A liberal chorus is singing hosannas to Joe Biden's recent success at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Salon's Lucian Truscott IV, usually a brake on America's military fever, last week saluted Biden for uniting NATO countries against Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
Truscott said a source in Washington told him that the Biden administration is now on a "war footing" after the president placed 3,000 Army reservists on active duty for possible service in Europe to support Ukraine.
I was shocked that Truscott, a descendant of famed Army generals as well as Thomas Jefferson, didn't bring his normal skepticism to Biden's military buildup. Truscott's service as an Army officer turned him into a vehement opponent of the Vietnam War.
Following Truscott, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson on Monday praised Biden for persuading Turkey's Tayyip P. Erdogan to allow Sweden to join NATO, in the footsteps of Finland.
Robinson gleefully noted that Erdogan's capitulation followed a deal in which Turkey will purchase 40 high-tech F-16 jets from the United States. The genial columnist didn't note that the Turkey weapons deal will raise Mideast war tensions as high as the region's soaring heat. Iran will surely step up its nuclear weapons push.
Finland and Sweden's membership effectively makes the Baltic Sea a "NATO lake," Robinson noted joyfully, after mentioning that the Baltic has been Russia's passageway to the world since the days of Peter the Great.
I support Biden and NATO backing Ukraine, but surrounding the embattled Putin's Russia appears dangerous. The late security expert George Kennan opposed NATO's expansion, correctly predicting that Russia would feel under siege. It's never been good to shutter Russia from the rest of the world.
After months of caution, Biden recently agreed to give Ukraine cluster bombs, which dew a rebuke from The New York Times editorial department, which decried the nasty weapon's threat to civilians. The clusters leave behind unignited remnants that explode when humans happen upon them.
The president also turned down Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's zealous request to join NATO immediately. In turning down Zelensky, Biden rashly claimed that Putin has already lost the war.
Ukraine's stalled military campaign against Putin' batttered army raises doubts about a Ukrainian triumph. Perhaps Biden's true assessment is reflected in the call-up of troops.
Not to go all Chris Hedges, but the situation in Europe is beginning to look a lot like 1914. Except now the arms race is run with nuclear weapons .
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