Winning Against Putin for the World

…and China While You Are at It — without WW III

What should the United States do?

We don’t want to start WW III.

We don’t want troops on the ground.

We don’t want invasions of peaceful nations to become the norm, Geneva convention violations, carpet bombing, nuclear plants (including Chernobyl) to become targets of war spewing radiation everywhere, genocide, food supply depletion, inflation, dependency on energy from enemies, pollution from bombing and use of dirty oil, chemical weapons, biological weapons, or nuclear weapons.

Proposed Words and Action

1. All parties in the “West” need to promote the idea that anything we do is (a) only defensive, (b) confined to the borders of Ukraine, and (c) de-escalation. We (especially including our President), cannot fall into the trap of allowing Putin to frame our defensive actions as escalation and “the start of WW III”. We need to flood the propaganda and media of the world with the “tag” of reluctant defensive/protective actions that will not involve any engagement with Russia if they, simply, aren’t in Ukraine or its airspace. It is totally weak and foolish for us to continue to allow Putin and his cronies to call us out for escalating the conflict. The tables must be turned on the rhetoric here. We are giving the aggressor the high ground and handcuffing ourselves if we don’t change our attitude and rhetoric.
2. Add Finland to NATO within the week. Immediately start shipments of weapons to them in anticipation of ratification.
3. Triple the level of armaments for all NATO nations and Taiwan — massive increases in defensive and offensive weapons. Putin has done us the favor of giving us every excuse in the world to add capabilities that we have been cautious about for years. Taiwan is included in this because China is probably planning to pull a “Crimea” or “Ukraine” if this works out well for Putin. If China objects to this, we should just ask them to blame Putin and/or get Putin to stop in Ukraine if a Taiwan build-up is a problem for them. Adding these deterrents minimizes the chances of another Ukraine and punishes Putin for making this move.
4. Continue to provide massive humanitarian aid and provide media coverage of all atrocities.
5. Continue to provide massive anti-tank and anti-air defensive weapons to Ukraine.
6. Counter Putin’s threat to fire upon vehicles and aircraft transporting these arms by (a) providing heavy air support for safe transport as a defensive response to his threat, (b) giving all air support the green light to defend themselves within the borders of Ukraine, and (c) telling him that we expect no problems.
7. Clear the air over Ukraine of all Russian aircraft and missiles. Give Putin 4 hours of notice and tell him to leave. Assure him that Russian aircraft not in Ukraine's airspace will have no problems. Tell him that continued presence will be considered an escalation of the conflict. Cite the Budapest agreement and his violations of the Geneva Conventions. We can do this very easily.
8. Turn on every possible US and Canadian capability to produce energy to supply the NATO nations. Include a schedule to reduce this on a schedule that will let them become “green” over time without leaving them in a lurch.
9. Assert that Putin was behind previous and recent cyberattacks and announce that this is considered an act of cyber terrorism.
10. Accuse Putin of war crimes and begin the process immediately. Offer amnesty if all hostilities end within 24 hours.
11. Continue with the existing economic sanctions. Continue with the sanctions on oligarchs.
12. Use media to communicate the costs to Russia of this conflict. Every single day should include a litany of their soldiers lost, tanks lost, direct economic cost of the war, Ruble value, Moscow stock market value, and other metrics.

Why Should We Get More Involved and Make These Moves?

1. Murderous bullies only understand strength and will continue to take advantage until they know someone will stop them. Putin has more of this planned if he can get away with it. China is watching us. For those who promote green energy, the way toward this in a world of bullies who will slaughter pregnant women in maternity wards is to build first and, then, wean ourselves.
2. Innocent people are being murdered.
3. Russia will have Putin “forever” and will be a rogue nuclear state “forever” — if Putin is successful with this and, as a result, allowed to stay in power. There will be a nuclear psychopath nation in the world community for years to come if Putin pulls this off.
4. The air is being polluted by bombings and the use of dirtier fossil fuels. We might even have massive nuclear radiation leaks if this continues.

Treaty-based Justification to Defend Ukraine

In addition to the above reasons, did you know that we and the Russians also have an agreement with Ukraine, yes Ukraine, based on a 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ukraine-was-betrayed-in-budapest-russia-vladimir-putin-us-uk-volodymyr-zelensky-nuclear-weapons-11645657263 ?

Everyone wants to talk big about NATO, but almost no one seems to want to talk about this. Note that this was signed by a Democrat, Bill Clinton, just in case you think this is something Trump did. Actually, this is quite a nice piece of work by any standard — especially if you are generally a non-proliferation proponent. Ukraine gave up 1800 nuclear weapons and missiles. Quite the impressive negotiation, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Yeltsin! Search it for yourself or at Wikipedia here if you think I’m making this up or you want to see the text of the document: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances The commitment was that the big nuclear powers signing the document (Russia, USA, UK — and later France, China) would not invade, economically pressure, or use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Here's a Ukrainian point of view on this agreement: https://kyivindependent.com/opinion/eugene-czolij-the-budapest-memorandum-reality-check/

So, based on lack of compliance with the Budapest agreement, is there any doubt why Ukraine thinks we should support them when one of the co-signers of the 6/8-way deal, Russia, has completely reneged on their commitment? Is there any doubt, after they got away with it in Crimea, why Russia thought we would just stand by and watch another invasion?

Is there any doubt why NATO is nervous about US defense in case of an attack? Is there any doubt why China might think we wouldn’t defend Taiwan?

Note, also, that every major nation, including Russia and China, had signed the Geneva Conventions (includes protections for non-combatants). Did the world notice, however, that Putin pulled himself out of the Protocal I portion of the Geneva Conventions in October of 2019? Was that another obvious warning signal we all ignored? So, apparently, Putin has been out there for 3 years as a rogue international criminal who doesn’t even subscribe to major portions of the Geneva Conventions! As in normal society, however, one criminal’s unilateral decision to declare that the laws don’t apply to him doesn’t release the civilized society from its support of these moral standards of decency wherever and whenever they are violated.

(Russia also signed the Geneva Protocal on biological and chemical weapons — although these weapons apparently haven’t come into play yet in Ukraine.)

How about attacking the Ukrainian nuclear power plants? Well, international law is unsettled on this, so whether this is a “violation” of international law or not isn’t clear. A good article on this is at https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/how-international-law-applies-to-attacks-on-nuclear-and-associated-facilities-in-ukraine/

In summary, then, there are some major agreements that we, and the international community, have which would justify involvement in this war — the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and Geneva Conventions.

Conclusion

There are many steps we can take to help control this murderous bully — without letting the opposition frame our moves as “offensive” or “WW III” if we simply change our language and attitude.

We have some practical survival and idealistic moral reasons supporting our involvement. We also have some obligations to help these people based on convincing them to strip away their nuclear weapons and based on the world standards of moral action committed to via the Geneva Conventions.