[Looking at history and our area’s unique political and religious attitudes.]

Who wants war? That is a strange question. Do civilized societies promote war? Are there any new wars?

A rather interesting phenomenon revealed itself with the President calling for an end to war and killing in Ukraine and on other fronts. He is opposed by progressives and those less libertarian. He is opposed by European governments. He is opposed by Ukraine’s leadership, who has canceled elections, which would likely remove their sitting president. A historical awareness sheds some insight.

The last invasion of Europe by an outside force was the son of Genghis Khan, Ogodei, mainly between 1236 to 1242. The Mongols overwhelmed Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland. Kiev was sacked in 1240. The Mongolians were moving toward western Europe, when three years of exceptionally cold and wet weather followed by the death of Ogodei forced them to turn south then back toward Russia and home.

In 988, the city accepted Eastern Orthodox Christianity under Prince Vladimir I. Kiev was strategic as the capital of the medieval Slavs until 1169 when the Rus’ princes began sacking, then the Khans devastated the city. Following the Mongol invasion, Kiev remained an important point along the trade route from Western Europe to the Far East.

War continued between the Norse, Finns, and Slavs from pre-Medieval times to now.

A variety of more powerful neighbors dominated until 1922, when the city became the Soviet capital of the second most populous state. Independence arrived in 1991, with the fall of the Soviets. The early Kievan Rus’ (Ukraine) influence area was huge, from Belarus and the White Sea of the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south.

Next, looking to Western Europe, England was dominated by the Norman invasion in 1066. Since then, the English Channel has made a defensible barrier. The English language to this day is a parallel between Anglo and Norman Old French. The more plebeian words are Anglo, while the more refined are Old French derivatives.

Compare town and city as an illustration. Britain has been at war with the Holy Roman Empire (Germany), Netherlands (Dutch), France, Spain, and Portugal numerous times. No one knows why. None of these countries are very big. Texas is about twice as large as any of them, with significantly more natural resources.

The countries were enemies and allies becoming global influences during the Colonial period. Then a strange thing happened in 1864. The countries came together at the “Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field.” more commonly known as the Geneva Convention. Instead of reaching agreements on how to resolve their conflicts, they developed rules on how to fight wars.

That did not work very well, so they continued to modify the rules of engagement with the Convention of 1906, then 1929, then 1949. In the contemporary world, no rules are relevant. Terrorists are not necessarily state actors, so their politicians have not signed the agreements. Signing means little to any country executive who decides to ignore the agreements.

Where is the U.S. in all this? Our war of Independence was just another iteration of the ongoing European wars.

From the beginning, the country tried to stay out of the foreign conflicts and was reasonably successful until the Spanish-American war in 1898, when Spain sank the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba, harbor. Spain fought weakly in Cuba and the Philippines, while the Americans were prepared. The April 20 to July 18 war ended when the new world power – U.S. – obtained the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, a protectorate over Cuba, and opening Panama for a U.S. Canal.

This conflict largely ended global colonization by the Europeans, with the small U.S. Navy being the second largest in the world. Spain prospered without the weight and expense of colonialism. Unfortunately, the U.S. globalist leaders decided to support our British linguistic and cultural cousins in every war effort that came along for the next hundred years.

The European wars have been a choice of their governments for all of recorded history. It is as if they developed rules of the game and go to war as quickly as a soccer match.

Now to the other war front, the Middle East. The first external war for the nascent U.S. was against the pirate terrorists from the Barbary state of Tripoli, now Libya, who raided the U.S. shipping. The people are the cultural, linguistic, and religious heritage of the Houthi, Hamas, Hezbollah type groups.

Think about it. The President is embracing our country’s history to not be involved in the incessant wars, using the same clout as President Jefferson in 1801-1805, when the Marines established their credentials against Tripoli.

The third President and the forty-seventh have the same format. Be determined and strong enough that if a group attacks our country, trade, or people, they will be receive retribution with everything the country has. That is what he was elected to do.