World War III is already here

 

This past week will be remembered by most historians – if anyone is lucky enough to live through this Age of Self-Destruction – as the point of no return for the Russo-Ukrainian war.

The world was treated (more like tormented) by dueling presidential speeches, one from the sclerotic US President Joe Biden, who journeyed to Kiev to reassert his undying support for Ukraine, the other by the surly Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Neither speech was particularly reassuring. Biden promised his Ukrainian wards an additional US$500 million in US taxpayer support for the besieged Ukrainians.

Shortly after his speech, the Pentagon hinted that it might stop slow-walking its promised (but as yet to be delivered) M1A2 Abrams main battle tank to the waiting arms of the desperate Ukrainian defenders and simply hand over the MBTs that are already in America’s warehouses (something that the Pentagon had resisted doing when the Biden administration made its initial announcement that it would, in fact, be sending the vaunted MBTs).

Understanding Putin’s speech

The other speech came from Putin, who spoke for a whopping two hours on Tuesday evening, in which he reiterated his commitment to total victory over Ukraine and how the United States was ruled by “satanists” and “pedophiles.” 

Unsurprisingly, most Western media outlets simply refused to cover the speech. Those few that did were openly derisive. The speech certainly was Castro-esque in its loquaciousness and was tinged with quasi-religious accusations against the West that would make most Iranian mullahs blush, but there was substance in Putin’s words. 

He not only signaled that his commitment to the conflict was as strong as ever, but that he was escalating it, in response to what he viewed as an American escalation. 

In fact, Putin issued his first significant threat toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): He told his American rivals that they were to remove their offensive long-range weapons systems in Ukraine, otherwise Russian forces would begin directly targeting those systems.