Coming Soon: World War III

(Sigh)

That was a good 75 years. Seven and a half decades without a land war in Europe. Plenty of prosperity and growth were had in the first few decades after the last enormous global conflict. And yet, here we are.

Prosperity for many most certainly doesn't mean for all, and even so, prosperity alone wouldn't deter the most belligerent of actors, and Vladimir Putin fills this role naturally.

What exactly the plan is, or was, starts to come into focus if we understand much of the past, er, 800 years of Kievan Rus diasporic history. The Kievan Rus Principality is claimed as the progenitor of the Muscovite branch (today's Russia), the Kievan branch (today's Ukraine) and the upper branch (today's Belarus) of that original Medieval empire. Ukraine isn't like Chechnya to Russia, a wayward former Soviet holding: Ukraine is the center of their origin story.

When they elected pro-Western leaders in 2014, Putin said eff that. When they started taking down the monuments erected during the Soviet era, Putin said, 'Oh really? Well, we'll help you out with all that.' That's when they took back the Crimea and started funding the separatists in the east of Ukraine.

Now all it takes for us to get SUPER involved would be an attack on Poland, which is already bordering with Ukraine and happy to let the white, Slavic speaking refugees stream across the border into their white, Slavic speaking country, as well as being the first European country to boycott sporting events with Russia (rightfully) and trying to push FIFA and the IOC to join suit. Good for them.

A young person asked me yesterday if I was ready for WWIII. I said, well, YOU better be, since it'll be you sent off to Eastern Europe to help push back the tide. 

Why would Putin just stop with Ukraine? Maybe Ukraine really is the goal, full stop. What if Ping and Putin team up and come after us? Is the probability of that zero?

I'm not particularly nervous of that scenario, but yikes, this is what we're talking about? And what if our former president won reelection in 2020? Would he have sent troops to help his boy Vladdy?

Continuing global pandemic and ongoing global climate crisis aren't enough for us?