WHY THE PEACE OF 1945 MUST BE PRESERVED AT ALL COST !!!

WHY THE PEACE OF 1945 MUST BE PRESERVED AT ALL COST:

 A NEW SUPER POWERS ROUND TABLE SUMMIT IS URGENTLY NEEDED NOW!!

Next year will be exactly 70 years since WW2 came to an end bringing to a close the darkest chapter in the history of the human race. To say WW2 was cataclysmic,  would be a gross understatement, because in the known history of the world, the kind of bloodletting and violence that was unleashed on  the earth by that conflict has had no parallel ever since or thereafter.

When the Great War later known as WW1 came to an end on November 11, 1918 following the signing of the armistice by Germany the world thought it had seen the end of the most violent conflict ever to take place, considering that over ten million lives were lost and the conflict devastated much of Europe and the Middle East, parts of Africa and Asia.

 The devastation and loss of life was unparalleled in history and nobody thought such a conflict could be repeated again.

Modern man has however proven that he can not only repeat his actions, but he can out do himself in bestiality if given a chance.

That is the sad trait in man that has necessitated the need for statesmen and other world leaders to gather together urgently to address the need for the world powers to hold a major summit preferably in Geneva to see how the burning issues that are threatening the peace of 1945 must be urgently settled now before any unforeseen and untoward event shatters the fragile veneer of peace we are clinging to now. 

24 years after the Cold war ended more on a default basis rather than a negotiated settlement it is pretty obvious that the terms upon which world peace was secured and which we are still enjoying is being threatened because the settlement involving the status of the newly freed states of Eastern Europe were not clearly defined in written terms.

 The fact remains however that many of the world leaders of that era are still alive and can be held accountable for the agreements both written and unwritten that had defined the post Cold war era. Prominent among them are former US President George H Bush, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,  former German Chancellor  Helmut Kohl , Prime Minister John Major, French President Francois Mitterrand etc.

Part of what is greatly needed to defuse the tension in Eastern Europe right now is an understanding regarding the consensus reached then by the major powers on how far NATO was permitted to go in its Eastward expansion program, which I believe is the main reason why tension is boiling in Europe right now and trying to unsettle the peace of the world.

I submit regrettably that NATO which was conceived in the 1950’s as a defensive alliance has over the years obviously on account of the economic decline of Russia in the years following the end of the Cold War been emboldened to see itself not only as the guardian angel of Western Europe which was its primary focus but now to include the safe guard of the independence of the newly freed former satellite states of the defunct Soviet Union.

That to me was stretching the mandate of NATO too far beyond its original horizon and now going all the way to wanting to safe guard the independence of the constituent states of the defunct Soviet Union against Russia the mother state of the Soviet Union.

 The scenario to me is akin to NATO trying to protect a lion cub from the mother lioness. How far can such an agenda be advanced peacefully before a violent conflict breaks out.

The height of diplomatic folly and madness to me who was already grown up and knowledgeable of the skillful diplomacy that ensued between Mikhail Gorbachev, George H Bush and Helmut Kohl over the status of Berlin, the unification of Germany and the dissolution of the Warsaw pact and the COMECON between 1989 and 1991, was this idea that NATO could conceive of a vision of protecting Ukraine from Russia!

There are just some crazy ideas you don’t develop on the world stage except you are looking for a very bloody confrontation and are bereft of any useful work to keep you busy which is what I am confident NATO is facing right now. I think NATO is very desperate for relevance at this point in time when its mission was gradually winding down by virtue of the sustained peace in Europe particularly in the post cold war years.

I dare say that if the Russians are pretty sure that NATO and the US in particular is no longer interested in meddling in the affairs of the former Soviet States, that the conflict in the Ukraine would wind up and completely diminish in relevance and status and die a natural death.

Vladimir Putin is not a fool neither is he Adolf Hitler as some would seek to portray him all in a bid to stoke a conflict whose only purpose to me is to threaten world peace. The man to me is the leader of a nation that has been wounded like a Lioness that would like to preserve its cubs and Pride’s pride.

 As long as the West feels it is within its purview to continue poking its NATO stick into Russia’s eyes and ribs I dare say that Europe will know neither peace nor rest. In Africa we have a saying that says a child that says its mother shall not sleep at night will first have to forfeit its own sleep first.

Anybody that has had time to read Putin’s auto biography aptly titled 'Putin’s progress' would understand why the Russian leader based on the travails of his past life has a wounded lion’s instinct to preserve itself. To go poking a stick at a wounded lion to me is not the best way to spend your time or your precious Dollars obtained with the sweat and hard work of the people of the West.

