Tag Archives: Deterence

News

GOP senators introduce bill to arm Ukraine

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Great news in the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

Frustrated with President Barack Obama’s reaction to Russian action in Ukraine, a group of Republican senators said Wednesday they will introduce legislation outlining a more muscular response.

“What we’ve seen from the administration is a lot of rhetoric,” Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning. The White House has been dealing “with the situation after something bad has already occurred,” he said.

[…]The GOP senators’ bill would map out a more assertive plan for keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin in check, Mr. Corker said, including by implementing new sanctions on Russian banks, energy companies and a major Russian arms dealer.

Some of the sanctions would go into effect immediately, while others would kick in if Russian armed forces cross further into Ukraine or if Russia further annexes any new area. The goal is “so that we actually do something that affects the Russian economy until such a time that they pull those troops from the border,” Mr. Corker said.

The bill also seeks to build support for NATO allies by requiring Mr. Obama to increase support for the armed forces of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia and facilitate access to military equipment for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Up to $100 million of direct military assistance to Ukraine would also be authorized, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons and small arms.

The White House did not have an immediate response to the GOP bill.

It’s too much of a provocation to send American troops into Ukraine, but arming the Ukrainians will do a lot do deter Russian aggression. It will certainly do a lot more to deter the Russians from taking more ground than “mobilizing the international community” or sending food. Food doesn’t stop Russian tanks, and it doesn’t shoot down Russian aircraft.

Commentary

Thomas Sowell: the longer we wait to stop Iran, the worse it will be

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Thomas Sowell writing in National Review.

Excerpt:

Members of the Obama administration have been pointing out how hard it would be to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, now that they have been built deep underground and dispersed.

That would have been something to consider during the time when President Obama was taking leisurely and half-hearted measures to create the appearance of trying to stop the Iranian nuclear program, while vigorously warning Israel not to take military action.

Time was never on our side. The risks go up exponentially the longer we wait. When the Iranian nuclear program was just getting started, it could have been destroyed before it became so big, so dispersed, and so deeply dug in underground. Now, if we wait till they actually have nuclear bombs, the same kinds of arguments for inaction will carry even more weight, when the price of an attack on Iran could be the start of a nuclear Holocaust.

Nor should we assume that we can remain safe by throwing Israel to the wolves, once the election is over, as might well happen if Obama is reelected and no longer has any political reasons to pretend to be Israel’s friend.

That kind of cynical miscalculation was made by France back in 1938, when it threw its ally, Czechoslovakia, to the wolves by refusing to defend it against Hitler’s demands, despite the mutual defense treaty between the two countries. Less than two years later, Hitler’s armies were invading France — using, among other things, tanks manufactured in Czechoslovakia.

This was just one of the expedient miscalculations that helped bring on the bloodiest and most destructive war the world has ever known. Dare we repeat such miscalculations in a nuclear age?

At the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill said, “There never was in all history a war easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe.” It might even have been prevented “without the firing of a single shot,” Churchill said.

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.