Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin proclaimed after a meeting with Adolf Hitler, ‘in his 30 September 1938 remarks in London concerning the Munich Agreement and the subsequent Anglo-German Declaration.’ Wikipedia. ‘The phrase is primarily remembered for its bitter ironic value since less than a year after the agreement, Hitler’s invasion of Poland began World War II after France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany following Hitler’s refusal to withdraw from Polish territory.’

No one believed Putin would invade the entirety of Ukraine…but he did. Western governments thought that he was an incrementalist…but he is not. War does not follow the asymmetrical line of anticipated outcomes. World War I began with much less than what has already happened last night. The appeasement of Mr. Putin has proven to not be the answer. The former presidential administration continues its bizarre effusive obeisant comments regarding the Dictator of Russia.

Backing up to a Bully…engenders continual backing up and backing down…until the democratic governments are no longer recognizable… Bullys look carefully for fear in the eyes of those that they are bullying. We believe that we have grown beyond armed conflict…until armed conflict presents itself. Megalomaniacs have no borders.

Putin desires to reestablish the former Soviet Union. When I was a child in the 50s and 60s…I believed that the Soviet Union was fully capable of bombing the United States and my little town of Eldorado, Illinois. Everyone that I knew fully believed that Russia was not only our enemy but that we were in danger of a nuclear strike at any time. When the Cold War ended…it seemed that many thought that we had joined hands and began to sing, ‘Kumbaya.’ History has proven that nothing could have been further from the truth.

Many of my neighbors and friends had dug backyard bomb shelters in the very real fear that Russia was fully capable and willing to bomb our little community. When I began working at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale I oversaw the custodial maintenance of the Engineering and Technology Building on the Campus. In the tunnels that spider-webbed throughout the campus…there was tin after tin of Civil Defense foods and toiletries and cups and kitchen items to see the population of Carbondale and the surrounding Southern Illinois region through a Nuclear Attack. Those items were placed in the Campus Tunnels by the World War II Generation…who knew the catastrophe and the vagaries of War.

President Ronald Regan said of his productive relationship with Soviet Union Leader Mikhail
Gorbachev…’ Trust but Verify.’ Gorbachev seemed to be a Rusian leader that had a desire for peace…Putin is not…