Russia and China Heavily Promote Strong Ties as Western NATO Alliance Expand Larger War Pressure

I wrote about distinct data points in the last 24 hours {SEE HERE] that lean toward direct NATO hostile activity against Russia. Joe Biden might be saying that Ukraine flags are hanging from homes in small town America (major propaganda footing), but the overwhelming majority of Americans do not support an expanded war.

Russia is preparing. Today, high level officials from China and Russia held talks in Moscow and they were not hiding their unity of purpose in an alliance that would oppose western NATO engagement. When Beijing allows the panda mask to fall, the dragon message underneath it, “a relationship with no limits,” should be reviewed very carefully. The AP has some good color on the Moscow meeting.

(Via AP) Russia and China showcased their deepening ties Wednesday in meetings others are watching for signs that Beijing might offer the Kremlin stronger support for its war in Ukraine.

The visit by Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, to Moscow comes as the conflict in Ukraine continues to upend the global diplomatic order.

Relations between Russia and the West are at their lowest point since the Cold War, and ties between China and the U.S. are also under serious strain. Moscow suspended its participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with Washington this week. And the U.S. expressed concern that China could provide arms and ammunition to Russia.

Speaking at the start of talks with Wang, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed ties between the two countries and added that the Kremlin expects Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Russia.

The Russian leader, whose own rule over Russia is imperiled by the war, noted escalating international tensions, adding that “in this context, cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on the global arena is particularly important for stabilizing the international situation.”

While Wang said “Chinese-Russian relations aren’t directed against any third countries and certainly can’t be subject to pressure from any third countries,” the specter of the war and how it has galvanized the West and deepened its divide with Russia hung over his meeting with Putin.

For instance, Wang emphasized that Moscow and Beijing both support “multipolarity and democratization of international relations” — a reference to their shared goal of countering the perceived U.S. dominance in global affairs.

Earlier Wednesday, Wang held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “Our ties have continued to develop dynamically, and despite high turbulence in the global arena, we have shown the readiness to speak in defense of each other’s interests,” Lavrov said.

Wang responded in kind, underlining Beijing’s focus on deepening ties with Russia — a relationship it has said has “no limits.” (read more)

China is never going to tell U.S. diplomats that Beijing will support Russia in the war. That’s not the way the panda messaging works.

Officially, China will present themselves as the high-road traveler, saying every effort for peace should be the focus. However, the interests of China, which is the real motive of the Beijing dragon, are much better positioned if the U.S. and western alliance decide to engage in war against Russia.

All of those advanced mineral, oil and energy investments by China become exponentially more valuable if Team Windmill goes to war against Russia. All of those U.S. multinational corporate assets currently held in Chinese manufacturing investments, will become outright property of the CCP if the U.S. goes into direct conflict with Russia.

The western NATO alliance (+ Japan and Australia) could certainly benefit from war to avoid the currency collapse looming as a result of excessive COVID spending combined with the Build Back Better energy policy shift. However, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as well as Iran and Saudi Arabia have already been roleplaying and positioning a currency replacement for OPEC+ (which includes Russia).

There’s nothing in the current geopolitical landscape to pull the NATO alliance away from increasing hostilities, and there’s nothing in the geopolitical outlook of China which precludes them from siding with Russia if the conflict does break out. In addition, no nation plays the passive-aggressive panda mask game as good as China… AND they’ve got North Korea to use as a controlled scapegoat arms broker.

Nothing in this scenario of the Chinese panda hugging Russia gives any optimism toward less likely World War III. It’s all bad.

Making matters worse, the one ingredient that could stop these war drums is respect. Do you think Chairman Xi and President Putin respect the cunning geopolitical strategy of Joe Biden? Of course not. No more than they respect Justin Trudeau or any other EU political leader representing their collective woke ideology.

