“We’re Not Sending Him”

President Joe Biden (D) says he’s ready and willing to go to Ukraine and meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

However.

His Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, pooh-poohed the idea.

He’s ready for anything—the man likes fast cars and aviators[.]

Biden’s desire to go is just more thrill-seeking in the eyes of White House staffers.

Psaki went on:

He’s ready to go to Ukraine. We are not sending the president to Ukraine.

We are not sending the president. Think about that. Biden isn’t making the decision to travel to Ukraine and meet with Zelenskyy, or not, on his own initiative.

Many have suggested, over the last year, that Biden is a captive of the Extremist Left of his Leftist Party, but this statement by Psaki makes those suggestions statements of fact. The President of the United States is not his own man. Nor does he seem to be the one in charge in his own job.

Worse, Jill Biden is no Edith Bolling, and she’s not the one standing in for the man.

Russian Territory Is Already Involved

The Biden-Harris administration has approved an additional $800 million in weapons for Ukraine, the better for that nation to fight against the barbarian’s coming assault on Ukraine’s Donbas region. In conjunction with that, Biden-Harris has moved to increase the level and quality of intelligence shared with Ukraine, the better for the latter to target Russian forces after they’ve broken into Ukraine.

However.

The US, however, will refrain from providing intelligence that would enable the Ukrainians to strike targets on Russian territory under the new policy, a constraint Washington has imposed to reduce the risk of broadening the conflict, US officials added.

This is a continued mischaracterization of the situation, a continued misconstrual that is deadly to Ukrainian civilians, women, children, medical facilities.

The “conflict,” to use Biden-Harris’ carefully vapid term, is already broadened. Russian territory is already a part of the conflict. Aside from the bare fact that Russia is the belligerent in this Putin War, Russian territory is being openly used to assemble, supply, and stage forces that will be used to assault a sovereign nation’s territory.

The Belgorod region just 25 miles from the Ukraine-Russia border north of Kharkhiv, for instance, is a major supply and staging area for Russian units organizing for a spring assault on the Kharkhiv-Izyum region in the northern Donbas. That area, thus, would be a lucrative target that, if struck, would severely disrupt Putin’s planned assault.

Withholding that cross-border intelligence has even worse outcomes. It denies the Ukraine’s ability to know where the Russian units are gathering at their Lines of Departure, so the withholding denies the Ukrainians the ability to anticipate Russian axes of attack, which in turn denies the Ukrainians the ability to prepare their own responses for when those attacks roll. Which, despicably, only runs up friendly force casualty rates and friendly force equipment loss rates.

Denying the Ukrainians knowledge of those gatherings at those Lines of Departure also denies the Ukrainians the ability to launch spoiling attacks–ideally done by air (armed drones, helicopters, the aircraft they have still)–against those Lines to weaken, delay, possibly preempt the attacks before they start.

In no way can any part of Russia be given functional sanctuary status. Except in the fearful imaginations of Biden-Harris and his cronies.

Putin Confirms the Need

In the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s atrocity-ridden and barbaric invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden announced that they were seriously considering applying for membership in NATO, with applications likely to flow this summer.

Now Putin is making nuclear threats against them, both implied and direct. Putin spoke through his Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev:

There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic—the balance must be restored. Until today, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to. If our hand is forced, well…take note it was not us who proposed this[.]

Not at all. It wasn’t Russia who threatened to put nuclear weapons in the Baltic region. Uh, uh.

Putin’s threat is direct: he will put nuclear weapons into the Baltic region if Finland and Sweden go through with their NATO membership application. Putin’s threat is implied: he will use those nuclear weapons against Finland and Sweden, specifically, if he deems them threats.

Putin’s threat also is dishonest. [N]o more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic? Russia has had nuclear weapons in the region for years. Lithuania’s Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas:

The current Russian threats look quite strange when we know that, even without the present security situation, they keep the weapon 100 km from Lithuania’s border. Nuclear weapons have always been kept in Kaliningrad. The international community, the countries in the region, are perfectly aware of this. They use it as a threat.

Putin’s threats are validation of Finland’s and Sweden’s realization of their need of the mutual protections represented by NATO membership.

Sloppy?

A Wall Street Journal article described the ongoing efforts of Ukrainians to identify the specific Russian barbarians who committed specific acts of atrocity so as to get about bringing the barbarians to justice. This bit, though, jumped out at me.

[Ukrainian prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko] Kravchenko leafed through a collection of documents.
A Russian paratrooper had left behind a military ID card.
A soldier born in 2002, in Revda, in the Russian region of Sverdlovsk, retreated without his passport.
A 23-year-old officer from Pskov had left a bank card and coronavirus vaccination certificate.

