We are watching Ukraine be blown apart minute by minute as Putin’s army continues its immoral assault on an independent Nation.

President Zelinsky has pleaded for a no-fly zone to stop the missiles and planes from continuing to bomb civilian targets in a reign of terror from above. NATO, including the USA, have not stepped up to provide cover because we are afraid of Putin going nuclear.

We have put tremendous economic pressure on Russia, not Putin, in the hope that we can make it so bad they will oust Putin. Over the long run this will probably work, although we cannot rule out Putin goingnuclear just because he is about to be toppled. The end result will be Ukraine destroyed, millions of their citizens displaced, maimed, or dead. “We Won”?????

China is watching. China is standing with Russia even as they send humanitarian aid to Ukraine. (Kind of like offering a band aid to someone who’s arm you just cut off.) China wants to take Taiwan.

They know that if NATO won’t stand up forcefully to Russia, Taiwan is a cake walk for them to invade and conquer. Economic sanctions will not work to deter China, they are too big a part of the global economy and have managed to secure a large portion of the rare raw materials left on the planet. (They have joint ventures with many in the emerging world). To cripple China economically would decimate the Western economies as well. China wins. China is big, powerful and desirous of being the World Power it thinks it should be.

The long-term outcome of not using force to save Ukraine is an embolden China who the world will have a problem containing. I can see US school kids, in a hundred years, learning Chinese as a second language because it is the language of business and the World.

We risk the end of the world as we know it by taking these steps to oppose Russia. We risk the same by not doing anything of consequence to stop Russia because China, once embolden, is a force we will pay a higher cost to contain.

We are comfortable and don’t want to give up our THINGS! The choice if we don’t do anything to stop this is to cede to China the dominant position in the world. Democracy fails, autocracy succeeds. If we do nothing we are in a no-win situation, be it in the short term or long. If we join Ukraine to fight Russia, China will know that the democracies of the world are united against autocracy. We risk a lot, but doing nothing carries the same cost without the chance for Democracy to win.