It seems to me that there are some unnamed and unseen forces working behind the scene that are desperate to plunge Europe into a major conflict in this NUCLEAR AGE in which the only outcome of a full blown confrontation would be the

 mutually assured destruction of the belligerents. Are the Europeans hungry for extinction or obliteration?

That Europe is on the decline as a center of global power which was the natural result of the two bloody conflicts of the 20^th century, and is also facing the population declined caused by a birth rate decline that is not self perpetuating, not enough peril for the European continent the birth place of the industrial revolution?

The scars of WW2 have yet to fully heal and we implore the war mongers working behind the scenes to spark a fresh conflagration to please give peace a chance so we can one day celebrate the centenary of the end of WW2 in a peaceful world.

To seek a conflagration at this time in Europe to me is the ultimate CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY as enshrined in the laws of war defined in the Nuremberg trials in 1945 at the end of WW2.

A second part of this theme will be out in due course, thanks for remaining engaged

21st Century realities ; The place of the Aircraft Carrier in the 21st century

THE PLACE OF THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER IN THE BALANCE OF POWER EQUATION OF THE 21^ST CENTURY

The 21^st as it appears, seems to be the most fluid and unpredictable century in the history of modern man. There is no century in contemporary history that has seen the spate of changes the world has witnessed within the last fifteen years of the opening of the 21^st century. Events and changes are occurring at such a dizzying place and regularity that the long-range bet is no longer a profitable proposition.

The same is happening in the realm of technology and strategic assets particularly in the military realm. In the 20^th century, assets that had both strategic and tactical value could be counted on to last at least half a century before they began to decline in relevance, but that is not so any more as technology to both enhance and counter the value of any asset are springing forth at an amazing pace , sometimes both simultaneously.

During the last years of WW2, the United States held such an overwhelming advantage on the High Seas that it would have been thought impossible that any nation could counter her power and influence for another 100 years. But then in this technologically driven age, it isn’t safe to bet against the future.

But then the nuclear weapon and the nuclear powered submarine showed up to counter the power of a fleet that boasted over 28 main fleet carriers and over 71 escort carriers, excluding the light carriers.

The fact was that the US finished the war with over 114 ships that could launch and recover aircraft including the main fleet carriers of the Essex class, light carriers and the escort carriers, not to talk of the thousands of accompanying warships of all classes.

 It was an awful deployment of sea power that in the days of Rome could have kept the US in control of the high seas for at least 300 years like Great Britain at the beginning of the 18^th century.

The game changer however has been technology, of which no single nation has a monopoly of, no matter how hard you try to conceal it. Post world war two era quickly turned from the capital ships particularly the Battleships to the  deployment of submarines particularly the nuclear powered submarines with both ballistic and cruise missile capacity with both conventional and nuclear capability.

The aircraft because it had the operational capability of the submarine has also remained a strategic weapon of choice. That was why while many nations turned from the Battleships, the aircraft carrier remained relevant acting more as a mobile platform for deploying air power from the sea, from anywhere in the world.

The fate of the aircraft carrier is however tied to the ability of its air crews to deliver offensive power through the application of air power. Thus the aircraft carrier is a sure winner against those nations that lack the power to parry air strikes by either retaliatory strikes or the anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles that are proving more deadly and capable with each passing day.

The Russians are building more progressively deadly anti-aircraft missiles in the class of the BUK that are proving more and more deadly to planes flying in the interceptor role. The planes that have the ‘capacity’ to evade these missiles are getting prohibitively expensive both to build and operate.

And one of the cardinal rules of war is that a prohibitively expensive asset is a liability on the long-run, a lesson clearly grasped from Adolf Hitler and his miracle weapons that ultimately drained Germany of vital resources towards the end of the second world war and ultimately deprived Germany of the capacity to build the basic weapons that had been most effective previously.

1942, marked the beginning of Germany’s turn to miracle weapons that consumed an unreasonable amount of the nation’s resources and drained her energy leaving her vulnerable to the nations that concentrated on the basic and easily mass-produced weapons of war.

You may not believe this but the facts are there to prove it, 1942, was the beginning of Hitler’s obsession with wonder weapons and that was also the year the tide turned against Germany. The wonder weapons only served to nurse false hopes that became the basic undoing of Germany surrounded with enemies that were content to use the tried and proven assets with which they ultimately humiliated Germany.

