Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Part I

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What is President Biden Doing in Ukraine? President Biden Approves Use of U.S. Missiles Deep in Russian Territory

The headlines that broke yesterday tell us that President Biden has reversed US policy and is going to allow Ukrainian defense forces to use a long-range American missile and to use it inside Russia. This is a massive change in policy, because even as the United States has been offering considerable military assistance to Ukraine, and that’s include many armaments, we have not allowed the most dangerous of those armaments, the most deadly of them, including the ATACMS missile system inside Russia or, in truth, very far inside Russia.

The point is that the use of those American military weapons, even in Ukrainian hands and under Ukrainian supervision, still amounts to an involvement of the United States against Russia in active military action. This is something of a surprise since President Biden had been withholding that very permission ever since you had the active engagement of Russia in Ukraine, which is to say Russia’s aggressive attack on Ukraine trying to conquer Ukraine seize its territory. When you had American and European allies among others come to the defense of Ukraine, one of the dimensions of that assistance was military weaponry as well as military assistance in leadership and strategy, not to mention military intelligence. But the use of these kinds of weapons inside Russia, it amounts to an escalation of the entire conflict, and it’s an escalation at a very dangerous time. And in one sense, at an odd time.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant the invasion of one sovereign nation by another. Ukraine was formerly a part of the Soviet Union along with Russia. But with the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Ukraine became once again a sovereign nation. And as a sovereign nation, it has the right to protect its borders. But let’s just remember that several years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine in order to seize the Crimean Peninsula. Russian forces did so at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and they did so rather ruthlessly and rather quickly.

The Crimean Peninsula was very important to Ukraine, and Russia saw it as very important to Russia because it represents access to warm water ports, something that otherwise Russia doesn’t have. That’s a rather significant limitation on Russia’s international reach and the ability of Russia to project its power in terms of its Navy.

But sadly enough, regrettably enough, the big lesson that Vladimir Putin and Russia learned from the seizure of the Crimean Peninsula is that they could seize Ukrainian territory and get away with it. Americans and other allies responded with a lot of bluster, but there was no way that the United States and those allies were going to see the seizure of the Crimean Peninsula as a justification for war, direct war with Russia. That was just not going to happen.

But as I say, unfortunately, Vladimir Putin and Russia learned the lesson that they could seize Ukrainian territory. And so it appears that when Russia invaded Ukraine on February the 24th of 2022, the reality is that Vladimir Putin and Russia, they thought they would conquer Ukraine very quickly and they thought they could do so rather cleanly, which is to say without much resistance from the United States and other major allies.

But that turned out not to be the story. Even as Russia invaded Ukraine and Russia thought that it would conquer Ukraine very quickly, that was the second misconception, Russia did gain a lot of Ukrainian territory very quickly. Ukraine, by the way, did not defend itself with some obvious defensive mechanism such as blowing up bridges. But nonetheless, Ukraine did respond courageously, responded militarily, and responded quite effectively. And it’s very telling that, for instance, in the first invading tanks, one of the invading generals had brought his dress uniform, assuming that he would be standing in Kiev on a victory platform in short order. But that uniform was found after that Russian General’s death. Then Russia has lost many generals, an untold number of officers and hundreds of thousands of men in the war against Ukraine.

Ukraine has fought back courageously, and to some extent, courageously. The courageous and effective park come together when you consider that Russia invaded in February of 2022, and it is still only occupying about 20% of Ukrainian territory. But you have to state that again. That also means that Russia is, and has been for some time, holding and controlling about 20% of Ukrainian territory, most importantly in the Western region known as the Donbas, which nestles up against the border with Russia.

So let’s just think about the bottom line here. The bottom line is that there is a stalemate effectively, and it’s a very bloody, very costly stalemate. To state the matter bluntly, it is unlikely that Russia is going to be able to conquer Ukraine in any conventional sense. It is also very clear that Ukraine is unlikely to be able to expel Russia, Russian troops from all of its territory, and that means that either there is going to be an undeclared peace, an unnegotiated settlement that just basically bogs down into something horrifyingly like the killing fields of World War II or there is some sort of negotiated settlement.

