POTRF’s Conundrum

POTRF’s Conundrum

                                                                                          May 7, 2022 PST

Morals & Ethics

 

 

 

 

Fellow Citizen Journalists, this is another investigation

for which I have crafted a fictional story without an ending.

It is our job to write one. 

This tale is about a politician who has to make

a life and death decision affecting millions of people. 

I am using many contemporary events to illustrate

a moral and ethical problem that has confronted

multiple ruling politicians for over

thousands of years of human history.

It is up to us to determine what moral and ethical

principles apply to the situation so that

we may give our very best advice to this politician. 

 

In my dream, I, POTRF, with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Tom Paine, were arguing about what should be included in my country’s new national constitution. After reviewing the current national constitution, we had come to the conclusion that it had become wholly inadequate to the realities of successfully governing my new republic, now that we had gotten a taste of what that entailed under the current constitution. The original RF constitution was not serving as well as it once had in keeping the individual local governments of the nation together. 

POTRF was having a nightmare and it was scaring his girlfriend, so she tried to wake him up. He was tossing, turning, mumbling and sometimes shouting words she didn’t understand. She got up to get help. Just as she opened the door POTRF’s PM burst in. He saw what was happening, dismissed the girlfriend, and shook POTRF until he awakened. 

POTRF groggily asked, “WHAT’S HAPPENING?” His PM replied “You were having a nightmare.” 

POTRF asked “Why are you here?” 

“There’s news from the front. Our troops have bogged down and are taking terrible losses. You need to consider going to Plan B,” he replied.

 “Okay. I’ll see you in the Command Center in an hour. Now go,” POTRF ordered. 

After his PM left, POTRF showered and began to dress. He also began to think about the dream he was having before he awoke. It was similar to other dreams he had been having ever since he had met with the former POTUS a few years back. 

I remember when the former POTUS had urged me to study the American Revolution and the founding documents of his nation that had led them to  become the richest and most powerful nation on earth.

He discussed how the British Colonies, half of them sanctioning ‘freedom for all’ in their territory and half sanctioning ‘freedom for some, slavery for others,’ in their territory, had united under a document called the Articles of Confederation. They believed unity was required for them to win their revolution of independence from Great Britain, at that time the greatest military power on Earth . 

POTUS shared how the colonies, after winning their independence, began referring to themselves as ‘states.’ From 1783 to 1786 they continued to function under the Articles of Confederation, but eventually found that the document was becoming no longer sufficient to keep the new states united. 

The leaders of the American Revolution held a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1787, determined to either fix the Articles or create a new unification document. Ultimately, they chose the latter. 

They worked  throughout the summer of 1787 and created what they called  the ‘Constitution of the United States of America.’ It maintained the duality of having both free and slave states with a prohibition on importing new slaves starting 20 years after the Constitution took effect. This was an indirect approach to eventually ending the institution of slavery. There was also an informal understanding that for every new free state admitted to their union, a slave state would also be admitted. This was designed to maintain a balance of power between the two antagonists.

The delegates to the convention were determined to head-off a civil war breaking out over the issue of slavery. The informal understanding worked for over eighty years. Then one day it didn’t. 

There was no economic reason for new states to have slavery and the balance for admitting one free, one slave, broke down. The free states began to outnumber the slave states, shifting the balance of power decidedly towards the freedom movement. This led to the start of a civil war.

The former POTUS discussed the American Civil War, fought 1861-1865, as America’s 2nd Revolution. The relationship between the free and slave colonies had been contentious before their successful revolution and had only become more so after it. This former POTUS had pointed out that my country, Russia, did have a history of liberating enslaved people by relating how Alexander ll had freed Russia’s serfs. He demonstrated that he had been studying  Russian history by relating this event had actually happened before the slaves in America had been freed, in 1860. I appreciated the effort he had gone to in studying the history of my country. It was a compliment. 

And this, of course, was part of the pitch of that POTUS for me to have my RF ditch our alliance with China and re-ally with the West. He urged us to come home to our European family, so to speak. 

I didn’t commit to changing alliances, but I did take his advice to study up on America’s history. It is, after all, a duty of a leader to know how an adversary thinks before making a move for or against him. A good leader, so informed, can better predict an opponent’s reactions. So I, POTRF, began to study the revolution, ideas, personalities and constitution of the United States. 