The law of diminishing returns climaxes in this greatest of ironies, which only the most discerning can apprehend. IT IS A FACT OF LIFE THAT THE MORE DIFFICULT A PROBLEM APPEARS IN THE NATURAL, THE EASIER IT IS TO SOLVE IN REALITY, if you know how to handle it. Like they say ‘the bigger they come the harder they fall’.

The fact remains that highly complex solutions should never be rushed to a field of conflict, because they are highly vulnerable to basic counter measures e.g., ‘David and Goliath’.

Hitler’s wonder weapons were all neutralized by the Allies one after the other applying the most rudimentary elements effectively. Allied destruction of Germany’s oil supplies effectively eliminated the fuel hungry Tiger tank and brought Hitler’s 1944 offensive in the Ardennes to an abrupt halt.

 The V-1 and V-2 Rockets were eliminated when their bases were overrun by the Allies and the Me 262 jets were put out of action when the Allies destroyed their overextended runways as It became obvious that they required extended runways and the Russians on the other hand used the humble shovel to dig trenches that effectively stopped the Tiger tanks in the battle of Kursk in July 1943.

 

In the Pacific war in 1945 as the war against Japan drew to a close, the Essex class carrier, the USS Franklin managed to deploy about 50 miles off the coast of Japan to inflict the daily dose of airstrikes that had become the lot of Japan in the closing days of WW2.

It was on record that the Franklin set a record by that record- closeness to the shore of Japan as it acted with impunity. A single Japanese ‘Val’ with two 250 pound bombs closed the day for the Franklin when the fire that bomb started made the Franklin the most heavily damaged US warship that survived the war.

The USS Bunker Hill suffered the same fate as the Franklin in a two plane strike. Though both planes survived the war, they could neither launch nor recover aircraft and that effectively put them out of action as far as the war was concerned. The point is this, that the strategic and tactical value of an aircraft carrier is not tied to its being afloat, but to its ability to launch and recover aircraft.

Once it cannot launch or recover aircraft it has no tactical or strategic value over and above any other warship. And that is one thing I say that a hit by a single missile either ballistic, anti-ship or intelligently guided cruise missile can be cheaply or realistically accomplished on a modern day aircraft carrier regardless of the tonnage.

The idea is not to sink the ship but to render it incapable of launching or recovering aircraft, in that way its usefulness as an offensive asset is completely neutralized. On the other hand the aircraft carrier is still very useful against poor nations that are bereft of missile technology.

However in the contemporary age the aircraft carrier is still very useful as a command and control center and as a floating sea base in support of forward operations as long as it is not deployed too near the shores of a missile capable nation. However its usefulness as a weapon of intimidation is still very much relevant for those nations who can be intimidated by its immense size and firepower.

The next writing will be centered on why the ‘Peace of 1945’ must be preserved at all costs no matter whose ‘Ox is gored’.

Civilization has no other choice as a WW3 is no longer a realistic choice or option. No sane person starts a war he cannot win or survive. Thanks for remaining on Deck.

THE ERA OF THE CAPITAL SHIP IS OVER ; PHASE ONE ON SERIES TITLED 21ST CENTURY REALITIES

THE ERA OF THE CAPITAL SHIP IS OVER

This article is meant to draw the attention of naval planners to the fact that recent trends in both guided missile and cruise missile technology are sounding the death knell for the age of the capital ship which began in 1906 when the British Royal Navy laid down the first Dreadnought class battle ship.

I have spent over 37 years of my life studying the conflicts of the world in the last 100- plus years beginning in 1914 till date seeing the evolving technologies in both military and naval warfare and seeing how that nations that were smart enough to not only observe trends but ‘see’ into the future were the nations that not only ruled the waves but also sailed the crest of the future.

The Royal Navy, the German Imperial Navy and the US Navy were the only navies in 1906 which were discerning enough to see that the age of the battleship from 1914 and beyond was going to be ruled basically by the ships that could adapt to faster speed, heavier gunnery, thicker armor and ultimately a change from steam powered propulsion to heavy fuel, ultimately diesel powered propulsion.

These innovations gave birth to the Dreadnought class of battleships which dominated the oceans until 1940, when the aircraft carrier came into being as the new master of the waves.

Who led the way was always determined by who could see into the future. The British Navy in WW2 kept its hold on the Mediterranean Sea in 1940 up till the invasion of Sicily simply because HMS Ark Royal and HMS Eagle were involved in the sea patrols of the Mediterranean.

