See,
1) “Ukraine War, March 3, 2022 (I): Would the use of force in collective self-defense of Ukraine automatically lead to World War III?” The Trenchant Observer, March 3, 2022;
2) Marc Bassetts, “Macron, tras hablar con Putin, cree que “lo peor está por llegar”; El presidente francés, que oficializa su candidatura a la reelección, habla de nuevo por teléfono con el mandatario ruso y concluye que su objetivo es conquistar toda Ucrania, ElPaís, el 3 de marzo 2022 (13:58 EST, actualizado a las 14:16 EST);
3) “Krieg in der Ukraine – die aktuelle Lage: Russland bombardiert wichtige Städte – Raketen töten weitere Zivilisten; Am achten Kriegstag sind ukrainischen Angaben zufolge Dutzende Zivilisten getötet worden. Weitere Konzerne ziehen sich aus Russland zurück. Und: Ein Oligarch kritisiert Kremlchef Putin. Der Überblick,” Der Spiegel, den 3. Mārz 2022 (20.08 Uhr);
4) Tom Rees, “Russia’s Lukoil breaks ranks by telling Putin to end war in Ukraine; Russia’s second-largest oil company calls for ‘immediate cessation of the armed conflict,'” The Telegraph, March 3, 2022 (10:11pm);
5) Fareed Zakaria, “How to beat Putin, for real,” Washington Post, March 3, 2022 (6:23 p.m. EST).
Analysis
Current economic sanctions will not stop Putin’s war crimes
As Fareed Zakaria cogently points out, Biden and his foreign policy team are still withholding perhaps the most powerful potential sanction, an embargo on Russian oil and gas imports.
They are still prisoners of their rational-actor-model of the determinants of Russian behavior. They still think that by holding this sanction in reserve, they might deter Putin from committing even greater atrocities, or other actions such as invading a NATO country.
They have been proven wrong, time and again, and again. But the power of the rational-actor paradigm, what has been termed “the rational actor fallacy”, seems to have a death grip on their minds.
Given the disastrous record of the Biden foreign policy team, the “Afghanistan-withdrawal” foreign policy team, the only hope for a change in approach would be for Biden to form a high-level bi-partisan Executive Committee or Ex-Comm made up of high-level current and former officials, such as the “Nuclear Decisions. Ex-Comm” we have previously recommended.
Biden will needed to be prodded, very hard, by leading present and former officials, and Congressional leaders, to make this happen.
It is difficult to imagine how his present incompetent foreign policy team can lead the nation and the world in the civilizational struggle against Russia in which we are going to be engaged.
To defend civilization: What should be happening and what is not happening
1) Play the China card, NOW;
2) Berlin-airlift style shipment of weapons and military equipment to neighboring NATO counties & immediate transfer to Ukraine;
3) Supply of real-time operational intelligence to assist in targeting, etc.
(This may not be public);
4) Use of active cyber warfare measures to thwart Russian military advances and atrocities.
(This may not be public);
5) Transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine, NOW;
6) Adopt oil and gas sanctions blocking all transfers, NOW; and
7) Immediately resume and expand VOA/RFE/RL Russian-language shortwave and satellite transmissions.
Coordinate with other free-word broadcasters.