Awhile after beginning my study I began to have the recurring dreams of talking with Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Paine and others. Eventually my dream conversations turned to comparing my own country’s constitution to that of the US much as the authors of the US constitution, as delegates to their 1787 constitutional convention, had compared their proposed new constitution to their original organizing document of America, the Articles of Confederation. So I had to ask myself, ‘How can my RF Constitution be changed for the better?’

POTRF’s biggest challenge was in understanding the Western concept of private property. He had been raised as a Marxist and that held that private property was the source of all the strife in the world. The ownership of real estate, buildings and machinery by persons apart from the workers was considered to be  immoral and uneconomical. Those owners were described as ‘capitalists’; among Marxists this was considered a dirty word.

In America, there was no bar on any free citizen from becoming a capitalist by owning land and buildings for domicile or business or having fractional ownership through stocks and bonds.  So the economic game there was played by first gaining enough savings to purchase land and buildings or to begin building on the land previously purchased.  

The socio-economic goal of Marxism was to abolish all private property and so free all the people from a system of two classes: the owners who gave the orders, and the workers who followed them. The theory held that once done, a new, better form of humanity could and would emerge. Yet, in America, there was nothing stopping anyone from becoming a capitalist. The workers could even buy property and, if desired, stocks and bonds in the companies they worked for. This seemed to contradict the Marxist analysis that capitalism is inflexible and drawn of rigid, immutable, classes just like other forms of slavery.

Marx had postulated that an intermediate step, Socialism, might be necessary before arriving at the true goal of human evolution, a universal equality known as Communism. Putting up with a remnant of capitalism, through equitable social adjustments, was considered to be nothing more than a temporary, but necessary, evil. He believed that mankind could be perfected, that a heaven on earth could be created. This idea was in direct opposition to that of  Jesus and the Christians who believed that mankind was not perfectible and that the perfection of heaven was only obtainable in a life beyond this one. The Christians believe that the best mankind can achieve in this world is an equality of liberty guided by a moral code through which everyone is free to choose his own way to reach the heaven of the afterlife.

Many of my fellow Communists, in their hurry to reach the Communist state of perfection, have engaged in the mass murder of those they deem as standing in their way. I’ve not been a proponent of such coercive persuasion, although what I’m doing in Ukraine does smack of it. The Christians practice a much slower means of conversion to their way of thinking – person to person logical persuasion. They believe that once presented with the values of Jesus Christ, the individual will voluntarily join the church and become a Christian. I must admit I do admire their long term approach to gaining new members. One volunteer is worth three conscripts. 

As POTRF argued with the founders of the American Revolution, he found that they agreed with many of his arguments, but not all. They both agreed that all the property in the nation was, in general, ’public’ property owned in common by all the citizens of the nation. Yet, the Americans held that it was OK for individuals to contract with the government to develop and manage portions of the public property if it was being used in a beneficial way for the citizens of the nation. They took to calling this contractual property ‘private’ property,

POTUS said the highest form of ‘private property’ was the life-long inheritable lease and it was the constitutional right for American citizens to own private property. The government could suspend private property rights if the owners began using the property in a harmful way. That made sense, I thought. 

Economically, it made sense, too. Having productive property managed by persons with a direct personal stake in the success/failure in a portion of the nation’s assets was a great way of encouraging professional excellence and for pinpointing responsibility. It could motivate people toward the better behaviors that benefit the whole of society. This could explain much of America’s success. 

Under the 1993 RF constitution private property was allowed in Russia. All the same, it had led to a concentration of property ownership at the top of the food chain with an unofficial discouragement of small business ownership. The American Marxists, having formed, over time, an alliance with big business and big tech, seem to be engaged in similar economic warfare against small business in their country.

When POTRF compared his country’s constitution to that of the Americans, he found they were much alike. Both were similarly organized by articles with descriptions of: purpose (unification of local governments for economic and defense purposes); organization (a system of three branches – executive, legislative and judicial); and an article for amending the document itself.

I noted that there were many differences in the constitutions, but there were also many commonalities. Social supports such as unemployment insurance, pensions, health care, education, disability insurance, etc., were listed as rights in the Articles of the RF constitution, but were there by legislation under the US constitution. There are parts of the US constitution that are no longer operative, overridden by subsequent amendments (many about the abolishment of slavery). But then, the US constitution is over 200 years older than the RF constitution and has been amended twenty-seven times. That could account for much of the difference. After all, the US constitution took affect (1789) before Karl Marx was born (1818) and the RF constitution became effective only in 1993. 

