Sir, I appreciate the compliment. The problem with war, however, is that it's rarely optional...and history shows time and again the folly of not stopping a conqueror early on.

Don't get me wrong - I've studied enough war to hate it - it's the worst of all crimes against humanity. But there's a reason why the Baltic and (most) eastern European nations are so steadfastly supporting Ukraine - they remember life under the Soviet heel, and are willing to fight to remain free of Moscow's grip today. If we ignored it today, then where would Putin stop? He went to Georgia, and then he took Crimea. What would he want after Ukraine? Moldova? Lithuania? Poland? After his invasion of Ukraine began, he stated he wanted to bring back the glory of the USSR. The implication is clear.

And so are our choices. There was an old motor oil commercial that warned of the dangers of not changing the oil. The tagline went, "You can pay me now, or pay me later." 'Later', of course, was going to be a lot more expensive.

So it goes with stopping Putin (and other strongmen in history). We can stop him now...or pay much more to stop him later.

War is hell, and its glory is all moonshine, goes a combined quote of Sherman. But it will happen, and we must be ready. We're human, and unfortunately, it's what we do. The fighting and dying will happen. Thus it is logical that if there will be fighting and dying, it's better that such be done by other people instead of by us...because if we got involved, far, far more people would die. We can pay the ferryman Charon now, or we can pay him a much greater sum later.