And already it’s very clear that the friends of Ukraine are seeking to argue for the most powerful negotiating posture that is imaginable, and they’re also demanding certain things that are non-negotiable including the fact that Ukraine must have protected sovereign territory, that it must have some kind of assurance from Russia in terms of no further invasion or military action. It must have the freedom to operate as a sovereign nation.

On the other hand, Russia is likely to just claim the area it currently controls. It might even seek to gain more of that before there would be a ceasefire in some kind of negotiated settlement. But the fact is, you are also looking at something else, and that is that both sides are surprised about where they are right now. At one point, Russia was certain that it would conquer Ukraine quickly. It didn’t. At another point, Ukraine seemed to be confident that it would expel the Russians totally. It hasn’t.

So coming back to the headlines this week about this change the Biden administration has acknowledged, and which is going to allow Ukrainian forces to use these American missiles deeper in Russia, why did the United States declare this change? And it appears that at least the Biden administration is saying that it made the change because of the announcement, now acknowledged by Russia, that something like 10,000 North Korean troops are massing in the Kursk region and may well be deployed against Ukraine.

Now if you’re following that, it either makes a certain logic or it doesn’t. No doubt Russia’s turn towards North Korean troops is a major development, but why that would change American policy is not so clear. I’ll just venture to say that I think the best guess here is that President Joe Biden wants to make some change in the equation before he leaves office in order that he wouldn’t leave with the absolute stalemate that is in place now.

But even as Joe Biden is the current president of the United States, he is not only in a weakened position because of the loss of some mental abilities and some intellectual acuity as they often say. But even more tellingly, like any other president at this point, he is a lame duck and he doesn’t have much leverage at all. What he does have as commander-in-chief and as the head of American Foreign Policy is the ability to make an announcement such as the allowance of Ukrainian forces to use these missiles deeper inside of Russia.

But it is also true that Joe Biden is likely to be out of office when the United States faces the blowback from Russia that that would surely bring. And make no mistake, it will surely bring a blowback. And it does represent an escalation in terms of a direct conflict between the United States and Russia. That is something I do not believe is right. I don’t believe the vast majority of Americans believe it’s right, and I think that’s an understatement. And I’m absolutely confident that the President-elect, Donald Trump, does not believe that is right. And so you’re likely to see some kind of big change in terms of America’s posture towards Ukraine. And it appears that just about everybody knows it. And at this point, there is a holding pattern of sorts until the issue is sorted out once President Trump is in office.

But before leaving Ukraine, there’s another very odd situation, and it’s a very sad situation. On the one hand, it is very clear that both sides are being depleted just because of the long duration of what this conflict has turned out to be, a surprise when it comes to the Russians who thought they would conquer Ukraine very quickly, and at least something of a surprise evidently to the Ukrainians who thought that their response was going to be more quickly successful in fending back the Russian assault than it turned out to be. And so, one of the problems is that you have Ukraine running out of soldiers and you have Russia basically in the same position, even though Russia has a population many times that of Ukraine.

And that explains why Russia has turned to about 10,000 North Korean troops as backups in this war. On the one hand, that should be humiliating to a power like Russia that at least wants to pretend that it is a world power on par with other major nations, most importantly China and the United States. By most measurements, of course it isn’t. But Russia does have a huge stockpile, some believe by far the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, and that is no small thing.

But speaking of Ukraine, it is becoming a matter of knowledge among the American political class that Ukraine, despite the fact that it has been fighting back bravely, has not called up the young men who are among its citizens and required them by some form of draft or conscription to enter into the armed services. As a matter of fact, young men aged 18 and into their early 20s are exempt from that kind of conscription. Now, just think of American military history in terms of any major American military effort. That was not the case here. As a matter of fact, you had the draft starting, at least the registration for the draft, coinciding with a young man’s 18th birthday. Now, that’s a wake-up call.