Although both the RF and US constitutions are effective organization and management tools, their operational modes couldn’t be more different. My comrades and I were able to manipulate the RF constitution into a source of a one-party rule in just a few short years after the breakup of our former nation, the USSR, of which Russia was a member, while the US constitution has continued to maintain a competitive party system with considerable individual freedom for over 200 years. In addition, their national government, like ours, is a federation of individual state/republics. Upon closer examination, the US state governments have more power than my RF republics do. Each of their states determines its own voting laws. 

And yet, here I am trying to bring back an empire that has deceased in my lifetime – the Soviet Union – and so honor the Russian people and great rulers that came before us. And, yes, here I am with my hands on WMD triggers that can destroy whole nations, possibly even the whole world. And I have led my country into a war with a neighboring country that my country has conquered repeatedly over the centuries without any success at assimilation. Have I chosen the right path for my people – my country? 

It’s a sad truth that since the fall of our former nation, the USSR, Russian expansion has ceased. We can no longer afford to keep pace with the Western powers and China – even in outer space where we once led the world. It has fallen to me to bring back the glory days of Russia and I consider it my duty to do so, to make Russia great again. But at what price? 

It seems that many people both in and outside my RF have opposed my orders to attack Ukraine. They say that the RF has lost its national honor by attacking a peace-loving people that only wants to live in amity with its neighbors, meaning us. That conflicts directly with my sworn duty to the Russian people to see we rise up once again to great power status. And if thousands of people have to be slaughtered to achieve this goal, so be it. I’m not happy about that and when my thoughts sometimes drift to the horror and grief I’m causing the Ukrainian people,  I quickly close my mind to it. Because my duty is clear. I’m POTRF and my Russia must rise again. This is the categorical imperative.   

Yet, I’m becoming more uncertain about the means I have chosen to advance to the objective. The shedding of all this blood was not my intention. It wasn’t supposed to work this way. My plan was to take over Ukraine with a minimal loss of life – maybe a few thousand casualties or so. That didn’t happen. What should I do now? What is the correct path forward? 

Another consideration is about how my military has been performing. It has been functioning poorly in battle. We have far more troops and weapons than the Ukrainians and yet we are not achieving our military objectives. How could this happen?

When I went on inspections with my top military people I was shown the most capable troops armed with the most modern weapons and assured that our military could not only defend mother Russia, but attack and conquer any adversary deemed necessary to subjugate. Was I shown nothing more than a modern day military version of a ‘Potemkin Village?’ 

Prior to the commencement of operations I was assured that logistics would not be a problem. Yet, I have had to order my troops to eastern and southern portions of Ukraine to shorten supply lines.

I’ve been told that many of our weapons are not designed for the kind of combat we’ve had to fight. I can forgive this a bit because we didn’t know we would be receiving so much cash in 2021 from oil and gas sales and we may have made some imprudent purchases in the rush to prepare for the February 2022 attack. In light of this, our timetable, set by me, may have been a bit too ambitious. On the other hand I was assured by my top brass that they were good with this timeline.

People I’d dismissed before as being too timid I’ve been talking to again. Their insistence was that the army was not ready  for combat nor up to the task I was planning to set before them. Without asking why they had come to such a conclusion, I had locked them out and had not invited them back in for discussion. I couldn’t stand their negativism.

A few of them had said there was corruption in the military with  supplies purchased for the military being sold on the black market. When I asked my generals and admirals about what these nervous nellies had said, they reassured me that these creatures were not above using defamation and slander to advance their positions in the hierarchy. 

I can see now that I may have fallen into a ’Yes Men’ trap, something I swore a long time ago I would never do. Have I surrounded myself with confidents who have grown used to telling me what I want to hear and not what I need to know? And now, are my soldiers, and my fellow citizens, and I now paying the price for it? Maybe, and if so, how could I, one of the brightest men in the world, have been so fooled? I don’t know. 

I can continue down this path of irredentism or break with the past and choose to join the Russian people with the West with all their freedom and democracy. But then, wouldn’t that turn my people into bit players on the stage of human endeavor? Then again, could we be risking even worse by siding too closely with the Chinese? 

And if we are destined to become a former great power, wouldn’t we be better off as part of Europe rather than as a satrapy of  China? We could conclude that we’ve had our moment of world leadership under the sun and that we should go on to find a lesser, but wiser and safer place to exist, like other nations have done in the past. If called upon to once again lead the world, we would be ready.