Take respect out of the war dynamic and you lose the emergency brake.

https://theconservativetreehou...ressure/#more-243628

chellim1

quote:

However, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as well as Iran and Saudi Arabia have already been roleplaying and positioning a currency replacement for OPEC+ (which includes Russia).

Now add Iraq to the list of countries that will help bring about the destruction of the dollar. The reason the U.S. is able to print a 32.5 Trillion dollar debt is because of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. That may change very soon. Never under estimate Joe Biden's ability to fuck everything up.


Iraq To Drop Dollar For Yuan In Trade With China

https://www.zerohedge.com/econ...lar-yuan-trade-china

The Iraqi central bank announced Wednesday that, for the first time, it plans to allow trade from China to be settled directly in yuan instead of the US dollar to improve access to foreign currency.

"It is the first time imports would be financed from China in yuan, as Iraqi imports from China have been financed in (US) dollars only," the government’s economic adviser, Mudhir Salih, told Reuters.

More at link

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
^^^Uhhh, Newsflash...We're sending MONEY to Ukraine!

The United States Contributes $4.5 Billion to Support the Government of Ukraine
Tuesday, November 22, 2022

The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and in coordination with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of State, is providing an additional $4.5 billion in direct budgetary support to the Government of Ukraine. The funding, which will help alleviate the acute budget deficit caused by Putin’s brutal war of aggression, was made possible with generous bipartisan support from Congress. The Government of Ukraine will receive the funding in two tranches before the end of 2022.

These funds, provided by the United States through the World Bank, allow the Government of Ukraine to withstand the immense economic, social, and political pressures from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. This assistance keeps basic government services like hospitals, schools, and utilities running, and it sustains support for emergency responders and firefighters that save the lives of Ukrainian citizens every day. The budget assistance maintains support to Ukrainians further pushed into poverty since the start of the war, including low-income individuals, seniors, children with disabilities, and internally displaced persons. It will also provide new housing and utility subsidies over the winter season in response to Putin’s brutal assault on Ukraine’s electricity and heating infrastructure.

Once these additional funds are fully disbursed, the U.S. government will have provided $13 billion in direct budgetary support to the Government of Ukraine. Robust safeguards put in place by the World Bank, coupled with USAID-funded, expert third-party monitoring support embedded within the Ukrainian government, ensure accountability and transparency in the use of these funds.

Ah, so $13 Billion rather than $100 Billion. Right.

Going to what would be considered humanitarian assistance in any rational world.

Administered by the World Bank rather than some shadowy cabal of hookers, Chinese spies and shady buisness guys orbiting around a prostrate and drooling Hunter Biden.

With accountability and transparency measures in place at a time when a Republican House is demanding accountability and transparency in any spending in Ukraine, and can be fully expected to be aggressively monitoring the way this money is spent in the avid hopes of finding just the right scandal for a good series of committee hearings.

And not a single penny of that money can be honestly categorized as "prolonging the war".

Got it.

That is laughable Il C. Just so you know.

The World bank, bahhhhhaaaawaaaaaa for starters.

Welcome to the Cold War, boys.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
By your reasoning:

Cuba is an independent sovereign nation that has the freedom to join whatever alliances it chooses. And to have what weapons the alliance gives it.

John Kennedy disagreed.

Yet despite the naval blockade, Bay of Pigs etc., Kennedy didn't launch a full-on invasion with several hundred thousand troops to annex Cuba and make it the 51st American state on the reasoning that it's an invented nation anyway.

Among the various made-up justifications, Russia has actually tried to make the case that they can't allow Ukraine to become a NATO base for nuclear weapons so close to Moscow. Which ignores several facts: the Baltic NATO members are already closer to Moscow, but the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act specifically forbids the permanent basing of substantial NATO troops, or any basing of nuclear warheads or carriers, on the territory of the new Eastern European members "in the current security situation".