These handful of carriers and accompanying submarines and destroyers acting in tow kept the Mediterranean Sea safe for the British Navy even though the Italian Navy which was bristling with battle ships and cruisers with its home port nearby couldn’t challenge the British for the control of the Mediterranean because the few attempts it made to challenge British naval power met with humiliating losses from war planes operating from the British aircraft carriers, particularly the HMS Ark Royal.

                                                                                               

Even the destruction of the German battleship the Bismarck the most powerful in the world at that time in 1941, even though credited to the old battleships the HMS King George and the HMS Rodney  as  the Bismarck steamed towards the French port of Brest trying the escape the wrath of the Royal Navy after it had sunk the HMS Hood, was actually made possible because a late carrier strike by aircraft dropping torpedoes   from HMS Ark Royal had jammed its steering gear and the rudderless ship could only move in circles with a jammed rudder making it possible for the two British battleships to catch up with her and finish her off.

To discerning naval observers, it was becoming clear that the Aircraft carrier was becoming the prince of the waves. This observation was not lost on the Japanese naval chiefs as they schemed on how to scuttle the American Navy in Pearl Harbor in 1941. The realization then was that capital ships were becoming vulnerable to air power particularly the aerial torpedo which could be launched at a distance even by a single plane.

 It took further down the war before Admirals on both sides of the conflict realized that the aircraft carrier was now the main battle station in the high seas, able to strike at ships, planes, land and sea based targets. In one of the most audacious deployments of the carrier strike groups in WW2, Admiral William Halsy's Third fleet sailed to Formosa off the China Sea attacked and destroyed over 600 Japanese land based planes in late 1944 as the US planned to invade the Philippines

Here carrier based planes decimated land based fighters in an aerial battle on a scale hitherto unprecedented in WW2. Thus the aircraft carrier finished WW2 as the master of the waves and has held sway over the seas for the last half a century and more.

However the strategic equation is about to change once more as we enter the 21^st century and the age of the precision guided cruise missile. To be candid the cruise missile, particularly the long range missile with artificial intelligence capability and the armed drone is about to sweep the piloted aircraft from the skies as a an 'economical' weapon of choice in conducting a strike especially in the offensive role.

Spending billions of Dollars on investments in aircraft technology including the stealth characteristics to me is pointless when an artificially guided cruise missile either ground to air or air to air can bring it down. The cruise missile is no respecter of stealth technology. To start with the cruise missile with artificial intelligence is cheaper, pilot less, and can be sent on missions with pin point strikes that even the stealth fighter cannot abort and at no human cost at all.

To compound matters the cruise missile of today with improvements in GPS positioning systems and its own in-house guidance system can target even a moving target such as a ship or aircraft carrier. The speed of the carrier strike groups in WW2 were its greatest assets and best defenses.

 The faster the carrier groups could sail, the more difficult it was to target them. That was why modern day aircraft carriers and submarines are fitted with nuclear power plants that can propel them indefinitely.

 Today the greatest defense of a carrier is its high speed and infinite propulsion. However high speed drones are in vogue today that can hover over even a mobile target for hours while serving as a command and control center for targeting a moving ship or a land- based target.

 Even the contemporary cruise missile has the capacity to alter or correct its course as long as its in-built radar can lock on the target as well as obtaining assistance from a remote command and control center which a drone hovering above can easily provide

With today’s technology, a WW2 PT boat of the type President Kennedy rode in 1942 off Guadalcanal if equipped with today’s cruise missiles with the appropriate guidance system could have taken on a battle ship or even an aircraft carrier of that era.

Precision guided weapons make it very unwise today and highly unprofitable on the long-run to deploy mobile assets with massive tonnage on the battlefield. All you will be doing is creating a good and tempting target platform for the precision guided weapons.

In my own thinking a flurry of low cost , nimble and agile mobile precision guided weapons platforms such as a destroyer equipped with intelligent weapons and air to air, ship to air missiles can hit any target any where today in the world.The practical thing to do would be to invest in concealment, preponderance in numbers and precision.

Nothing frustrates in a conflict with an adversary like the knowledge of the fact that no matter how many of his mobile assets you take out of action, it is of no consequence to him on the long run and will not diminish his firepower or capacity to fight. That was basically why the Soviet Union overcame Germany in WW2 in spite of Germany's qualitative edge in terms of technology and advancement.

