Apparently Russia is trying to conquer Ukraine. Most thought Russia would merely invade Ukraine’s easternmost regions, where many Ukrainians speak Russian. Instead, even after assuring the world that it would hold back, and without even the pretense of claiming anything had changed to force it to go forward, Russia invaded all of Ukraine.
The last two weeks have surprised and confounded us. What are the most important things hanging in the balance over the next two weeks?
Here are four unexpected answers, each pointing to critical but much overlooked concerns.
1) Biden’s reelection and the resulting triumph of Wokesim. Russia’s invasion could devolve into a world war. Wars sometimes help politicians distract voters from their failures. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example, won his third and fourth terms during World War II.
Instead of mindlessly rallying around Biden’s every anti-Russia obloquy, we must assiduously endeavor to defeat him and his strange and radical party.
2) The Green New Deal. To open this drain on America’s wealth, the price of oil must increase. To make that happen, the Left first tried passing a cap-and-trade scheme. That failed. An oil embargo will work just as well.
The price of oil started rising sharply shortly after Biden took office. Today, it’s spiking even more because of Russia’s war. At precisely this time, allegedly to punish Russia, Biden is banning Russian oil. Consequently, oil prices are set to hit new records.
Who benefits? China. Russia will send much of its oil there instead—and at a discount. Who hurts? You. For whom does it all make little difference? Ukraine.
Shell, a British oil giant, had had a bright idea. Last Friday, it squeezed Russia into selling it oil at a deep discount and then pledged the profits to charities for the help of Ukraine. Since then, Shell’s apologized and promised never to do it again, groveling to the likes of the Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who had called to ban Russian oil the day before. In a familiar play, Biden and the woke corporate aristocracy have caved to Democratic Party radicals—who, after weighing nothing but their own preening triumphalism, have again made you worse off.
3) Corporate defaults. An oil-price spike preceded the blowup of bad housing debt in 2008. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy came only three months after oil had hit an all-time high, and a devastating financial crisis followed. Today, there are record levels of corporate debt, much of it shaky. An oil-price spike could spark the next financial crisis. Who benefits? China. Who hurts? You. For whom does it all make little difference? Ukraine.
4) The original “Top Gun” movie. Right now, Americans are free to watch this 1980s classic. In it, Tom Cruise’s character wears his signature bomber jacket, which bears the flag of the free democracy of Taiwan. Later this year, a “Top Gun” remake will debut. In it, the Taiwanese flag will vanish.
When China of the 2020s complains, China of the 2020s gets its way. Would China get its way if it attacked Taiwan today? That depends on how much oil costs.
If oil is expensive, everything is expensive. To keep prices from rising ever faster, America would have to raise interest rates. With just a few false steps, America could find itself financing wars with Russia and China at interest rates not quite high enough to stave off punishing inflation but just high enough to plunge itself into a recession and drown itself in debilitating debt.
And if that happens, China would come blackmailing Western nations reeling from high prices with cheap exports, and most of our allies (Canada, for example) and most of our corporations, so many already woke, would do whatever China wants.
And classic “Top Gun” would become a censored relic. How’s your 21st century going?
To be strong, we need to be smart. Creating an energy famine for ourselves will weaken us. So would jumping into open war with Russia—even one that we’d probably eventually win. But there are other things we can do.
Helping Ukraine fight Russia probably will not weaken us. Nor will partially freezing Russia’s dollar assets, for the American dollar is strong. Since Russia’s attack, investors are rushing to buy dollars and lend them to the American government at lower and lower real interest rates. They see the underlying risks in throwing in with the currencies of dictators.
The dollar’s strength is no accident. America’s strength is no accident. America’s strength is the world’s strength. A nation dedicated to the natural rights of its national brethren at home cannot be dedicated to unnatural subjugation abroad.
Should Russia’s war against Ukraine devolve into a world war, America will, as in the world wars of the past, be the leading nation called to fight it. The most important thing that hangs in the balance over the next two weeks is the same as in the two weeks before and in the two weeks after. It’s the same as it always is: to keep America strong.
To keep America strong right now, we must manically raise from every discoverable crack in the earth’s crust as much oil as the physical laws of nature will allow—and as fast as we can. We must keep America statically charged against the designs of China and the corruption of wokeism. And we must keep unspent American arms and American treasure because our more important battles are yet to come. So long as we can do all these things—and only if we can do all these things—may we then help Ukraine fight Russia. And if Russia suffers a strategic defeat while America preserves her vital strength, America will know a new joy, China a new fear, and the world a new hope.