So much of military posturing and so much of foreign policy is just a matter of making a case, even if it’s not true on the ground, it’s true in terms of your claims is true in terms of public argument. But eventually, the truth on the ground begins to become apparent. And whatever bluster has been offered by whatever side, it begins to show its weaknesses, and sometimes even its absolute falsity.

A Christian understanding of just war would remind us that Ukraine has every right to fight back against an invader, to fight back against an aggressor. That’s just plainly evident in terms of the Christian moral tradition. And honestly, that’s the kind of thing you can almost figure out just as you’re supervising children on a playground. The aggressor is the one who bears the moral fault, the one to whom the aggression is aimed has the right to defend himself.

But it’s also true, just in terms of Christian realism, that you can’t change the facts on the ground by good intentions or imagination, or for that matter, just political argument. That doesn’t change the facts on the ground. And the facts on the ground right now indicate a stalemate that cannot last for long and eventually is likely to be settled with the assistance of perhaps even the leadership of President-elect Donald Trump. He is seen in this equation as a game changer, and that’s exactly how he wants to be seen.

Part II

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Big Tech Overreach and an AI Tragedy: Christians Need to Closely Examine the Effects of Social Media and AI on Teens

Next, we’re going to shift to a very different issue. And when it comes to American young people and American families and American Christian leaders as well, it’s a far more urgent issue. Just in recent weeks, headlines have come from Australia indicating that the Australian government is considering what’s described as far-reaching legislation that would “make the platforms that are the lifeblood of many teenagers, among them, TikTok, off limits to anyone under 16.”

As the New York Times reports, “The proposed legislation which puts Australia at the forefront of regulating social media access for children would hold platforms accountable for enforcing the new rules. There would be no exemptions for children with parental permission.” The article went on to say, and I quote, “But neither underage users or their parents would face punishment for violations.”

Now, this Australian legislation, if indeed adopted, would be pathbreaking in terms of its effect. It would be among the very first, as you think of major nations responding to the challenge of the digital world with teenagers and young people, by putting in place an absolute and blanket ban on the access of under 16s to that kind of platform in the first place.

Well, in the United States, something similar at least has been contemplated. And even yesterday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal pointed out that legislation that had passed by a “nearly unanimous vote in July in the US known as the Kids Online Safety Act, it seems to have stalled in the House. Looking back to the Senate’s action,” the Journal says, “it was a rare moment of bipartisan unity suggesting overwhelming agreement that new rules are needed to protect children from potential harm online.”

Now, again, it is now stalled in the United States House of Representatives. And there are some very interesting worldview angles on this. For one thing, why would liberals and conservatives have a different position on this issue? Well, it is because there are different concerns that show up even in ways the Wall Street Journal recognized. According to the Journal, “For liberal lawmakers, they focus on LGBTQ expression amplifying worries that officials could censor youth.” It goes on to say, “With conservative lawmakers, they talk about how they fear anti-abortion positions could be censored.”

Well, one of the groundbreaking parts of the legislation as proposed in the United States is that it would assert a duty of care on the part of these platforms and these forms of corporate services that would say they have duty of care to prevent young people from being harmed on these platforms. And of course, one of the ways to do that is simply to keep them off of the platforms.

But of course, even as legislation to that end could be groundbreaking, without parental involvement, and that means direct parental involvement, and that means constant and consistent parental involvement, the law is not going to have much of an effect even if adopted in either Australia or the United States.

In Australia, you’re also hearing the argument, and it comes from not only some of the social media platforms that would be affected, but also from some in higher education and so-called activists for children and young people. The Time cites a letter written by more than 100 “experts” in organizations in Australia. They’re claiming that the restrictions would be too tight. “Any restrictions in the digital world must therefore be designed with care, and we’re concerned that a ban is too but an instrument to address risks effectively.”

