to include some or all of the countries spun off of the Soviet Union when it collapsed in the early 1990’s, America’s dean of Russian and Soviet studies, George Kennan, advised against it because it was such an affront to Russia that it might lead to a new cold war. Putin demonstrated the accuracy of Kennan’s predictions when he repeatedly and angrily denounced NATO’s stated intention to allow a series of prior Soviet Union countries to join NATO.

When it became apparent in 2008 that Georgia and Ukraine might be considered for NATO membership, Russia acted by taking over part of Georgia and forcing out its pro-western leadership. America and NATO complained and imposed some sanctions, but this had little effect. Emboldened by the weak western response to its earlier action, in 2014, Russia seized the Crimea and its valuable seaport and Naval base from Ukraine and helped engineer a war in eastern regions of Ukraine by pro- Russian elements seeking to split off from Ukraine. Again, the West objected but took little effective action. Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine followed as Putin thought America and NATO would object but again take little effective action to counter the culmination of Putin’s moves to prevent Ukraine from turning its back on Russia and solidifying its efforts to tie its future to Europe.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is ugly and brutal and an attempted takeover of a sovereign state by force. It is also in clear and unwarranted violation of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of 1994 under which Ukraine agreed to give up the last of its considerable store of strategic nuclear weapons in return for agreement by Russia and several other countries, including the U.S., that they would not attack Ukraine. Putin can not be allowed to succeed in his aggression, not only for the sake of Ukraine and its brave people, but to ensure that Russia’s imperial ambitions under Putin are blunted for good.

We have to be mindful that actions of ours now do not lead to a nuclear confrontation with Russia, but we must be willing to take some risk of that in order to effectively counter Russia’s aggressive moves, give Ukraine a real chance to survive Russia’s increasingly brutal onslaught, and send a strong message to China. Steps we ought to be taking probably incude the following:

• Accelerate the supply of needed military equipment, including late model anti-aircraft and anti-ship weapons, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine as well as promoting and supplying volunteer fighters.
• Drastically increase troop and fighter jet deployments to eastern front areas of Poland and the Baltic countries as well as any other NATO countries subject to Russian threat. A few hundred troops is not a credible defense force!
• Either get Turkish agreement for NATO ships to enter the Black Sea or take steps to change or abrogate the 1936 Montreux Convention which gives Russia effective control of the Black Sea.
• Move NATO naval forces into the Eastern Mediterranean and beef them up.
• Establish a secure supply corridor for military equipment and supplies, volunteers and humanitarian aid into Ukraine defended by strong anti-aircraft weapons and jet fighters. Announce and maintain a ”no fly ” zone over this supply corridor.

Thus far, President Biden has for the most part handled this Ukraine crisis admirably. He has rallied all of NATO behind truly onerous sanctions on Russia and finally brought them around to a broad consensus on opposing Russian aggression. He has also orchestrated fairly broad U.S. agreement by both parties of the need to stand up to Russian aggression. But his one failing which must be corrected is his categorical statements that we will not get into a war with Russia. This only encourages Putin to take more aggressive and brutal actions. Stop talking about what we won’t do, and start talking more about what we will do, or may do to assist Ukraine if Putin doesn’t pull back from his war. Use back channels to damp down any talk of nuclear confrontation. Putin may continue to threaten to use weapons of mass destruction but he knows and must be made to know that this is a road to oblivion for Russia. Like most bullies, he will back down when a formidable opponent stands up to him. Russia has repeatedly demonstrated it does not deserve to have a ”sphere of influence” anywhere and it’s time the world made Putin realize it!