Many American combatants and allied soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria possibly are discomfited with fighting wars that only seek to impose Western morals on other societies. These territories are dominated by people with a different code of ethics, especially when it comes to human rights.

^{Certainly the U.S. and its allies are right to defend themselves from violent attacks such as what occurred on 9/11/2001. However, they are not thereby authorized to change the way majorities in other territories wish to live their lives.  Not even the Universal Code of Human Rights sanctions that. There may be members of those societies who share Western values.  Moreover, there are many of them desperately trying to escape those territories and start living in Western countries like the U.S. where they will be protected from cultural repression.}

^{The U.S. and its allies may be compelled by their domestic politics to help foreign freedom seekers; but violent territorial invasion and regime change are not called for.  Blood and treasure may justifiably be spent, however, specifically to facilitate escape by dissenters from those cultures and their resettlement in Western countries.  But preventing a dominant majority group from setting the rules for living in its territory violates principles of national sovereignty that help maintain world peace.}

^{It must be hard to pursue a military career in a powerful country like the U.S. when it is governed by authorities that miss this distinction. A similar policy mistake may likewise characterize other countries dominated by cultures that believe their truths are universal.  Changing that belief, i.e., convincing people that each culture has relative not universal values, has long been the task of balancing the demands of cultural freedom and territorial integrity.}

What Trump accomplished in 2916 was to have recognized that there was a sizable group of disaffected voters in the country that could be inspired to vote in key states which might represent sufficient electoral college votes to give him the presidency. Fortunately for him the liberal democratic left didn’t suspect that and let their ambivalence prevent a strong response. Therefore, they sheepishly conceded victory to an anti-institutional agent of chaos.

The 2020 election results showed that when efficiently aroused by the destructive performance of a president like Trump the majority of citizens who cherished the existence of a functioning liberal democracy, dominated by either political party, was certainly preferable to a democracy in name only, headed by an authoritarian ruler, competent or not.

On election day 2022 Joe Scarborough chided Democratic candidates for not being more forceful in arguing their policies and qualifications in the face of the false claims of their Republican opponents.  He particularly criticized Katie Hobbs for being “afraid of her own shadow” by not responding assertively to her opponent, Kari Lake, in the Arizona gubernatorial contest.  He congratulated former president Obama for the clarity and passion of his campaign speeches on behalf of several Democratic candidates while lamenting the “weakness” of many other Democratic election campaigns in presenting their strengths compared to the MAGA Republicans

The combativeness of media stars like Scarborough is particularly notable during this time of repeated complaints about the polarization of American politics.  Some politicians seem to be taking to heart wishes for a more civil tone in the American democracy and reducing the temperature of their style of debate.  Meanwhile, they must, unfortunately, withstand criticism from pundits who don’t seem to realize the contradiction between their glorification of “Madisonian Democracy” and their reaching for explanations for the success of demagogic attacks on the kind of politicians that don’t engage in that sort of competition.  The “weak” candidates appear to be appealing to an electorate they judge to be tired of politics as gamesmanship.

As an alternative strategy, these same “weak” candidates have tried to rely on other popular voices to take direct aim at the falsehoods and mis-directions of their rivals.  In fact, some of them have left it up to respected endorsers, who have retired from government service or are outside government to wield biting charges against their MAGA opponents.

This is an appropriate use of surrogates in a campaign that promises the re-establishment of rational order in our national affairs.  Instead of castigating Democratic politicians for their ineptitude at pandering to the selfish interests of their constituents, liberal media personalities should be encouraging those candidates with audience-friendly presentations of the benefits that everyone gets from a government that tries to serve the common interest.

After all, media leaders are expert at finding ways to sell products and services through all our channels of communication.  They ought to be able to develop compelling presentations of liberal democratic ideals, as well.  The reliance of a large percentage of today's citizens on electronic media, particularly the Internet, for information and opinions has fomented their passive civility.  Passive Civility includes their belief that democracy is the natural state of affairs, which they have come to think is just a part of the atmosphere, without their own active participation,

Likewise, media executives have enshrined “freedom of the press” as a license to concentrate on its entertainment value at the expense of its essential purpose to invigorate the public’s continuing participation in shaping and perfecting the government.  A liberal democratic government is not a divine gift; it is a human creation that needs constant attention.  Freedom is not awarded to the press for its entertainment value.  The media have a civic responsibility to inspire its audience, members of a liberal democracy, to fulfill their obligation vigilantly to shape and monitor their elected designees to assure that the state serves the common welfare.  Performing that task requires more from media personalities than pointing fingers at passive citizens.  It requires that the press use its powerful influence to teach people how to make government serve everybody’s interests.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

American voters include a sizable minority of disaffected middle-class workers who resent the apparent privileged status of those who have succeeded within the free market economy. Whether or not they profess it, they try to act independently of democratic institutions and believe the government and our political leaders are responsible for their failure.

This militant libertarianism, of course, is limited to those government services that they cannot provide or choose not to provide for themselves. It disregards the inability of certain people to fend as well for themselves.

Nevertheless, these militant libertarians are certainly not fascists. They are vulnerable, however, to being exploited by would-be authoritarian rulers. Therefore, it is incumbent on advocates of liberal democracy to enlighten voters of the danger of weakening the universality of democratic institutions. We are all in this boat together, so everybody has to play their part and accept their duty. 

Settlement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will require imaginative negotiations betwee three principal parties.  I wonder whether Putin prioritizes the welfare of Russians over his own place in Russian, if not world, history.  He may think it’s worth a foolhardy risk to challenge the West’s courage by rolling the nuclear dice and ending either with the respect of all humanity, as the creator of a new world order, or with the end of the world as we know it--Vladimir the great, or apocalypse.

Is Putin rational?  If not, maybe the West's proper counter strategy is to anticipate his escalation and remove the cancerous sore with extreme prejudice.

He is certainly very intelligent; however, he fails to understand that no man is an island.  An individual lleader and his country cannot achieve true happiness at the expense of the general welfare. Believing they can is not rational unless they believe the know, like Donald Trump, that the world and everyone in it are merely a figment of their imagination.  That isn’t rationality; that’s megalomania

The irony for Putin is that if he resorts to Armageddon, no one will be around to read of his triumph.  The same irony prevents his international adversaries from engaging in nuclear retaliation.  No one will win.

JFK reached a compromise with Khrushchev that settled the Cuban Missile Crisis Unfortunately, the West finds itself again in the same sort of stand-off.  Perhaps an Austria-like neutrality for Crimea with a connecting land-bridge would be an acceptable appeasement for the current Russian leadership (as long as it lasts in the face of popular Russian impatience). 

The third critical partner in this deal is Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians.  They might be happy if their country became a member of NATO. That would be the price Putin has to pay, in addition to pulling out of at least some of Donbas and the other occupied territories. 

Could this be regarded as rationality on all three sides?  Otherwise  we have almost forgotten that in the nuclear age only win-win outcomes work