The Soviets focused on assets that were easy to mass produce, easy to maintain , whose losses meant little to them and this took off a lot of burden off the officers who were required to deploy these assets., so they could operate without coming under undue pressure.

 Vietnamese guerrilla leader Ho Chi Minh told the French in 1956 during the French Indo-China war that ‘you will kill ten of my men and I will kill one of your men, but on the long run you will quit’. On the long run Ho Chi Minh truly won because the French could not sustain the predicted casualty level indefinitely.

No rational minded person will want to start a conflict if he cannot figure out how he can win on the short or long-run.

 As an Admiral today I will rather have thousands of mobile assets even in the class of the Coast Guard cutters or destroyers cluttering the high seas with innumerable batteries of precision guided missiles that can hit any target on the land and sea than a single 100,000 tons platform that is so massive that it can be targeted from anywhere in the world with hundreds of warheads, and with the more depressing knowledge of the  fact that the loss of one single such platform can alter the course of the conflict. To start with such a visible platform is an open invitation to attack.

That to me is a completely unacceptable risk and an unworthy investment especially when you consider the psychology of war fare. Nobody will want to find an enemy that is elusive in presence, has preponderance in numbers, the destruction of whose assets no matter how many is negligible in consequence, has unlimited capacity to cheaply replace his assets and more importantly is evicereal like the true masses of uncountable battle rats that can overwhelm even a king’s palace.

Such a nation or state is one most people will try to avoid in conflict or warfare.

That was the psychology that the United States and the Soviet Union employed in defeating the Germans in WW2. While the Germans began in 1942 to invest in the high class heavy weight 70 ton Tiger tank which was expensive to build, consumed a formidable amount of fuel, slow and sluggish in movement, could break down easily and had a rear burner that was extremely volatile, and more importantly difficult to replace.

The American simply turned out the simple to build , cheap to maintain and high speed Sherman with although a smaller gun, 76 mm compared to the German’s 88mm on the Tiger, in such huge numbers that even though outclassed by the Tiger in one-on-one fighting simply swamped the Germans by virtue of their numbers and preponderance on the battlefield.

 The Russians achieved the same result with the T-34 that shared the same vital statistics with the American Sherman

The Germans won the technological race but the Russians and Americans won the war and that was all that mattered ultimately. I guess the logic involved in the confrontation between the Sherman tank and the Tiger tank still holds relevance even in naval warfare today.

Had President Roosevelt spread the deployment of American warships all across the West coast instead of concentrating them in Pearl Harbor, or kept the entire fleet on Patrol in the Pacific there would never have been the attack on Pearl Harbor. In conclusion, I would like to add that the battle ‘rats’ approach to conflict management is difficult to defeat. 

The key is therefore to spread the risk, diminish the strategic and tactical importance of any particular and singular asset and multiply the ability to widely and preponderantly overwhelm the opposition no matter the circumstances.

Holding the preponderance in opportunity to react no matter the circumstances is vital to one’s long term security. Pinning your hopes on a highly expensive fixed or mobile asset that cannot be affordably mass produced and replaced is to create a psychological vulnerability that is highly unnecessary.

Phase two on this blog would focus on the true place of the aircraft carrier in the 21st century navy in terms of strategic placement and deployment.

TIME NOW TO STOP THE SLIDE TO WW3, UKRAINE IS COMING UP ONLY AS A CAUSAL BELLE !

For students of history in the 20th century, it is pretty obvious that history is hell bent on repeating itself unless discerning world leaders can read the trend and take appropriate action accordingly. Unfortunately as the world ruminates on the sad events that triggered the great war of 1914, we are watching a repeat of the kinds of events beginning in 1936 that inexorably led to the Second World War, when the Nazi Dictator began a dangerous gamble in Europe that eventually led to a global conflict from which the world is yet to fully recover from.

The world is once more confronted by a set of events albeit reminiscent of another long-past era that is boiling up and which can explode if not when handled. The fact remains that NATO as it is today had its roots in the desire of the Western European Bloc that escaped Soviet occupation after WW2 to protect itself from a feared Soviet invasion after World War 2 on account of the huge armies that the Soviet Union had built in the course of the war and which could easily by 1948 overrun the rest of Europe if the Soviet leadership  was willing to risk another war.

The British , French, Belgians , Dutch, Italy and the new West German State that emerged in 1949 saw sense in the wisdom of collective security together with the United States serving as a hedge against any adventurism by the Soviet leaders into Western Europe. Even at the height of its power NATO could scant contain the Soviets if they chose to invade and that is where American nuclear deterrent came in handy and that ultimately led to the nuclear arms race between Russia and America that dominated the second half of the 20th century. Detente became acceptable when the two super powers finally attained the status of [MAD]  mutually assured destruction in the late sixties and early seventies.