NATO has actually long adhered to the letter of that even after Russia quite definitely changed the security situation through the original 2014 intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. In fact despite Russian complaints of encroachment on their borders, NATO found it initially hard to deploy even small rotating tripwire forces to the Baltic States due to lack of supporting infrastructure and legal red tape; at the time it would have been difficult to defend them, let alone use them as a springboard to march on Moscow. Only over the last year has the region been seriously militarized - because Russia gave NATO reasons for it.

Moreover, NATO membership for Ukraine is only under serious debate since the Russian invasion, and depending upon a sufficient Russian defeat to not have a simmering day-to-day conflict. Before that, there was no thought of admitting a country with unresolved territorial disputes; even less so before 2014. Only six years earlier, members like France and Germany opposed admitting Georgia for that reason, and over fears of antagonizing Russia. And mere months after that rejection, Russia went to war with Georgia BTW. If Ukraine actually ends up being another NATO base on their border, again they only have themselves to blame.

The Wall Street Journal opinion piece.
===============

Ukraine Fatigue Is Not an Option
Russia and China are making the conflict a test. They think the West is going to fail.

This week is the Ukraine war’s first anniversary, but it feels like 10 years, not one. Ukraine “fatigue” is understandable. But let’s try to put the sensation of war fatigue in context.

Vietnam came to be known in the 1960s as the television war, shown on the TV news every night. News programs then lasted a half-hour, with Vietnam usually just a segment. Still, the unsettling daily footage eroded public support for the war.

Today, with all media on all the time, we are saturated with Ukraine’s war, as we are with mass murders, weather disasters or a train derailment. The sense of feeling worn down by events has become the natural order of things. I had Super Bowl fatigue before the opening kickoff.

In recent months, the argument over Ukraine has been about its importance for the U.S. Is this really “our” war? It is almost eerie that an answer to that legitimate question is emerging almost at the moment of the war’s first anniversary.

It has become clear in the past several weeks that the tectonic plates of global power are shifting. The autocratic alliance of China, Russia and Iran is signaling it’s no longer content to accept an indefinite standoff of competing ideologies and commercial interests as the status quo. They have decided to make Ukraine a singular test, which they believe the U.S., Europe and Asia’s democracies will fail.

I’m not predicting World War III, at least not as conventionally understood. This new alliance—two significant nuclear powers and Iran on the brink of becoming one—seems to recognize that the self-destruction of nuclear war means they have to win on a series of conventional fronts, such as Ukraine, Taiwan or the Baltics.

Nor should we forget history’s lesson that unlikely events can push an already tense world off the rails. The assassination in 1914 of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo tipped the world toward war. A Chinese spy balloon, presumably pushed off course by the weather and floating across the U.S. land mass, may prove to be such an event. It’s hard to ignore that China’s response to the U.S.’s pro forma shooting down of the balloon has been unapologetic belligerence.

On Tuesday this newspaper reported that Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to visit Moscow in the spring. China wants us to believe that Mr. Xi will use the visit to push Vladimir Putin toward a peace settlement. More credible is the assertion by the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that China may be about to send lethal war materiel to Russia, joining Iran as an active equipper of Mr. Putin’s long war.

As in the past when an alliance of adversaries turned more aggressive, some Republicans have rediscovered the centuries-old belief that the U.S. can insulate itself from the tides of history. On the same day this week that President Biden went to Kyiv to join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis aligned himself with the Republicans’ isolationist minority in Congress, criticizing Mr. Biden’s “ blank-check policy” and saying “we have a lot of problems accumulating here in our own country” that Mr. Biden is neglecting.

A political realist would view Mr. DeSantis’s statements on Ukraine as mainly an attempt to peel off more of a Trump base that may be open to alternatives. Like some of the other neoisolationists in Congress, Gov. DeSantis did add that he considers China a more important threat than Russia. This has become a distinction without a difference.

Messrs. Xi and Putin have been explicit in citing the restoration of nationalistic and territorial glory as justification for their jacked-up militarism. The West, properly understood as the world’s determinedly free peoples, has spent much of the past several centuries defeating messianic nationalists content to spill buckets of blood beyond their borders. History’s greatest killer is unchecked xenophobia.