And, we really have nothing to fear from Ukraine. They gave up their nuclear weapons decades ago and our nukes can blunt any attack by NATO coming through their country. And if we make peace with NATO we can resume democratizing our government with a goal of one day joining the European trade union. There is really no need for this war. It truly is a vainglorious pursuit.  

Furthermore, at least my people wouldn’t become overwhelmingly indebted to China. What the Chinese are asking for their support will make my people slaves for decades if I agree to their terms. I’m torn between two possible futures. Such is my conundrum. 

Another problem: my oligarchs are starting to complain. They were enthusiastic about taking over Ukraine when I told them it would be easy and that there would be a great payday ahead as we seized ownership of some of the world’s richest property. I was smart enough to not guarantee an easy conquest, but a conquest, of some sort, I did commit to. Some of them are so upset they’ve moved to other countries.

And then there are my health issues. I’m starting to feel…dare I say it? I’m starting to feel old. Even though I exercise every day, I don’t have the stamina I used to have. It’s getting harder to keep pace with the daily challenges I face. My doctors are telling me I need to slow down and that if I don’t slow down, I’m going to shorten my life, significantly. And they’ve scheduled for my near future what they say are some necessary surgeries. I may have to make them wait until I’ve concluded this war. 

I need to complete the Ukrainian conquest soon if I want to steer my RF back to greatness. l know my time is running out. If I don’t take Ukraine, I won’t go into the history books as the Russian leader who set the course for the RF to once again dominate Europe, the world and, eventually, the planets of the solar system. For my life to have meaning, this has got to be my legacy. Or should I be working to leave a different legacy by ending this war and offering to join my RF to the European Union? A valid argument could be made that such is the case.

In a few minutes I’ll go to the Command Center and give orders that will decide the future of Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, European, American and millions of other people around the world. Given that the offensive has stalled and looks to be going no further, I must either end the war or expand it. 

If I order a ceasefire with forces in place, I can open talks for a settlement. I can also backchannel a hint to NATO that the RF may be ready to join the EU and possibly, someday NATO itself,  to help defend against the Chinese. Of course, under no circumstances will I order a ceasefire and withdraw without an agreement. That would end my career and possibly my life. Nonetheless, if I do switch sides and return my RF to the European fold, it will be good to know that with NATO having my back, it’s doubtful China will ever consider attacking my RF.

If I order a WMD strike, the Ukrainians should, in all that’s reasonable, surrender. Or would they? This POTUK and his people might be even be more crazy stubborn than I’ve already seen them to be. The Chinese might even abandon me, although they have said they wouldn’t. And NATO would surely find a way to surreptitiously attack my people directly with some horrible weapon.

If this war is destined to end by settlement and not conquest, then by having already redeployed my forces to the Eastern and Southern parts of Ukraine, perhaps in a peace treaty I can secure the Donbas and land bridge to Crimea and proclaim to the world that I have achieved my final security goals for the Russian people and that we will never again need to gain territory from our neighbors. Unfortunately, NATO’s trust in me is such that I doubt that they would believe me. 

Since the launch of our ‘Special Military Operation’ into the Ukraine some of our neutral RF neighbors, with whom we border, have become frightened of us.  They are considering joining NATO to bolster their defenses. This, too, I should have seem this coming, but I didn’t.

I need to confront the reality that, even by my own high standards, maybe I’ve missed too many calls to judge myself competent any longer.  And, it could be, that others have noticed, too. Maybe it’s time to retire. I could resign and go home and live out my life in solitude, away from the maelstrom of politics. Let my successors deal with the war. Forget having a heroic legacy. Maybe it would be better to do it voluntarily before before I’m forced to do it. 

At the very least I can end the war by accepting a guarantee of ‘No Nazis’ in the Ukrainian government (the false pretense I started the war with; there were never any of serious consequence to begin with). The Chinese wouldn’t like that I hadn’t completely defeated the Ukrainian forces and taken control of all Ukraine, but if I decide that’s the best policy for my people, I’ll do it. 

When I think about how I got into this mess, I think back to how the new POTUS, on the first day of his presidency, ordered the crippling of his own country by making it once again dependent on outside countries for its energy needs. I thought it a fool move for him, but one that could enable a brilliant move by me. By raising the price of oil worldwide, billions of dollars poured into my RF treasury and that made it possible for me to buy weapons and supplies for a new war. 

