The February Reader’s Digest includes an article on how humanities’ life expectancy has increased dramatically over the last 200 years from 30 to 83 years.
There are many reasons for this. Most of the explanations are what you might expect — advancements in medicine, clean water, nutrition, better sanitation and hygiene, etc. One rationale I did not expect was an increase in democracy across the globe.
It takes more convincing for the citizens of a democracy to send their sons and daughters off to war. A good example was our reluctance to join England and France in World War I and II.
Kings and dictators ruled with fear throughout history, going to war for their glory.
There are currently 50 dictatorships — 19 in Sub-Saharan Africa, 12 in the Middle East and North Africa, eight in Asia-Pacific, seven in Eurasia, three in the Americas, and one in Europe.
Today’s more powerful — and dangerous — dictators are Vladimir Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping of China. Also trying to demonstrate their power are Kim Jon-un in North Korea and Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran.
These tyrants possess absolute power in their country and don’t like to be called dictators. That’s too negative. They prefer to be called president.
Dictators, like gang members, only respond to strength in their opponents. To that end, they look for weakness and when perceived, they jump on the opportunity.
On Aug. 20, 2012 Present Barack Obama told reporters, “We have been very clear to the Assad regime — but also to other players on the ground — that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” He concluded that “there would be enormous consequences” if this line was crossed.
Six days later, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syrian crossed that line.
Does anyone remember what those “enormous consequences” were? Neither do I.
I’m sure Putin took note.
In February and March of 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Obama’s response was economic sanctions, seen by many as woefully inadequate.
Speed up to the Joe Biden administration. After the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, many pointed out this showed weakness to America’s enemies.
Putin, and I’m sure Xi Jinping, took note.
Now Putin has invaded Ukraine, and Democrats blame Donald Trump. They have to. It couldn’t be their fault.
Let’s look at what President Trump did to strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against Putin.
In October of 2021, the top ministers from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania — Baltic states on the front line with Russia — all told Newsweek magazine that NATO was made stronger during Trump’s time in office.
Under Trump, NATO received more U.S. Troops and Military Spending. Before my Democrat friends laugh and cry foul — that is a headline from an NPR story dated Dec. 3, 2019.
In 2019, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, on Fox News Sunday, said that President Trump’s tough talk has ultimately strengthened NATO. He added, “by the end of next year, NATO allies will add hundred – 100 billion extra U.S. dollars toward defense. So we see some real money and some real results. And we see that the clear message from President Donald Trump is having an impact.”
That message was to Putin.
Another message from Trump was sanctioning Nord Stream 2, a Russian gas pipeline — which Biden reversed.
During a speech to the United Nations in 2018, Trump warned Germany against becoming dependent on Russian oil and gas. “Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation.” The German delegation was seen on camera laughing at those statements.
They aren’t laughing now.
Last week the host of HBO’s Real Time asked the simple question, “OK, but if Putin thought Trump was really that supportive of him, why didn’t he invade when Trump was in office?”
In the end, this war is on Putin’s shoulders, and the world should never forget and never let him leave Russia again without being arrested for war crimes.
Putin needs to feel enormous consequences.