The Times then said, “Experts say social media can be both positive and negative for children depending on how they use it. But children’s undeveloped brains may make them especially sensitive to social feedback, and they may become overly preoccupied with securing ‘likes,’ as put in quotation marks, followers and comments from peers.”

Now, at this point, I simply want to say, anyone who reads that and is surprised by that particular conclusion or is shocked by that argument, you have to be living under a rock somewhere. But I want to state emphatically that the use of that kind of argument, it is an intentional effort to try to forestall legislation. And frankly, it is also, I think rightly understood, is an effort to subvert parental authority and the ability of parents to respond to this kind of crisis in a meaningful way with their own children, teenagers, and young people.

But Christians also desperately need an honest conversation about some of the risks here that are not, to be honest, easy to talk about. For example, the Wall Street Journal, just a matter of days ago, ran a massive report on the death of a 14-year-old boy in Florida. His death came at his own hand in a moment of despair and apparently with the complicity of a chatbot as described by The Wall Street Journal, a chatbot which was female and with which this boy had developed not only a dependency, but something of an active relationship that became at least very emotional, if not romantic, and had been sexualized. And at one point it turns out this bot, this chatbot, was complicit in what can only be described as, to some extent, encouraging this boy to take his own life, which he did.

These things are quite difficult to talk about, but we are talking about an extreme vulnerability on the part of young people, particularly older children, and even more particularly, teenagers. And it’s turning out to be a different phenomenon, although with virtually the same level of risk for both teenage boys and teenage girls because we also know that teenage girls have been preyed upon by means of online predators. It has also become increasingly clear that teenage boys are being preyed upon, and some of them have taken drastic and horrifying action upon being discovered in this involvement in what amounts to a shakedown scheme for money. And all of this is coming often right down the hall, and many parents appear to be absolutely unaware.

Now, there are all kinds of issues here we could discuss, but the most urgent issue is simply to discuss the fact that parents should be empowered simply to say no, simply to avoid this problem in the first place and to prevent the kind of exposure when it comes to these platforms, whether it’s social media or chatbot that can turn so quickly in such a deadly direction. But from a Christian perspective, even if it doesn’t turn in a deadly direction, it can assuredly turn in a very sinful direction and it can develop all kinds of complex dependencies. It can also risk massive damage and hurt to a young person’s heart, not to mention to a young person’s mind.

The dangers and the vulnerabilities that are represented by social media exposure, frankly, the entire world of digital exposure, the development of the cell phone and that transformation into the smartphone, and then of course the development of artificial intelligence and even products such as chatbots, we are now looking at a massive challenge, which is going to come with massive damage when you look at America’s young people. And if the rest of the parents in the world seem to be very confused about what to do about this, Christian parents ought to have a great deal more clarity. It is the responsibility of Christian parents to prevent harm to their children.

Now, obviously there are complexities in trying to figure out how to handle the digital world. But all around us now, even catching direct secular attention, even government attention, and not only in this nation, is the fact that you do have these bombs going off all over the place and creating so much damage not only in something of a potential maybe one-day future, but right now sometimes in a bedroom right down the hall.

One of the common things in so many of these reports is that the parents found out, of course, tragically too late. And yet even as the parents recount what was taking place, it is clear that vulnerabilities should have been detected and exposure should have been prevented. One dimension of the media reports on the sad death of that boy in Florida is that his mother has filed tort litigation, a lawsuit against the makers and the operators of the chatbot. The big question here is, where will the courts go with this kind of question? Will they find the chatbots or the makers or the operators of the chatbots, will the courts find these business entities liable for the damage they have inflicted?

But let me just point to the sad, indeed unspeakably sad reality. That’s a very cold issue coming in the aftermath of such an unspeakable loss. There is horrible cold comfort in making the judgment, “Well, we’ll file suit if something goes horribly wrong.” Something’s already going horribly wrong.