The bet being made in Moscow and Beijing is that their will to win can eventually cause American and European leadership to break. That “win” isn’t about merely defeating the Ukrainians. It’s about finally proving to the other nations these two have courted—in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and in resource- rich Africa—that the time has arrived to join the world’s winners and pull back from the losers.

If several Republican presidential candidates as well as Germany and France look willing ultimately to abandon the Ukrainians, similar recalculations will be made in India, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

The U.S.’s strategic objective in Ukraine is to prevent Russia, China and Iran from being able to declare persuasively to the watching world that they are winning.

Only one nation in the whole world is actively fighting to stop this alliance from winning. Ukraine merely wants the U.S. and Europe to send them the necessary instruments of war—not next summer, but now—with which, as the last year has proved, they will fight to the last man, woman and child. The Ukrainians have already written their blank check. Our fatigue is not an option.

WONDER LAND
By Daniel Henninger

LINK

^^^^ The bigger picture...that many fail to see.

Just more cheerleading for further ramping up the War Machine by the WSJ...Yay!

They were even able to sneak in a shot or two at DeSantis and the GOP...

quote:

I’m not predicting World War III, at least not as conventionally understood...

I mean, it's a risk, sure... but I’m not predicting it. But no one predicted the other two World Wars either.

quote:

Only one nation in the whole world is actively fighting to stop this alliance from winning. Ukraine merely wants the U.S. and Europe to send them the necessary instruments of war—not next summer, but now—with which, as the last year has proved, they will fight to the last man, woman and child. The Ukrainians have already written their blank check. Our fatigue is not an option.

After a generation of failure in Vietnam... and another generation of failure in Afghanistan... let's give war a chance! Fatigue is not an option.
Crank up the MIC! There are profits to be made.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban Does Not Want to Participate in Western Effort to Escalate War Against Russia…

… and because of that, he’s now a bigger target than ever.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is not willing to join the NATO alliance in pushing further escalation of war against Russia.

Now, we begin to connect the dots, see the bigger picture and understand exactly why Samantha Power is running an operation inside Hungary with the unspoken intent of destabilizing the Hungarian population against the government.

(Via Daily Mail) – Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban snubbed Wednesday’s meeting in Warsaw with President Joe Biden and the other Bucharest Nine leaders after insisting Donald Trump was the only person who could broker peace with Vladimir Putin.

Orban has been an outlier on the war in Ukraine, chiding the European Union for prolonging the conflict and saying in October that only former U.S. President Donald Trump could negotiate a deal between the Ukrainians and Russians to end the conflict.

‘ This is going to sound brutal, but hope for peace goes by the name of Donald Trump ,’ Orban said at the time, arguing Biden wasn’t the man for the job because he has ‘gone too far’ in calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal.’ (read more)

Hungary has been in the crosshairs of the Biden/Obama administration ever since Prime Minister Viktor Orban refused to align with the WEF Western Democracies in their quest for regime change in Russia. As the NATO led western alliance assembled to use Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Orban would not join.

https://theconservativetreehou...-russia/#more-243639

^^^Conservative Treehouse Article cont'd:

In early April 2022, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was overwhelmingly reelected [Link], despite the massive efforts against him by the European Union, western and euro-centric multinational globalists. As a result of the victory, Brussels was furious at the Hungarian people. Associated Press – [...] “Orban — a fierce critic of immigration, LGBTQ rights and “EU bureaucrats” — has garnered the admiration of right-wing nationalists across Europe and North America.” [Link]

Within the statements reported from his 2022 victory speech, Prime Minister Orban warned citizens of the NATO and western allied countries about the manipulation of Ukraine and how he views the Zelenskyy regime: […] “while speaking to supporters on Sunday, Orban singled out Zelenskyy as part of the “overwhelming force” that he said his party had struggled against in the election — “the left at home, the international left, the Brussels bureaucrats, the Soros empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president.” [Link]

