The Ukraine war will end this year and someone will get the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping it

After three years of fighting, Ukraine's war with Russia is at a stalemate, Russia controls about 20 percent of Ukraine, and the Ukrainians can't drive them out.

Last August, in a surprise move, Ukrainians staged what the Western media called an incursion into the Kursk region of Russia and captured about 500 square miles of Russian territory. The United States, Ukraine's closest ally, claimed to be surprised by this move, but I suspect the Americans helped plan this mini-invasion. 

Ukraine hoped to use the captured territory as a bargaining chip to improve its position during peace talks, which were bound to occur sooner or later. Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, the Kursk invasion brought North Korean troops into the war as Russian allies, and now Russia has pushed the Ukrainians out of Russian territory. 

President Trump has pushed aggressively to end the Ukraine war--this "ridiculous war," as Trump has described it. He's taken a lot of heat from Democratic politicians and the Trump-hating media for his efforts. His enemies at home would rather continue the senseless bloodshed than allow Trump to get credit for brokering a peace deal.

Trump may have made some tactical errors in his vigorous efforts to push Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to the bargaining table. Trump cut off arms shipments to Ukraine for a short time, giving his enemies an opening to accuse Trump of being Russia's ally. 

Nevertheless, Trump's diplomatic pressure, asserted against both Ukraine and Russia, has changed the dynamics of the conflict. This war will end before the year is out.

Ukraine and its allies must face the fact that Russia will control Crimea and much of the Donbas region when this war is over. Crimea has been part of Russia since the 18th century,  and Russia has critical military installations there. Moreover, Russia must control the Sea of Azov and at least part of the Donbas to safeguard its supply line from the Russian Motherland to the Crimean peninsula.

The sooner the warring nations reach a peace deal, the fewer young soldiers will die in this nonsensical conflict.  I predict someone involved in bringing peace negotiations to fruition will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

However, it will not be President Trump. The leftist media, afflicted with a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, would never allow it.

Cover of Crimean Blunder by Pete Gibbs. Image credit: Amazon 

I’m bored: Let's go to war with Russia

Peter, Paul and Mary, the iconic folk singers from the 1960s, sang several songs protesting the war in Vietnam. “Where have all the young men gone?” they sang. “Gone for soldiers, every one.” And then the refrain: “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”

Apparently, the answer to that question is not yet because our government is resolutely pushing the United States toward war with Russia.

So far, Ukraine is doing the fighting and dying in its year-long conflict with Russia, sustained by American weapons, technology and military expertise. Ukraine appears to be holding its own, but it would be a mistake to believe that Russia will simply give up and abandon its imperialistic ambitions to annex a portion of its western neighbor. Certainly, in my opinion, Russia will never surrender Crimea.

The American mainline media is fond of describing Russia as a regional power with an incompetent military and unstable leadership. I’m not sure that’s true.

Napoleon thought he had defeated Russia when he captured Moscow in 1812. In Napoleon’s mind, all that was left to do was wait for Russia’s military leaders to admit they had been beaten and formally surrender.

But the Russians never showed up to surrender. Instead, winter set in, and a cataclysmic fire burned down most of Moscow.

Rather than spend the winter in a burned out city, Napoleon decided to march his troops back to France. That’s when the Cossacks showed up. Russian cavalry harassed the French army on its long retreat and Napoleon lost ninety percent of his troops before he reached safety.

During World War II, Hitler invaded Russia in the summer of 1941 and drove the Russians back across a broad front. The Nazis made it to the outskirts of Moscow but they never captured the city. The Germans besieged Leningrad for 900 days but the Russians refused to surrender, although one million Leningrad civilians died from starvation during the siege.

Are there any lessons to be learned from history? I think there are. Russia may appear to be on the verge of defeat in its war with Ukraine, but that’s what Napoleon and Hitler believed when they picked a fight with Russia.

But what do I know about military strategy and geopolitical affairs? After all, I’m just a retired professor who lives smack dab in the middle of flyover country.

That’s a fair point. On the other hand, what do the bozos in Washington know about military strategy or the tangled history that connects Ukraine and Russia? Apparently, not much.

The witless diplomats and policy wonks who are recklessly pushing our country into war with a nuclear power probably think it’s fun to muck around in eastern European affairs. Who knows? They might get a lucrative book contract out of this fracas or a teaching gig at Harvard.

But what is their goal? Is it to weaken Russia or is it to weaken the United States?

I, for one, do not favor baiting the Russian bear. I do not want my children or grandchildren to suffer or die because some fools in Washington have no idea what the Russians are capable of.