Part III

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Conservative Principles (Maybe), Libertarian Worldview: The Life and Legacy of Lawyer Ted Olson

As we end today, I want us to think about a clash of worldviews that sometimes isn’t seen, but I predict is going to loom even larger in America’s public conversation and should loom larger also in Christian consideration of worldview issues all around us. Ted B. Olson, that is Theodore B. Olson, who was one of the most experienced Supreme Court litigators of this age, he died just in recent days, and he was the attorney on behalf of the Bush campaign who won the legal arguments in Florida and before the US Supreme Court that ended up with George W. Bush becoming the 43rd president of the United States.

And so Ted Olson has been a hero to conservatives because he was identified as a conservative and he served as Solicitor General of the United States. That is to say the government’s lead attorney by appointment from George W. Bush during the president’s term. Ted Olson was also known to the American public as a widower because it was his wife, Barbara Olson, who was among those who were on the jet that slammed into the Pentagon on September the 11th, 2001. That was Ted Olson’s birthday. Barbara Olson was well known as a conservative media commentator, had called him from the plane as both knew where the story would end, the only question was where, and she expressed her love for her husband. And on his birthday, Ted Olson, then 61, experienced the death of his wife. Needless to say, for Ted Olson, 9/11 was more than a national security issue.

The Wall Street Journal described him as this, “A towering figure of the conservative legal movement.” The article went on, “As an early leader of the Federalist Society, he helped move American law to the right. As a Justice Department official of the 1980s, he was pivotal in advancing the Reagan administration’s deregulatory and social policy agenda. In 1996, he won a federal appeals court decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, a position the US Supreme Court ultimately adopted in 2023.”

Now, here’s where the story changes. Ted Olson is also famous for having joined with his opponent in Florida in the 2000 election. He was known for teaming up with David Boies, who had represented Democratic presidential nominee, Al Gore, in the case, Bush V. Gore, in 2000 before the Supreme Court. So Ted Olson, who represented George B. Bush, and David Boies, who represented Al Gore, they were opposed in one of the most famous cases in recent Supreme Court history. They joined up to seek to defeat Proposition 8, arguing that it was unconstitutional, Proposition 8 in California, that limited marriage to the union of a man and a woman.

Now, let me just state the obvious. That’s not a surprise for David Boies. It was a surprise for many when it comes to Ted Olson because this is profoundly un-conservative. As Christians understand, when you’re talking about marriage, you’re talking about something that is directly in creation order. And redefining marriage, which theologically is an impossibility, well, even in political terms, this appeared to be something very unusual. What explains it? How could Ted Olson, who’s described as such a leader in the conservative legal recovery, how could he take on a legal role that was still liberal when it comes to the issue of redefining marriage?

Well, it is because he saw no basic constitutional reason. He saw no basic cultural reason why two men or two women should not be allowed to marry. And what does that tell you? Well, it tells you that Ted Olson, who’s described as conservative, wasn’t actually conservative at all. He may have had policies, positions, he may have made arguments that were genuinely conservative, but his own worldview was something different. His own worldview reflects what is known as libertarianism. And I discussed this before because libertarianism is often mis-described and mis-labeled as conservatism, but it’s not conservatism.

Libertarianism raises human personal liberty to what I would consider to be not only an irrational, but a nearly idolatrous level. And frankly, it becomes the determining issue in all things, maximizing personal liberty, minimizing constraints on personal liberty from the government. Now, conservatives believe in a limited government, but we do believe in a government that makes and stands by moral decisions. And frankly, the right moral decisions.

Christians understanding the importance of worldview have to be able to tell the difference between conservative and libertarian. The Wall Street Journal, which seeks, in one sense, to straddle those two positions, it offered a headline, “A Conservative Legal Giant forFour decades,” speaking of Ted Olson. The problem there is the word conservative. He was indeed a conservative in some of his arguments. But when it came to the argument about same-sex marriage, he was profoundly un-conservative, which is to say he was conservative except when he wasn’t. And in terms of what’s most important, when he wasn’t really cost us.