Sloppy, certainly. Who takes out their papers—ID cards, passports, etc—and leaves them out anywhere under any circumstances? But in addition to that, not collecting them back up on the way out the door, leaving them behind, abandoning them? Was there a measure of panic in these barbarians’ withdrawal?

At best, these documents indicate an undisciplined collection or Russian “military” personnel. Appallingly, the undisciplined included at least one individual marked as a Russian officer.

What if Ukraine Wins—Or Loses?

This is Part Four of Four; Part One can be read here, Part Two can be read here, and Part Three can be read here. This is a series of pieces talking about the implications of a Ukrainian victory or a Russian victory on situations around the world. Heads up—each Part will be a long-ish read.

Moral considerations

Emer de Vattel wrote[i]

Nations or states are bodies politic, societies of men united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage by the joint efforts of their combined strength.
Such a society has her affairs and her interests; she deliberates and takes resolutions in common; thus becoming a moral person, who possesses an understanding and a will peculiar to herself, and is susceptible of obligations and rights.

With this, he established the intrinsically moral nature of nation-states, bringing them into the framework of what is moral behavior and the requirement to behave so. Having established the moral core of a nation, de Vattel went on:

Those alone, to whom an injury is done or intended, have a right to make war.
From the same principle we shall likewise deduce the just and lawful object of every war, which is, to avenge or prevent injury. To avenge signifies here to prosecute the reparation of an injury, if it be of a nature to be repaired, — or, if the evil be irreparable, to obtain a just satisfaction, — and also to punish the offender, if requisite, with a view of providing for our future safety. The right to security authorizes us to do all this.

In the present case, between the two primary belligerents only Ukraine has the right to fight; it is fighting in self-defense. Russia has no right to fight, having attacked in the first place and without basis. Beyond that, Ukraine has the right to demand reparations—restitution—from Russia for the damage and killings done in Ukraine by the Russian barbarian. The last sentence of the cite applies presently, also: the right to security authorizes all of us to fight to defend Ukraine and to demand restitution for Ukraine. I say, not only authorizes us, but requires us at the least to go all in on supplying Ukraine with the weapons, ammunition, (re)supply, and training Zelenskyy’s generals say they need, and not only to do this for our own damage, but to assist Ukraine in its moves to gain compensation from Russia.

Hugo Grotius presaged this[ii]:

In speaking of belligerent powers, it was shown that the law of nature authorizes the assertion not only of our own rights, but those also belonging to others. The causes therefore, which justify the principals engaged in war, will justify those also, who afford assistance to others.

And here’s de Vattel on the matter, again:

For an injury gives us a right to provide for our future safety, by depriving the unjust aggressor of the means of injuring us; and it is lawful and even praiseworthy to assist those who are oppressed, or unjustly attacked.

These are not legally binding on today’s nations, but they are most assuredly morally binding, and the US, UK, NATO member nations, EU member nations, and on and on, are obliged to come to Ukraine’s aid. I assert further, that half measures, providing inadequate amounts or types of weapons, ammunitions, logistic support, and medical support are worse than a moral failure to aid Ukraine, they’re an entirely immoral (not merely amoral) betrayal of our obligation and a betrayal of Ukraine. Such shortfalls do not support final Ukrainian victory; they serve only to keep Ukraine in the fight, to keep Ukraine bleeding, to keep Ukraine dying, to keep Ukrainian civilians being murdered, to keep Ukrainian women being raped and murdered, to keep Ukrainian children being butchered.

The morality of the situation goes further. Nations consist of people, collections of individual persons acting in concert at a national level. I assert that, as individual persons, we have a Judeo-Christian obligation to help the least of those among us. The Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah are rife with such injunctions. The Biblical verses concerning Ruth and Boaz give one such example, and Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzhak’s (with commentary by the Marasha) discussion of giving a coin and/or consolation to a poor man give another.

As individuals, Americans and Europeans—especially the Polish and Romanian peoples—are well and truly stepping up. The morality here goes beyond even that. We must push our nations, which are acting in our name, to behave as morally. That requires the nations, through our individual obligations aggregated to the nation, to fulfill the moral injunctions of Grotius and de Vattel.

[i] The Law of Nations

[ii] The Law of War and Peace, as cited by Robert W Hoag in his essay Violent Civil Disobedience: Defending Human Rights, Rethinking Just War in Brough, Lango, and van der Linden’s Rethinking the Just War Tradition