The World Is Back on a War Footing and We’ll All Pay the Price

Traditionally neutral nations prepare to join the again-relevant NATO military alliance, governments boost defense spending, and tensions soar between generally liberal-democratic countries on the one hand, and authoritarian regimes on the other. It’s like waking from a pleasant decades-long dream of relative peace and growing prosperity to a world that’s again on the brink of conflict. Whether or not hostilities spread, a new focus on war means greater risk and hard choices.

The immediate culprit is, of course, Russia and its regime led by Vladimir Putin. Russia invaded Ukraine in an old-fashioned land-grab and sees threats in efforts to support its victims.

“NATO is essentially going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian state TV April 25 in a huff that anybody might assist the targets of Russia’s bombs, tanks, and troops. He added that the risk of nuclear war “cannot be underestimated.”

Western officials rattle sabers themselves, though with more cause.

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters on Monday in a statement that will certainly be seized on in Moscow. – READ MORE