This POTUS damaged his own country to keep peace with American Marxists in his own political party, the believers in a ‘Green Energy’ program to save the world from ‘Climate Change’. Is this ‘Green Energy’ program really a ‘Green Hoax,’ another in a long line of stock hustles like the ‘South Seas Bubble’ ‘Tulip Mania’ and the ‘Big Short’? Maybe, I’m not sure. Whatever it is, it surely has been useful in undermining the US economy. The less the US produces, the weaker they become. And the weaker they become, the more beatable they are in war. 

Could the ‘Green Energy’ radicals be for our generation what Lenin once called ‘useful idiots’? These ‘true believers’ don’t know that Marxism is unworkable, will not free them from the drudgery form of toil, is anti-freedom, and can only lead to a new slavery. Then again, some are aware of this fact and, as ‘skeptical believers’ they’re merely aspiring to be slavers themselves.

And as for ‘Green Energy’ there is no immediate way to economically supplant fossil fuels as the world’s power source. The technology just isn’t there, although one day maybe it will be. Have our friends in the US over invested in ‘Green Energy’ stocks? Are they now trying to force the world to bail them out of their predicament? They are, of course, making out well on their armament stocks and overseas energy stocks. So they’re partially covered. Well, the price for my help is – Ukraine. 

In my personal portfolio I, too, am making out on armament and  fossil fuel stocks. And, yes, I have some renewable energy stocks, but I’m not overly exposed. The difference between the ‘Green Energy’ investors and me is I’m not willing to commit treason to gain a profit. I am a true Russian patriot who wants what’s best for his people, be it through peace or war and, if I must take a personal financial loss, so be it.  

Was the POTUS shrinking of the world’s oil supply thus giving my RF billions more in revenue merely the baiting of a trap? Was POTUS shutting down pipeline construction in his own country and giving me Nord Stream 2 a part of the deception? Is there still some grand design I’m not seeing? 

Did I get tricked into this war? I don’t think so. It was the POTUK that surprised both us and NATO by rallying, against all odds, his fellow Ukrainians to fight back. There was no intel indicating he had such gumption in him. 

Another problem is how to avoid a disgrace such as that suffered by Alexander 1 when he lost the Crimean War or Nicholas 2 when he lost the Russo-Japanese War, and, surviving that, went on to lose World War 1 and his life. 

When I think how this POTUS wants me to broker a deal with Iran for him and how he thinks such an agreement will be hailed back in the US as a great foreign policy victory for America and help his party win the mid-term elections, I then think of how duplicitous his foreign policy seems to be. While he keeps supplying arms to my Ukrainian adversary, he keeps oil prices high enough for me to continue funding my invasion of Ukraine. And, oddest of all, we’re still manning the International Space Station – together! Go figure. 

Why is this POTUS acting this way? I’m not sure. Could it be that the Chinese have him compromised? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Is he mentally damaged with one part of his brain not talking to the other part about what he is doing? Again, I don’t know. Whatever the reason he’s behaving this way, it seems he’s benefiting my RF and China more than he is his own country, the US. The severe inflation he’s causing his own citizens must be appalling.

When this POTUS botched his country’s withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan by withdrawing all American troops before his civilians and allies could be extracted, needlessly getting some of his soldiers killed, and then leaving billions of dollars worth of some of the most advanced weaponry in the world in enemy hands, his popularity began to sink among his fellow Americans. 

I believe POTUS was certain that POTUK would run off like POTAF did when the Taliban invaded his Afghan cities. When POTUK declined an offer to escape his Ukraine at the outset of our RF invasion, and his countrymen rallied around him, this presented an opportunity for POTUS to redeem his Commander-In-Chief credentials by helping the Ukrainians defeat my RF. Dumb luck, I guess. 

Getting together with China to defeat the former POTUS in his 2020 re-election bid was probably the best combined effort we’ve had since the Vietnam War. They led the cyber attack while we assisted and we led the information attack with their assistance. It worked beautifully. 

The Chinese say it will be more difficult this time around to repeat this kind of attack on the 2022 mid-term elections. Yet, they’re confident they can save the day. For my part, my intel people tell me the US mainstream media is still in the hands of our friends, but that the control is beginning to crack. The opposition media continues to have a lesser outreach to the American people, but is gaining in strength.  

The POC says that China’s ability for corrupting the electronics of the American voting system will be more difficult this time around because the opposition now knows what to look for.  He says that many of the states, including swing states, have updated their defenses against fraudulent intrusions. There are some states that have tried to update, but have been successfully blocked by our friends. China will first try to corrupt the American voting system using the successful methods of the last national election, but if it looks like that is going to fail, they’ll implement their new backup plan. 

