Tucker looks at what we should be prioritizing now that Russia has invaded Ukraine. Highlights include:
“What’s happening in Ukraine, whatever its scale … is a tragedy because war always is a tragedy and the closer you get to it, the more horrifying it seems. It’s the ugliest thing that men do, ever.”
“Vladimir Putin started this war, so whatever the context of the decision that he made, he did it, he fired the first shots. He is to blame for what we’re seeing tonight in Ukraine. The question is, once we’ve established that, and it’s obvious: How should the United States respond to what he has done?”
“The main thing that matters in any crisis is deciding what’s most important, creating a hierarchy of concern. So, until last night, the main purpose of our foreign policy was to prevent Russian from invading Ukraine. Obviously, that failed. At some point we should figure out why.”
“But what’s our top goal now? Well, there’s several of them.”
“First and most obviously: Avoid a full-scale war with a nuclear armed adversary. And to be fair, very few people in Washington want anything like that. But that doesn’t mean we won’t have one. Wars often break out accidentally, or more often incrementally.”
“Mark Warner, the head of the Senate intelligence committee, just announced that Russia could be potentially close to triggering what’s known as Article 5 of the NATO alliance — that’s a collective defense principle. So, if Russia were to launch a cyberattack on Ukraine, Warner explained, an attack that affects nearby NATO members like Poland or Lithuania, then possibly every NATO country including ours, the United States, would be obligated to declare war on Russia.”
“But, Article 5 is not a mechanical mechanism. Human beings have to decide to invoke it, and the question is, is what the senator just described something that is worth risking a nuclear conflict over? And that is something we should pause very deeply to think about in the most sober possible way, and we hope that our leaders are.”
“But not all of them seem sober right now. Some of them seem reckless, and as usual, ignorant.”
“Here’s the second goal: Keep the energy flowing. Cheap energy, we take it for granted, but it is the basis for all we have. No energy, no civilization.”
“Unfortunately, a huge percentage of Europe’s energy now comes from Russia and Ukraine. The European Union relies on Russia for roughly 40% of its natural gas.”
“The fact is that Vladimir Putin has the power to send Europe, and for that matter the United States, into an economic depression. Putin has the power to turn off the lights. So, where did Vladimir Putin get this power? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but a big reason is the climate people gave him this power.”
“Finally a topic no one ever brings up: We must protect the US dollar. America’s power derives from its wealth. Rich countries get to do what they want. Poor countries must obey their masters, or they get invaded. We just saw that happen, that is the unchanging rule.”
“In this country, control of the US dollar is the key to our wealth. Our entire financialized debt-based economy rests on the unique privilege of issuing the world’s reserve currency. If the US dollar is ever replaced, we are in legitimate trouble. Our debt will come due, our government will go bankrupt, and millions of Americans will become poor immediately. So, this is the main thing we ought to be worried about, and it is a greater risk now than ever before.”
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