Thursday, April 21, 2022

Magnum Force


Force is the court of last resort. It also creates its own rabbit holes. Putin famously responds only to force. Sanctions are for the most part symbolic, but if it’s apparent that NATO planes will actually engage, he steps back. The schoolyard bully beats everyone up in his path to conquest. What's left once he's claimed his turf is a tarmac emptied of opponents. Russia would no longer be threatened by NATO, if the countries surrounding it were returned to the Russian Federation or U.S.S.R. If the l00,000 Russian troops had been assembled along the Donbas border at the beginning of the conflict had been met with an equal number of NATO troops, the Russians wouldn't have been able to advance. Pawn meets pawn. But what are the two alternatives in chess which is the most profound metaphor for power? Stale or checkmate! In one, no one wins. In the other the victor stands alone. Is power an aphrodisiac, as Kissinger once said? And for whom?

read "Iraqistan" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Love Train" by the O'Jays



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