Soul Sacrifice

 

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Well, Big Bear's gone and done it, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is now escalating by the hour - even as the UK parliament is debating the issue, Russian forces appear to be moving deeper into Ukraine on three flanks. There are wide-ranging sanctions planned by the Western Alliance, which sees us ironically side by side with the EU again.

If the promises being made to strangle the financial base of Russian - read Putin's - ambitions, then much headway will be made into denting any possibility of this escalating into a full-blown European war. Putin emulates the demagoguery of Hitler in his wish to avenge his decades-long grudge against the world for the fall of the Soviet Union, of which he was an integral, organizational part. But the geopolitics of this century differ greatly from the middle years of the last, and communications reach further and faster than at any time in human history.

If he indeed does harbour wider ambitions though, the resistance to them would be swifter and far more punitive than the Allies could muster in World War Two in the face of Blitzkrieg. Only if his attempted courtship of China gave fruit could he possibly stand against the rest of the world, but that would be very unlikely to happen, given the financial impact that such a venture would have on the Sino-economic situation. Russia - again read Putin - will stand isolated and impotent and might well face internal insurrection as the Russian people finally realize they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by allowing a continuance of his regime.

He's sold his soul and burnt his bridges... One thing's for certain, though: Western complacency and capitalism have once again enabled our sleepwalking into potentially yet another World War: it's up to the complacent to be affirmative for a change and nip this in the bud before it's too late. Clock's ticking...