For their backup plan the Chinese have tested a scheme that involves smuggling some mercenaries and cartel soldiers, armed with pilotless drones, across the wide-open US southern border. 

The drones had been converted into crop dusters. The Chinese plan to purchase more drones in-country and also convert them into crop dusters. If it looks like their plan to electronically rig the election is going to fail and that the Republicans will probably gain control of Congress in the elections, they will use the drones to drop or spray pounds of fentanyl dust on voting places around the country. They’ve already smuggled enough fentanyl into the US to get the job done. 

The massive casualties will cause the White House to react. The POTUS will then have the opportunity to proclaim a national emergency, declare martial law, and postpone finishing election polling and vote counting until the ‘every last conspirator is caught’. POTUS can also avow that new elections will be indefinitely delayed until such attacks can be prevented. While the search for perpetrators persists, the fake ballots necessary for victories by our friends will be added to deficient totals both physically and electronically. 

Fake evidence will be planted that frames Conservatives and Republicans for the crime of mass murder and endless arrests and investigations will commence. Too busy with lawyers in defending themselves from incarcerations and prosecutions, the Conservatives and Republicans will not be able to mount election fraud cases in the courts and fraud investigations by legislative initiative. 

Eventually the argument will be made that holding elections with live voter participation at polling stations will have become too dangerous to implement. Elections, from then on, will be conducted by absentee ballot and internet voting, with the results being easily manipulated by those who control those systems. The takeover (and abolishment) of an honest American election system will then be complete and the country will have effectively become a fraudulent democracy with a one-party government. Some minor party representation may be permitted in the legislatures just for show. 

Will this aggression be a twenty-first century version of the 1960’s ‘Manchurian Candidate’? It does bare some resemblance. I think POC’s plan more resembles the ‘Amerika’ television series from the 1980’s with China replacing the USSR as the attacker and fentanyl replacing an EMP.  

Again, a ‘Thank You’ is owed the new POTUS. Without the open borders he created on the first day of his presidency, such an assault would probably not be possible. 

Nevertheless, I’m not sure I want to go along with this plan. If I decline to commit the RF to the Chinese plan, is it possible that the Chinese will scuttle the plan as unworkable without our participation? It’s possible, but who knows. They may decide to go it alone and implement their plan anyway. 

And, what if the Chinese decided to use a plan like this, for whatever reason, on my RF? If I decide to switch sides, the first thing I’ll do is give the Americans a heads-up on what the Chinese are thinking about. 

So, with POTUS continuing to keep American oil off the world market, my treasury will continue to be kept flush with the new cash I need to continue the war. This POTUS says he is going to allow more leasing for gas and oil on his federal lands, but he is raising the rates for doing so and doing nothing about increasing the permits to use the leases. Nice bait and switch.

As an insider, this POTUS, when he was a legislator, and as Vice-President, had gotten rich selling information about future moves the US government would be making and buying the related investments. As President he should not still be in the game as American ‘conflict-of-interest’ laws still exist. And yet, maybe, he still is. My intel is inconclusive on this.

OK, I’m dressed. Time to go the Command Center. 

POTRF leaves his room and heads down the hallway to the elevator. The Command Center is several stories down under the first floor. As he steps out of the elevator on the 5th floor below the surface he sees his Intel Director hurrying down the hallway toward the Command Center. 

“Director, what’s the hurry?” POTRF shouts. 

The Director turns, salutes, and says, “I have an important message for the PM, sir.”

“Well, what is it?” 

“Two of our most important oil and gas customers have broken their contracts and a third is about to do the same sir. The two have signed with some Persian Gulf exporters, America has declared an emergency energy crises and lifted its export controls, and our third most important customer is about to sign with an American oil company, sir.” 

POTRF freezes. 

He thinks to himself, ‘That means our only major customer is now China. Oh, my God!’

“Who else knows about this?” POTRF asks. 

“No one else knows sir. I just now decrypted the messages,” his Intel Director responds. 

“I order you NOT to report this to the PM. Tell NO ONE about this, and return to the Communications Room until I call for you. Understand?” 

“Yes, sir,” he responds. The Intel Director turns and retreats down the hall by which he came. 

POTRF resumes walking towards the Communication Center. He steps very slowly. He needs to think about what he had just learned.  