This put Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the crosshairs of the western alliance, specifically the EU and U.S. bureaucrats who use their power, position and intelligence apparatus to manipulate foreign nations. A year later and now we see USAID Administrator Samantha Power in Hungary openly discussing her seeding of the NGO’s and political activist systems in order to generate yet another color revolution.
https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html - WATCH:



Samantha Power, the wife of Cass Sunstein, is well known as the Obama/Biden administration’s advance operative who uses her position in U.S. government to influence activism in targeted nations. Hungary is now a target.

See the construct?

https://theconservativetreehou...-russia/#more-243639

MORE...'Some' duplicated info from the previous article

Head’s Up, State Dept Operative and USAID Administrator Samantha Power is in Hungary, Seeding Another Color Revolution – Deep State Ukraine 2.0

Hungary has been in the crosshairs of the Biden/Obama administration ever since Prime Minister Viktor Orban refused to align with the WEF Western Democracies in their quest for regime change in Russia. As the NATO led western alliance assembled to use Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Orban would not join.

In early April 2022, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was overwhelmingly reelected [Link] , despite the massive efforts against him by the European Union, western and euro-centric multinational globalists. As a result of the victory, Brussels was furious at the Hungarian people. Associated Press – […] “Orban — a fierce critic of immigration, LGBTQ rights and “EU bureaucrats” — has garnered the admiration of right-wing nationalists across Europe and North America.” [Link]

Within the statements reported from his 2022 victory speech, Prime Minister Orban warned citizens of the NATO and western allied countries about the manipulation of Ukraine and how he views the Zelenskyy regime: […] “while speaking to supporters on Sunday, Orban singled out Zelenskyy as part of the “overwhelming force” that he said his party had struggled against in the election — “the left at home, the international left, the Brussels bureaucrats, the Soros empire with all its money, the international mainstream media, and in the end, even the Ukrainian president.” [Link]

This put Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the crosshairs of the western alliance, specifically the EU and U.S. bureaucrats who use their power, position and intelligence apparatus to manipulate foreign nations. A year later and now we see USAID Administrator Samantha Power in Hungary openly discussing her seeding of the NGO’s and political activist systems in order to generate yet another color revolution.

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power, the wife of Cass Sunstein, is well known as the Obama/Biden administration’s advance operative who uses her position in U.S. government to influence activism in targeted nations. Hungary is now her target.

Why is eliminating Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban now the goal of the Biden administration. Well, a reminder:

♦ Hungary warned citizens of the west about the New World Order, created through Ukraine.
♦ Hungary continued to purchase Russian oil and natural gas. Zelenskyy and the Western alliance were furious.
♦ Hungary said they would continue energy purchases in Rubles if that is what Russia demanded.

The World Economic Forum and NATO/Western Alliance cannot permit a nation to stand on principles of nationalism. Allowing a point of contrast that would showcase the weakness of globalism and multiculturalism is something the western control system just cannot permit.

As a result, Samantha Power, the U.S. State Dept (USAID) and the CIA, are collectively running an operation in Hungary, seeding the groundwork for the next color revolution. They don’t even try to hide this stuff anymore.

https://theconservativetreehou...p-state-ukraine-2-0/

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Just more cheerleading for further ramping up the War Machine by the WSJ...Yay!

I wonder where Sleepy Joe and the rest of the worlds Ukraine cheerleading team stand on the Chinese / Uyghur genocide and internment camp problem. After all, we are just doing what's right for Europeans but we turn our backs on the Uyghurs. Maybe another proxy war is in order because righting wrongs is what we should always do

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Just more cheerleading for further ramping up the War Machine by the WSJ...Yay!

