James Hill: “in 1958, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Harold Macmillan, paraphrasing a remark from Winston Churchill 4 years…”

“in 1958, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Harold Macmillan, paraphrasing a remark from Winston Churchill 4 years earlier, left us with the great expression: jaw-jaw is better than war-war. It is because of our great power that our rivals seek to end the American way of life through direct or gray zone war attacks or by cyber or economic destruction, and we certainly should routinely jaw-jaw with those great powers about our possible shared objectives and deep concerns. However, in the instance of Czar Putin, he has never been interested in jaw-jaw. He is a creature of his KGB upbringing. There was no jaw-jaw with the Chechens in 1999, and there was no jaw-jaw with the Georgians, only tanks, in 2008. There was no jaw-jaw, only propaganda, corruption, and death in Putin's approach to Ukraine during President Obama's administration. Under President Obama, Putin conducted his overt and covert actions in Ukraine with some 10,000 Ukrainians killed in the fighting, including 2,000 civilians, yet Obama and his European allies simply looked down at their shoes. In 2014, Putin took Crimea without firing a shot. He is a disgrace to the rich, cultural history of the Russian people, and he has thoroughly corrupted a false and bordering-on-insane historic narrative regarding his threats and ambitions in Ukraine. America, as the instrumental force inside the transatlantic alliance, remains ready to stand shoulder to shoulder to back this European resolve.”