China is not wrong to point out that America is largely responsible for creating more instability in the world. However, I’d also make a strong argument that America’s schizophrenic foreign policy has influenced Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Chinese are also masters of the long game. It’s hard to argue with the following headline.

A year later, China blames US ‘hegemony’ — not Russia — for the war in Ukraine.

Ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has launched a public diplomacy offensive to wrest control of the narrative about its role in the conflict, trying to clear itself of accusations that it has sided with Russia while accusing the United States of turning the match into a “proxy” war.–Washington Post.

Last year I made a strong case linking Putin’s shift to extreme Nationalism, and the anti-western sentiment was linked to American Foreign Policy gone wild.

How did we get here?

Our Presidential political cycle is concise and forces Presidents to think short-term. Meanwhile, Putin and Xi of China can afford to think a long time and wait out short-term America Presidential cycles that have sitting Presidents thinking of re-election right after they swear in.

In addition, Russia and China are both good at influencing American election outcomes. The very freedoms we enjoy make it incredibly easy for foreign states to interfere and influence our political process.

TikTok is an excellent example of this, and behind the cat videos is a State-run social media business collecting data on  American users and their children. Joe Rogan had a good rant on this recently.

Our incredible democracy and political system have become outdated and need an engine rebuild. I’ll write about this later.

If you think America is doing an excellent job promoting freedom and democracy around the globe, ask yourself this question. Is the world safer and more stable today than it was when the twin towers came crashing down on 9/11?

No, it is not, and we have never been closer to nuclear weapons employment as we are now, and everyone loses in that scenario.

American diplomacy has become the local town drunk, and very few politicians can admit this.

The lack of strategic direction and unfocus has contributed to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

He is taking advantage of a divided post-Trump America and a weak sitting President, Biden, who can barely string together a coherent sentence.

Note: this is no fault of the brave people who fought for this country and continue to fight for it. They do what they’re told, often at significant risk to themselves and their families.

Our US military is an extremely professional fighting force and politically agnostic organization. The Department of Defense follows the current Commander-in-Chief regardless of politics, which is good. 

So how did Putin get here, and how did America contribute? Read on…

Walk a mile in Putin’s shoes before you judge him. 

I’m no Putin fan and think he’s made a major miscalculation in underestimating the Ukrainian and American fighting spirit and much more. However, before we judge anyone and jump to our biased featherweight conclusions, let’s remind ourselves to always walk in someone’s shoes before we judge.

We must challenge ourselves to understand a person’s experiences; challenge thought processes and self before understanding their viewpoint.

To provide further context, if America were in the NBA finals of Foreign Policy, we would have been embarrassingly swept in four games.

  • Twenty years in Afghanistan, and it’s worse off than we found it, and the Taliban are better-armed thanks to billions of equipment and weapons we left for them.
  • Libya is still a failed state after we helped assassinate its head of state, Muammar Gaddif.
  • Iraq war part two left Iraq in the hands of Iran, destabilizing the region, and saw the rise of ISIS.
  • America destabilizing Iraq caused a flood of refugees into Europe and nudged off BREXIT and a closed border European Union (prior the trend was towards open borders).

Inconsistent American Foreign Policy Radicalized Vladimir Putin.

The US, under both Republican and Democrat Presidential administrations, has been drunk behind the wheel of an out-of-control Foreign Policy that has done much more harm than good in the past 20 years.” Read the rest here on SOFREP.

Summary

It’s time to sober up the town drunk who makes up the rules as he goes.

We are still one of the most significant countries, but we aren’t perfect, and we have plenty of mistakes to reflect on since we launched the global war on terror.

It’s not too late to learn from our mistakes and the quest to improve. That’s what makes America such an amazing country. But we fail to do this, and we are going to push past the event horizon, and that’s a hard truth.

America and Western Europe are now in a proxy war with Russia, Iran, and China, and Ukraine is the battlefield.

Ukrainians are firing American weapons, drones, and missiles.

Russia fired Iranian suicide drones and explicitly signaled diplomatic support from China.

Lines have been drawn, sides have been taken, and we have never been closer to nuclear war since the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

And this should keep you up at night the same way it does for me.