I wonder where Sleepy Joe and the rest of the worlds Ukraine cheerleading team stand on the Chinese / Uyghur genocide and internment camp problem. After all, we are just doing what's right for Europeans but we turn our backs on the Uyghurs. Maybe another proxy war is in order because righting wrongs is what we should always do

So what's your plan to help the Uyghurs? Since the only groups to help the Uyhgurs in recent history has been Al Qaeda and the Taliban, are you saying we should ally ourselves with those two to help Uyhgurs?

quote:

Originally posted by IrishWind:

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Just more cheerleading for further ramping up the War Machine by the WSJ...Yay!

I wonder where Sleepy Joe and the rest of the worlds Ukraine cheerleading team stand on the Chinese / Uyghur genocide and internment camp problem. After all, we are just doing what's right for Europeans but we turn our backs on the Uyghurs. Maybe another proxy war is in order because righting wrongs is what we should always do

So what's your plan to help the Uyghurs? Since the only groups to help the Uyhgurs in recent history has been Al Qaeda and the Taliban, are you saying we should ally ourselves with those two to help Uyhgurs?

My plan would be to stay out of the Chinese/Uyhgur and the Ukraine/Russia debacles. I don't think it is advisable for the US right wrongs because it is seldom successful and always dangerous with big downsides. I think invasion AND genocide are wrong but I certainly do want to spend blood and treasure trying to fix it.

quote:

I don't think it is advisable for the US to right wrongs because it is seldom successful and always dangerous with big downsides.

Yes, and not only is it not advisable but it's unconstitutional. In other words, it's illegal.

This was posted in the other thread, but it's important:

Biden's reckless, illegal and unconstitutional war in Ukraine

There is little debate when it comes to U.S. involvement
By Andrew P. Napolitano -

Can the president fight any war he wishes? Can Congress fund any war it chooses? Are there constitutional and legal requirements that must first be met before war is waged? Can the United States legally attack an ally?

These questions should be front and center in a debate over the U.S. involvement in Ukraine. Sadly, there has been no great debate. Media outlets are mouthing what the CIA tells them. Only a few websites and podcasts — my own, “Judging Freedom” on YouTube, among them — are challenging the government’s reckless, immoral, illegal and unconstitutional war.

All power in the federal government comes from the Constitution and from no other source. Congress, however, has managed to extend its reach beyond the confines of the Constitution domestically by spending money in areas that it cannot regulate and purchasing compliance from the states by bribery.

Examples of this are the minimum blood alcohol content to trigger a DWI arrest, and maximum speed limits. In both instances, Congress offered money to the states to pave highways provided that they lower both numbers, and the cash-strapped states accepted the money along with congressional strings. These are bribes from the criminal consequences of which Congress has exempted itself.

The same takes place in foreign policy. Congress cannot legally declare war on Russia since there is no militarily grounded reason for doing so. Russia poses no threat to American national security or American persons or property. Moreover, the U.S. has no treaty with Ukraine that triggers an American military defense. But Congress spends money on war nevertheless.

Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war on a nation or group. The last time it did so was to initiate American involvement in World War II. But Congress has given away limited authority to presidents and permitted them to fight undeclared wars. Examples of this are President George W. Bush’s disastrous and criminal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

Congress has not only not declared war on Russia; it has not authorized the use of U.S. military force against it. Yet it has given President Biden a check for $100 billion and authorized him to spend it on military equipment for Ukraine however he sees fit.

He has promised to continue giving Ukraine whatever it needs for “as long as it takes.” As long as it takes to do what? He cannot answer that because he has no clear military objective. Eliminating Russian troops from Ukraine and Crimea or Russian President Vladimir Putin from office are not realistic military goals.

Congress has authorized only weapons and cash to be sent to Ukraine, but Mr. Biden has sent troops as well. U.S. involvement in Vietnam began the same way: No declaration of war, no authorization for the use of military force, yet a gradual buildup of American troops as advisers and instructors, and then a congressionally supported war that saw half a million American troops deployed, 10% of whom came home in body bags.

