I don't particularly want to write this, however there is a tiresome literal mindedness among subjects of a modern education that inhibits their ability to intuit meaning or apply their imagination.
And as it occurs to me that to gain any traction whatsover it is the more or less educated I shall have to appeal to first, it appears necessary to spell certain things about my work out, which is tedious as it is demeaning.
What triggered this work, first and foremost was Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
History has clearly shown that large scale European conflicts in the modern era should never be allowed to happen and never should have been allowed to have happened.
The fact that there is currently a major European war going on therfore is definitely a cause for concern, in fact it is completely insane and a likely spark for World War Three or Nuclear armagedon.
The anxiety this does not cause us is bewildering.
Perhaps at some point we have become reconciled to the fact that an apocalypse is inevitable, that we have become completely desensitised to the fact. But then again both the First and Second World Wars were predicted in advance but we still stumbled blindly into them and millions died, towns, villages and cities were destroyed, astronomical sums of money were spent, vast tracts of land are still poisoned, hundreds of tons of unexploded ordinance are still dug out of the ground every year over a hundred years after they landed and if it wasn't for the USA, Europe would have fallen to NAZI Germany, and without their help after that War, Western Europe would have fallen under the influence of Stalin.
That such a mistake should be made again is unforgivable and I don't believe that fate will forgive it and European Civilisation will cease to exist.
It is not certain World War Three will be the result of this war, but while the political situation is as it is I cannot see a good conclusion.
If Russia wins (which I don't think they can, in the face of the scale of resistance and outiside support) then it is a disaster, if they can achive their aims using violence, then why should we expect them to stop? and furthermore many other brutal regimes have neighbours that they do not like, if they see Russia taking control of Ukraine and getting away with it, then what message does it send to China for example?
If Russia starts a precedent of violence against it's neighbours, others will follow and in time the world will be dominated by violence.
But if Russia loses?
The West (essentially America) has consistently been hostile to Russian interests even when Russia has sought to align itself with the West- which Gorbachev did before the Soviet Union collapsed, which Yeltsin disasterously did as the former Soviet union was asset stripped by westerners, gangsters and former communist officials and even Putin was distinctly more pro-western at the beginning of his leaderhip than at it's likely end.
Take for example the imperialist "Wolfowitz doctrine" from documents leaked from the Pentagon in 1992 while Russia was in no economic or political position to threaten anybody, I quote:
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."
"The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. In non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
"We continue to recognize that collectively the conventional forces of the states formerly comprising the Soviet Union retain the most military potential in all of Eurasia; and we do not dismiss the risks to stability in Europe from a nationalist backlash in Russia or efforts to reincorporate into Russia the newly independent republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and possibly others... We must, however, be mindful that democratic change in Russia is not irreversible, and that despite its current travails, Russia will remain the strongest military power in Eurasia and the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the United States."
Or take the eastern expansion of NATO, something that was promised would not happen, an organisation founded to provide oppostion against Russia, an organisation that has been known to launch highly questionable offensive operations, this expansion is definitely threatening and antagonistic.
Think about Syria, if it were not for Russian involvement to protect that evil regime, Western involvement would have overthrown an important Russian ally creating an even worse civil war than it already had more than a hand in creating there, similar to Libya but in a more inflammable region, which could easily spill over into other countries and as the distance from the borders of Syria to the borders of the Russian Federation are the same as the distance from Lands End to John O'Groats this poses a potential threat, while condemnation of Assad's regime is justified, hostile action against Assad is hostile action against Russia that is also sadly counterproductive.
As for Ukraine, much of the country it seems has for a long time felt a hatred and distrust of Russsia and Russians, doubtless for historical reasons that are understandable if not always entirely rational, but not always entirely irrational.
This is a problem because many Ukrainians, especially in the east are Russians in all but citizenship.
This difficult situation got out of control in 2014 when pro-EU fanatics staged a coup d'etat and overthrew the democratically elected goverment.
The hostility faced by the Ethnic Russians from the ethnic Ukrainians was severe enough to convince most of the Ethnic Russians (not that the idea was abhorrent to them before that) to want to seperate from Ukraine.
The response to this seperatism from Ukraine was brutal, and so started an appalling civil war, where two pro-Russian breakaway republics were formed and Russia annexed Crimea.
As for the breakaway republics, I thought that the right of self-determination was one of the things the West was supposed to stand for, either way simply bowing to the will of the people is a much cleaner solution than shelling them and shooting them often with fascist paramillitaries.
Can Russia be blamed for supporting them? I don't think so.
As for Crimea, the reasons why invading other countries is not a good idea I have elaborated, but I don't beleive Putin had a great many other options.
Crimea was not historically Ukrainian, the vast majority of Crimeans want to be Russian, even ethnic Ukrainians living there feel alienated by Ukraine.
The port of Sebastopol in Crimea is the only major port Russia has access to which is not frozen during the winter, Russia shared the port with the previous Ukrainian administration but that such an agreement could have continued indefinitely with the new administration is doubtful, possibly therby greatly damaging Russia's naval capacity and severely limiting it's access to seaborne trade (which is vital to a modern economy) at a point where Russia was feeling under threat.
the outbreak of the same indefinite civil war in crimea as in the Donbass would also make the use of this port probably difficult, and a pointless bloody civil war is not a desirable outcome in the first place, in fact it is precisely what lead to the current situation.
And certain individuals throwing around words about Ukraine joining NATO, shortly before Russia's invasion were ill-judged in such a tense situation, NATO involvement would have been outrageous.
That is to state, the West has always been hostile to the Russian Federation, and is still caught in the old cold war mentality. Having established the West's unceasing hostility, I greatly fear the West will continue to be hostile even after Russia is prepared to admit defeat and that Russia will be put in position somewhat comparable to Germany after the First World War - people often compare Putin to Hitler, there is no comparison, he is much more like the Kaiser, maybe his sucessors will be more similar.
Leaving powerful nations feeling unjustly treated, humilated and more dangerously feeling under threat as History has shown again and again is guaranteed to turn them into very dangerous enemies.
Napoleon's France was backed into a corner and surrounded by actively hostile kingdoms, so to were Austria-Hungary and Germany before the First World War, the very real threat of the Soviet Union to Germany is more than anything else what Hitler exploited to rise to power and start the War.
We learnt this lesson after the Second World War, because instead of making the axis powers pay reperations they were given support.
The West is greatly responsible for the economic and political conditions which lead to Putin's regime, and I am very much afraid that unless we clearly assert that if they cease their subversion of their own democracy and end the invasion then they will be given help and treated with respect, it will deteriorate further, leading to a greater conflict.
What is needed is an iron hand in a velvet glove, what we have is a velvet hand in an iron glove.