POTRF’s thoughts turn again to the crisis he had started over a month ago. 

The last few months have been nothing like I had anticipated. My expectations were that my military would take Ukraine in less than a week. That didn’t happen. They, the Ukrainians, were supposed to fold like a bad card hand. Instead, they stood their ground. When they didn’t fold, I was persuaded they were attempting to run a bluff. 

I expected their leadership wouldn’t even know how to run a bluff. And a bluff wasn’t supposed to matter anyway. Our military strength in conventional weapons is far superior to theirs and we have very scary nuclear, chemical and biological WMD weapons to back them up. They knew this and they persisted anyway. 

OK, so they had decided on a bluff, biding for time, hoping the people of America and Europe would force their governments to come to Ukraine’s rescue. I figured their would-be saviors wouldn’t get there on time, given how slow the new POTUS reacts to every disaster he encounters or creates. And now, I’m the one who’s caught in a bind. Even if I sell oil and gas to Ukraine’s friends, chances are they’re going to escrow my profits until I make peace with the Ukrainians. The US and NATO trade sanctions are beginning to take their toll. 

So. No dollars coming in to buy supplies with. And if the US and NATO trade sanctions begin to seriously bite, less cash will be coming in. Then the Chinese are going to want even more collateral for the supplies they’re fronting me. I’m already having to do business with them in trading rubles for yen. This is okay for the short term, but not the long. And I’ve had to insist that some of our customers pay us in rubles in advance of delivery. 

Another issue is my ability to control the flow of information to my RF people. It’s not working the way it used to in the days of the USSR. The world has far more communication connectivity than it did back then. The Russian people can find out what’s truly going on if they make the effort. Has the world become so connected that there’s almost no way to get away with lies anymore? Restricting truth to the Russian people is nowhere as easy as it was in the days of Pravda.

 Though my surveillance state is top shelf in spying on my own Russians, they still have the power to think for themselves and make up their own minds. And if they have the same thought, at the same time, on the same day, nothing can stop them. That’s how revolutions are born. I’ve got to be careful. Too many lies can be counterproductive.

It seems I must have overlooked something in my pre-campaign analysis. But, What was it? 

To rebuild my Russian Empire along the lines of the Soviet Union or Czarist Russia, Ukraine would have to be our first conquest. Adding its 41,000,000 souls to my Russia’s 146,000,000 would give us 187,000,000 people. That would give my Russia a population more than twice that of the second most populated country in Europe and provide far greater food and industrial security. And the added taxes would enable us to get back into the space race. All those minerals on the Moon, Mars, Asteroid Belt and Outer Planet moons are just waiting there for a grand harvest. We would have a chance at getting the Bear’s share once again.

Our RF and UK natural resources and the higher education of our two combined nations would have a multiplier effect in military and economic power. With Europe addicted to our oil and gas resources, we could leverage the breakup of the NATO alliance and maybe even once again march our army down the streets of Paris like we did in 1814 when we defeated Napoleon 1. Yet, with what’s happening now, fulfillment of that dream seems a lot more distant. A stalemate seems to be forming, possibly a long one. 

Maybe I should ask myself, ‘Who gains from a drawn-out stalemate?’ First, Ukraine benefits, of course. With every day of existence, they gain a measure of permanency. America and Europe gain as well. OPEC? Yes, if no one else will buy our oil and gas. China, my partner, stands to benefit from learning how the Americans and Europeans react militarily and financially in attempting to stop Ukraine’s defeat. That’s why the Chinese didn’t discourage my invasion. The info would help them better prepare for their forthcoming conquest attempt of Taiwan. 

And China will begin taking almost all of our oil exports. And they might begin selling some of it to our former customers, acting as a middle man. Once our European, Asian, and Americas customers are gone, we’ll have the devil to pay to get them back.  

Yet, even if I get forced into a stalemate with Ukraine, China will have gotten some of the intel they need for their Taiwan campaign; just not the intel they were hoping for. They, therefore, both win and lose. The longer this war drags on, the more supplies I will need and the more collateral I’ll have to pledge to get it. If this drags on long enough, they might start demanding I pledge, for a number of years, the output of some oil and gas fields for the supplies. 

Now, that does seem far-fetched. They know that the oil and gas fields are non-negotiable. Don’t they know that no matter how desperate I get, I would never do that? They’ll have to continue settling for Ruble denominated bonds if they want more collateral, but they’ll probably start raising their interest rates the longer the war drags on. 