We don’t know how many American troops are in Ukraine, as they are out of uniform and their whereabouts a secret. We know they are involved in hostilities, since much of the hardware Mr. Biden has sent requires American know-how to operate and maintain. And some of the weaponry has American troops actually targeting Russian forces and pulling the trigger.

Are U.S. soldiers killing Russian soldiers? Yes. None of it has been authorized by Congress, but Congress has paid for it with borrowed money.

Now back to the Constitution. The War Powers Resolution, which requires presidential notification to Congress of the use of American military force, is unconstitutional because it consists of Congress giving away one of its core functions: declaring war. The Supreme Court has characterized delegating away core functions as violative of the separation of powers.

Nevertheless, Mr. Biden has not informed Congress of his intentions to use American troops violently. Yet he has used the Navy and the CIA to attack Germany — a war crime and a violation of the NATO treaty — and he has soldiers out of uniform in Ukraine so as to perpetuate the deception that boots are not on the ground.

Don’t be surprised if Mr. Biden gives War Powers Act notice secretly to the Gang of Eight. What’s that? The Gang of Eight is the Congress within the Congress. It consists of the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate with which the president legally shares secrets.

Just as Congress cannot delegate its war-making powers to the president, it cannot delegate them to the Gang of Eight. The concept of the Gang of Eight is antithetical to democratic values. Informing them of whatever violence the president is up to is done under an oath of secrecy. What kind of democracy operates and kills in secret?

The various treaties to which the U.S. is a party limit its war-making to that which is defensive, proportional and reasonable. So, if a foreign power is about to strike — like on 9/11, while the government slept — the president can strike first in order to protect the U.S. Beyond an imminent attack, the basis for war must be real, the adversary’s anti-U.S. military behavior must be grave, the objective of war must be clear and attainable, and the means must be proportionate to the threat.

Has Russia threatened the U.S.? No. What grave acts has the Russian military committed against the U.S.? None. What is Mr. Biden’s objective? He won’t say.

Does the Congress uphold the Constitution? Does the president? The answers are obvious. We have reposed the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who ignore it. The consequences are death, debt and the loss of personal liberty.

https://m.washingtontimes.com/...onstitutional-war-i/

Victor Davis Hanson had a very interesting article today.


The Ukraine War's Prelude to What?
Victor Davis Hanson |
Feb 23, 2023

The Ukraine mess is daily looking more like the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939, a meat grinder that took 500,000 lives. That three-year conflict became a savage proxy war and prelude for the belligerents of World War II.

The Ukraine battlefield is proving to be a similar laboratory of death. New lethal weaponry and tactics are introduced, modified - and always improved - from drones to guided missiles to internet-fed artillery.

Likewise, a similar pre-global war lineup of the eventual adversaries is emerging in preview of a much larger, much scarier war to come.

The first mission of Ukraine, the aggrieved victim of a peremptory Russian attack, was simple survival.

But now that it has been armed to the teeth and its soldiers proved far more capable and heroic than Putin's once-feared Russia, Kyiv now seeks to push back Russians to their 2014 Ukrainian acquired borders.

Next President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that the third stage will be to eject every Russian from 2013 Ukraine. He promises to reabsorb both the Crimea and the Donbas.

That is an ambitious goal that might require preemptive attacks inside Russia and on the Black Sea.

To accomplish the last two missions, Zelenskyy needs a blank check of support from a United States that can neither control its own borders nor maintain its critical infrastructure and is $33 trillion in debt.

Americans are not only to supply the money and arms to fuel Zelenskyy's counteroffensives, but to sign onto a dangerous anti-Russian agenda that is not necessarily synonymous with one that is in the best interests of the United States.

As far as Russia goes, Vladimir Putin knows his attack was a costly mistake. It was predicated on the assumption that an appeasing, doddering Biden and a U.S. military humiliated in Afghanistan would always remain passive.