That state of affairs kept Europe in peace until the early eighties when the sheer burden of the unequal struggle with the United States and Western Europe led to an implosion that saw the USSR disintegrating in 1989 despite the heroic efforts of Mikhail Gorbachev to save the union through Glasnost and Perestroika. The Soviet Union came off unhinged and NATO declared victory in the 45 year old Cold War. That notwithstanding even though Russia the sole heir to the assets and liabilities of the now dissolved Soviet Union was in a seriously weakened state and gasping for breathe to survive, The West still felt obliged to maintain the Defensive alliance that was formed out of fear of the now defunct Soviet Union.

The Soviet created military alliance known as the Warsaw pact was dissolved in 1991alongside its economic and political pact known as COMECON. NATO however remained and in fact began an East- ward expansion leading to the genuine psychological fear in Russia that NATO's new vision was to see Russia permanently crippled as a great power.That to me was begging the question of whether NATO had not deviated from its vision of protecting Europe to becoming a threat to European security. The question of the Eastern expansion of the alliance to incorporating the component states of the defunct Warsaw Pact and finally to including the former states of the old USSR was to me a very dangerous and unwholesome provocation to Russia which was still desperately trying to find its feet.  

The NATO gamble in expanding  to the East could have succeeded if the West was sure that Russia as a giant could never find its feet again as it seemed to appear for about two decades. But then the rise of nations like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia , Mexico and growth else where furnished ground for the huge rise in energy prices as well as demand for natural gas in Europe and elsewhere of which Russia is well endowed. With huge earnings pouring down its coffers , it was only natural for the now revived giant to seek a restoration in its fortune especially as its nuclear stock pile, the largest in the world for that matter was still intact.

The dynamics of resurgence in Russia today is not limited to Putin as an individual, because the nationalist sentiments that Putin has stirred in his second coming has resonated with the average Russian and that is why he has continued to enjoy record support not only in Russia but among Russian speaking people in Eastern Europe. The idea taking root in Russia today is that our time has come again and obviously the desire to settle scores again was becoming very obvious among the Russian populace. The Russian people have also never forgotten that none of the old Soviet Republics worked harder to unsettle the union than Ukraine.The fact also remains that in 24 years of independence Ukraine has not been able to find its feet economically.

Ukraine's umbilical cord still remained tied to Russia up till 2013, and that is why the ousted Ukrainian leader still looked to renewing its economic dependence on Moscow . The decision to cut that umbilical cord was a decision Ukraine alone ought to take without the rancorous interference of the West as was orchestrated during the Maidan uprising late last year. In other words it was a tragic mistake for Europe and America to come forward boldly to offer their 'surgical knife' to Ukraine to sever a relationship and a dependence syndrome on Russia that had spanned over three hundred years. Naturally Russia was bound to react and that they have done unabashedly ,sparking this latest round of needless confrontation.

A decision by Ukraine to severe ties with Russia ought to be Ukraine's only and ought not to be influenced by a riotous mob as was seen in the disturbances that racked the country late last year until this year. The decision of the West to boldly 'help' Ukraine severe ties with its past master was not only unwise but needlessly provocative and has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold war as it is today. The situation in Ukraine is evocative of the conflict that persisted between The United States and the Soviet Union over Cuba in the sixties and seventies .

 The United States felt Cuba belonged in its sphere of influence , considering their historic ties especially when America fought the Spanish-American war just to free Cuba at the turn of the 19th century only to have the Soviet Union make attempts to use Cuba as a staging ground for targeting the US with short -range nuclear missiles. It was completely unacceptable to the Kennedy Administration in the early sixties and America was ready to go to war to press its point .

In the same way Western dabbling in the affairs of Ukraine and its Russian speaking people to me is needlessly provocative. Let the Ukrainian people and Russia settle their differences themselves without outside interference for the sake of world peace. In any case, NATO is not under any obligation as it is to intervene in Ukraine militarily as emotional as the events may look. Secondly NATO must desist from its provocation of Russia by its eastern expansionist tendencies. Hard choices are often times needed to keep the peace without the evocation of any sentiments no matter how idealistic they may appear. What Russia is doing today is what the United States has done countless times in the past to protect its 'vital interests'.