Or, should I pledge the output of some oil and gas fields? As a temporary measure, of course, with a specific end date, I would have to consider it. The prize – Ukraine – is crucial to rebuilding the Russian Empire. Without it, the whole effort will be for not. 

Whoa! Wait a minute. What if gaining control of my country’s gas and oil assets is the real goal of the Chinese? That would mean that the proposed Taiwan acquisition would just be a ruse to get control of my country’s oil and gas assets…which would mean that China would control Europe by proxy. It would mean that Chinese troops might one day march down the Champs Elysees, not my RF’s. More likely they’re hoping their Chinese Army will parade down Pennsylvania Avenue while they let my RF Army march down Wall Street. 

I’ve had some pretty wild notions in the past, but this one’s one of my strangest. China controlling Europe by proxy by controlling Russia, my country? What have I become? Am I paranoid? 

Yet, what if this loony tunes idea of mine was the missing link in my pre-assault analysis? Then it would make sense for me to switch sides, so to speak, and, instead of becoming a Chinese puppet and having to play a new version of Ivan the Terrible to enforce draconian measures upon the Russian people to get us free from debt to China, I could play Peter the Great as a Russian George Washington, something Yeltsin aspired to, but failed to achieve. 

If I fail to achieve an honorable peace for the RF, then I might be facing a coup d’etat. Hopefully that wouldn’t mean a firing squad though it might mean a Russian version of St. Helena. Or, I could just retire and be done with it.  

Then again, I might wind up like Alexander II or Lincoln, lives cut short by assassination, yet considered heroes by their nations. Of course that would be a better ending than that of Beria or Trotsky, also assassinated, but not so much considered heroes by our nation. If my Russians were to have a true, well functioning democracy, with two or more parties and the maximum of personal freedom possible, our productivity might take off and make us individually rich, like the Americans. 

Is there a TRUTH in this that history teaches us? Maybe. That might go back to Hegel when, in the early 1800s, he said that with the invention of the Republic, we had reached the ‘End of History’. By that I suppose he meant what we had now reached the ‘Highest Form of Political Evolution.’ It might be that he thought history would show a ‘Republic’ to be the highest form of government because it afforded some form of  participation by all citizens in the decisions of their governments. 

Since then Economics has taken off as a science and has shown that capitalism and political freedom work very well together. Is capitalism with social supports the be-all and end-all of political  economic evolution? It’s beginning to look that way.  

If that’s the case, then all the Marxist revolutions have been counter-revolutions by reactionaries who have mistaken their highest value, ‘Equality of Outcome (equal distribution of wealth)”,  rather than ‘Equality of Opportunity (freedom to create wealth)’, to be the ultimate means for humans to exist. They couldn’t conceive that the hidden within their highest value is a flaw that can, and will, take humanity back to various forms of slavery and poverty. If so, where does that leave me?

I’ve arrived at the door of the Command Center. And I’m still undecided. No matter what I do, there is risk either way to my dear Russians, the rest of the world, and to my own life. 

Well, I’m going to die someday anyway, either naturally from infirmities or violently because of the choices I’ve made or the ones I make now. I’m probably in too deep to die of old age, so it’s a matter of which side is going to kill me – the peacenik freedomists  or the slaveholding militarists. It’s just a matter of who I decide to side with. Oh well, here goes nothing.

POTRF enters the Command Center. The room grows quiet, then everyone stands and salutes. POTRF returns their salutes and says, “As you were.” Everyone returns to their stations. 

POTRF signals his PM over. ‘Where are we at?’ he asks. PM says,“Worse than before. Another ship has been hit in the Black Sea and there are reports that it may be sinking. Another city we’ve been besieging has launched a counter-attack and is driving our forces back. And the Donbas offensive continues to stall. We need to act decisively – now. What are your orders, sir?” he asks. 

POTRF responds, “I order….”

 

Fellow citizen journalists, what moral and ethical

principles can be applied to solve our politician’s dilemma?

What order should our politician give?

 Should he order a ceasefire and a retreat or a

ceasefire/truce for opening serious negotiations?

 Or should he order a ceasefire

with an offer to withdraw combined

with a pledge to become neutral in the

developing adversarial relationship

between NATO and China? 

And if the latter, should he hint at

true democratizing of the RF along the lines

required for joining the European Union?

Should he hint at someday joining NATO?

Should he just ‘throw in the towel’ and retire? 

It is time to light up our computer keyboards.

Let’s investigate!