Volume 7 Issue 27_Sun Bay Paper

When he arrived at Christ the Savior Cathedral to pay his respects to the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who had died of COVID-19, Russian President Vladimir Putin carried a clutch of red roses. The man beside him was carrying a briefcase. That briefcase appeared to be Russia's version of the "football" that is carried by a military aide to U.S. presidents and contains the codes for launching strategic nuclear weapons. French King Louis XIV had stamped upon his cannon the inscription, "Ultima Ratio Regum" -- The Last Argument of Kings. In our era, nuclear weapons are the ultima ratio of nation-states. And what Putin was saying with his briefcase-carrying aide beside him was that, rather than accept defeat and humiliation in the Ukraine war, he may resort to the use of tactical atomic weapons. And Putin is not the only one reminding us of the utility of having nuclear weapons and the folly of giving them up. In 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved into 15 nations, a newly independent Ukraine controlled its own large arsenal of nuclear weapons. At the behest of the United States and in return for U.S. security guarantees, Kyiv gave them up and sent them all back to Russia. Ukraine is living today with the consequences of that decision. It is a victim of aggression by Russia, while the U.S. is inhibited in what it will do to assist Kyiv by an awareness that Russia has hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons, which Putin has signaled that, in the event of a true "existential" crisis, he may use. Ukraine is in its present crisis because Moscow has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, while Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s. The world is surely taking note of this fact. South Korea relies on U.S. nuclear weapons to deter a nucleararmed North Korea. Seoul also relies on the U.S. to retaliate against the North for any first use of nukes against the South. And the issue is not an academic one. Last week, Pyongyang warned that in the event of a clash with the South, its nuclear weapons would be used "at the outset of war." Seoul must today be observing Ukraine with some intensity. For there the U.S. is carefully calibrating whether the weapons they send to help Ukraine fight for its national existence violate a Moscow red line. Could South Korea expect similar U.S. caution as to what weapons it would use in defending the country from a nuclear-armed North? According to one U.S. poll, 71% of all South Koreans support the acquisition of their own arsenal of nuclear weapons. China, too, has been observing how the United States has been inhibited by Russia's nuclear arsenal in deciding which weapons to send, and which not to send, to Ukraine. In Beijing, this question is surely being debated: If the Americans, who have no treaty commitment to defend Ukraine, are inhibited by the threat of war with a nuclear-armed Russia into limiting their military aid to Ukraine, will the Americans be similarly intimidated by a nuclear-armed China -- from going to war for Taiwan? China may soon be testing U.S. resolve in the Taiwan Strait. For, like Ukraine, Taiwan has no treaty alliance obligating the United States to defend it. In East Asia, the nations most hostile to us and our allies -- Russia, China, North Korea -- all have nuclear weapons. But none of our friends and allies in East Asia -- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Australia -- have nuclear weapons. All rely on us for nuclear deterrence. Observing the restrictions we have put on military aid to Ukraine, what must they be thinking now? Consider the Middle East. Iran is currently renegotiating a return to the nuclear arms deal of 2015. Under that agreement, Iran was granted relief from sanctions and a return to the world economy. In return, Tehran pledged not to test or acquire nuclear weapons and to open its nuclear facilities to inspection to show it was complying with the treaty. Why has Iran, which has the ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade but has never done so, forgone the testing and the building of nuclear weapons? Iran appears to have concluded that its security would be more imperiled than enhanced if it sought to test a nuclear device preparatory to building a bomb. A nuclear weapons test, if successful, would bring to Iran the possibility of war with a nucleararmed Israel, as well as the potential destruction of all of its nuclear sites by the United States. If Iran built a bomb, the Turks and Saudis might soon follow, and the ayatollah's Iran would be less secure than it is today. Iran's Persians, after all, are a minority in an Arab-dominated Middle East, and Iran's Shia are but a fraction of the numbers of the Sunni Arab population. What the Ukraine war has demonstrated is the vulnerability of not having nukes. Taiwan and South Korea, especially, should take note. Patrick J. Buchanan Page 17 April 15, 