Ukraine Redux

December 2022

Abstract:
Putin has changed the war in Ukraine to an aerial missile war of total destruction, in an attempt to eradicate the Ukrainian state, its people, and its culture. Ukraine's western allies must respond by giving Ukraine the weapons needed to cancel the Russian missile launches.

Until now, Ukraine has been fighting with one arm in a sling. While Russia fires missiles at will, Ukraine is limited to attempting to shoot the missiles down. This isn't combat, it's madness, it's a shooting gallery. The only way to defeat the missile war is to neutralize the missile batteries, but so far Ukraine has not been given the weapons that can achieve this. NATO has those weapons - plenty of them to share with Ukraine - but they have not been shared because of NATO's nervousness about the response from the irrational Nazi-like Fuehrer hiding in the Kremlin. But the time has now come; Putin has gone too far. The war crimes he is committing daily in Ukraine leaves NATO no rational choice other than to respond with appropriate force. I have the following suggestion for Jens Stoltenberg. Issue a public notice like the following to Putin:

"NATO, having been asked for defensive help from the independent nation of Ukraine against continuing attacks by Russia that amount to ongoing war crimes, has resolved to give Ukraine all the assistance it needs to save it from the depredations of Russian attacks by land, sea, and air. Although Ukraine is not yet a member nation of NATO, the sight of a major invasion by Russia on the borders of NATO countries, the demonstration and declaration by the Russian president that he covets yet more European territory to add to his intended empire, the illegal terrorization, wanton killing, and destruction of the basis of life of the civilian population of Ukraine, and the earnest request and evident need of the Ukrainian people for assistance, have motivated NATO to step up its assistance to Ukraine.

"NATO will now provide Ukraine with weapons capable of obliterating the sites from which missiles, attack aircraft or drones are being fired or launched into Ukraine, wherever these are located. NATO weapons fired from Ukraine will not be used to attack Russia, but will eliminate sources of attacks on Ukraine. The rational Russian response to this defensive strengthening will be to cease firing missiles or launching airborne attacks into Ukraine, in which case NATO weapons will cease to be used against such sources."

As has been made clear by UN resolutions, by world-wide public opinion, and by independent public media and citizens of all countries where they are able to express their views, the unprovoked attack and invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February of this year was and remains illegal and inhumane, a gross violation of the basic rights to life and liberty of the people of Ukraine. It is the work of one man, Vladimir Putin of Russia, who under the moral guidance of the Patriarch of Moscow has dragged his country back into the horrors of war the likes of which have not been seen since the early 20th century. Mr.Putin's stability comes more and more into question, as he continues to make decisions intended to terrorize the people he calls brothers of Russia, but that also injure his own country. He has changed the status quo in eastern Europe, from one where his illegal 2014 de facto occupation of parts of Ukraine might not have been seriously challenged on the battlefield to one where the occupied areas will quite certainly soon revert to Ukraine.

In Putin's simplified and twisted view of cultural history, as taught him by Patriarch Kirill, his god has designated him to pay Europe back for the depredations visited on Russia in the 19th century by Napoleon and in the 20th by Hitler, as well as for what he sees as western interference that led to the breakup of the USSR, including pilfering of its constituent states by NATO, foiling his plans for reintegrating the Baltic republics into a new Russian Empire. In addition, nearly all the European members of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact turned their back on Russia during the 1990's and lined up to join NATO. They turned their back on Russia not because of any seduction by the west, but because of their decades-long experience of a miserable captive existence under domination by Russia. Putin is now obsessed by the need to reverse the soviet losses, and sees the re-absorption of Ukraine and Moldova as the first steps in rebuilding a soviet style Russian empire.

So let us now declare that the brute in the Kremlin has gone too far in Ukraine. He had gone too far months ago, but a nervous NATO has not done quite what needed to be done, and as a result Ukraine has suffered like no western country has suffered in the past half century. We must now reverse the allied policy and admit that President Zelensky is right - he needs the weapons that will prevent Russian missiles and missile-carrying aircraft from getting off the ground. It's time to stop the Russian rain of missiles and drones, and stop it cold!