Yet Putin still believes that his blunder will not have been a fatal one if he can still destroy much of Eastern Ukraine, institutionalize what he gained in 2014, fracture NATO, propagandize the war as an existential cause of saving Mother Russia from a corrupt West, and reconfigure a new alliance with China, Iran, North Korea, and perhaps Turkey and India.

As far as the United States goes, the Biden Administration sees America's interest as largely defined by a proxy war to defang Russia. To paraphrase Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, America will pour limitless arms into Ukraine to so weaken Russia that it will have to stay within its current borders.

Washington blithely dismisses all of Putin's existential threats as empty nuclear saber-rattling - on the Pentagon's assurance that wounded, cornered, and growling tigers can always be assumed to remain predictably docile.

Biden, whose family influence-peddled with Kyiv for a decade, has radically reversed his initial course. No longer is Biden offering a free ride out of Dodge for Zelenskyy or dismissing any worry over a "minor" Russian invasion.

Biden instead now sees saving Ukraine and punishing Russia as his one shot at a redeeming accomplishment for an otherwise failed administration.

The once-pacifist American Left has embraced Ukraine as its "I told you so" proof that Putin was really the monster that it could not find guilty in its various Russian collusion concoctions and laptop disinformation hoaxes.

The NATO nations are acting uncharacteristically defiant given the war is on their borders. They rightly fear a victorious Putin would be vengeful and not satiated.

Yet their "you go first" shipment of hodgepodge weapons to Ukraine, as well as their embarrassment over their past suicidal energy polices and slow-motion disarmament, remind us that Europeans in NATO before the war could not keep the Russians out, the Americans in, or the Germans down.

China believes it can be the real winner of the war. Its rivals and enemies are weakened the longer the war continues. The West is depleting its arsenals. It is tiring of the cost. Rival Russia is bleeding, selling Beijing cheap oil and begging for its weapons.

Neither Europe nor America, China believes, will want to repeat another proxy war - say, one over Taiwan - against a nuclear power with far more leverage over the West and far greater wherewithal on the battlefield.

Iran is selling drones to Russia. Tehran expects a desperate Putin to sell it all the enriched uranium it needs, prevent a preemptive strike on Tehran, and end Moscow's Syrian wink-and-nod policy with Israel.

India, like Turkey, likes newfound cheap Russian oil. It feels a proximate Russia and China are better entertained than a distant and provocative, but increasingly internally divided and weakened, United States.

Turkey is suddenly booming with cheap oil and a big arms appetite from Russia. It feels rich and illiberal China and Russia both fear Turkey's export of Islamism and seem better allies than the loud-talking but declining West.

North Korea sees only positives in Western distraction in Ukraine. It counts that its nuclear recklessness is seen as a valuable irritant by both Russia and China.

The longer this preview war goes on, the surer will follow the nightmarish main attraction.

https://townhall.com/columnist...ude-to-what-n2619874

This video is about a month old. But it's still relevant, and covers a lot of ground being discussed here. it's as good a read on the situation, and how it will evolve through the spring as I've seen. I searched, and didn't find it posted here.

Hoo, boy.

If we send military advisers anywhere, that constitutes waging war and the Constitution requires that Congress declares war. But if Congress is consulted and votes the funding for those advisers, that's somehow unConstitutionally waging war.

If Nuland gets sent to Hungary in a bid to tighten up unity within NATO, that must mean that we're going to wage a color revolution - on a NATO ally. That kinda makes you wonder why we never did anything to Turkey.

This conflict has been going on for just short of one year today. The West has shown no interest in expanding the conflict and has reinforced frontline countries like Poland and the Baltic States in order to keep it from spilling over Russia's and Belarus' borders. Putin has threatened to expand the war steadily for months, and yet has done nothing to expand the war. Maybe he can't - his army has been trying, and failing, to take one town since last summer. But, somehow, "the longer this preview war goes on, the surer will follow the nightmarish main attraction."

Gee, maybe none of that is actually true.