2022 - April 21, 2022 Nukes Do Deter The World's Richest Man Knows the Value of Babies "There are not enough people," Musk told The Wall Street Journal in December. "I can't emphasize this enough, there are not enough people." “The problems posed by academe's desire for plummeting fertility rates should seem obvious. Young people support old people, by funding social programs and providing goods, services and commodities. A small population of working-aged people cannot support a far larger population of elders.” Musk said rapidly declining fertility rates around the globe, caused by abortion, contraception, and other means of avoiding reproduction -- are "one of the biggest risks to civilization." Musk’s a message largely ignored by the media. It is possibly more important than his inventions and aspirations, the jobs he creates and the mouths he feeds. Musk understands what few celebrities see in a society apologizing for human activities. CNBC noted that Musk's statement "comes as a growing number of people are deciding not to have children, citing concerns such as climate change and inequality." Few things promote "inequality" more than policies designed to reduce reproduction. The United States and other wealthy countries inundate poor regions with contraceptives. Authors of Colorado's new anything-goes abortion law emphasized, in the bill, the importance of abortions to ease "socioeconomic disparities disproportionately faced by people of color and people with low incomes." That's a polite way for comfortable white people to say minorities and the poor should not reproduce. Musk visited the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs last week to encourage problem-solving innovation. It is hard to imagine a better role model for cadets and other students during this era of institutionalized hostility toward human life. Academicians bombard K12 and college students with messages of humanity's intractable racism. Educators proselytize young minds to believe western society mostly foments inequality and suffering. Children and young adults learn their mere existence and routine activities intensify planet-destroying climate change. As the above philosophy increasingly invades modern education, we wonder why youthful trends include record-setting suicide rates, deadly addictions, low workforce participation, and popular artistic expressions that celebrate death and anxiety more than ambition, joy and relationships. Musk is the father of eight children. He is flawed, like every individual. Yet, he exudes enthusiasm for life and the possibilities of a single heart and mind. He's the world's richest man because he never fears to dream of what others call pie-in-the-sky. He dreams, plans, acts and occasionally succeeds. By pursuing dreams, Musk gave humanity self-driving cars that run on fossil fuels, sun, and wind converted to voltage. He privatized space travel, which will mature to benefit all of humanity in ways limited only by the imagination. His dozens of pursuits became the impetus for Compaq, PayPal, eBay, and more. He donates solar-powered energy systems to power disaster areas -- just one of his efforts to ease human suffering. After Texas passed a bill forbidding convenience abortions, Musk refused to comment. That's a far cry from most celebrities, who rush to publicly oppose any restrictions on abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Reporters asked Musk about the law because he moved last year from California to Texas. "Elon consistently tells me that he likes the social policies in the state of Texas," Gov. Greg Abbot, R-Texas, told MSNBC. All long-term data show world hunger and poverty reliably declined as the world's population increased throughout the 20th century and early 21st. United Nations data show a 15% reduction in malnutrition between 2004 and 2015, as world population grew. The rate of children ages five and under who suffer "stunting" from malnutrition fell from 33% in 2000 to 21.9% in 2029. Despite the fully disproven anti-growth Malthusian theories of the mid-20th Century, our self-appointed experts tell students they are blights on the planet who harm the less fortunate. Because Musk studies data and science, he knows the opposite is true. Just this year, Musk embarked uponmaking himself Twitter's largest shareholder. This bought him an invitation to serve on the company's board. He turned it down Saturday, igniting speculation he wants to buy more shares than the government allows board members to own. By gaining control of Twitter, he hopes to end Big Social Media's disgusting censorship threats to freedom and democracy. There's a reason Musk and other innovators and inventors amass great fortunes to invest and reinvest. Their efforts to solve problems typically make the world better for the rich, the poor, and the planet we live on. The world rewards them with money, which they use to solve more problems.

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