Armageddon

 

America and the West committed a catastrophic moral error in 1949 when they failed to overthrow the Russian dictatorship after they acquired nuclear weapons. They repeated that error in 1964 with China. And in 1998 with Pakistan. And in 2003 with North Korea.

America and the West doubled down on this moral misstep when they failed to develop – or even decently attempted to develop – a defense against these unthinkable bombs. And the error continues today in that essentially neither of these failures is understood, even in hindsight. History hasn’t taught America and the West the relevant lesson.

It’s the job of the relatively civilized, good, and free peoples of the world to militarily defend themselves from annihilation. But America and the West aren't doing that. It’s even their job to try to protect the relatively decent peoples elsewhere, if possible.

Ultimately, the Americans and other Western nations are suffering badly from their 73-year-old strategic and moral mistake. So are the semi-innocent citizens and victims of the slave states of Russia, China, Pakistan, and North Korea. Only the tyrants and their handful of cronies are prospering from this.

And since these aggressive and war-like dictatorships continue to have undefendable nuclear devices, everybody on the planet pretty much gets to live in terror forever.

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As a footnote, it’s worth noting that The United States had timely military plans in place to defeat this ultra-powerful, bellicose, and enslaving enemy. It was called Operation Offtackle and it was ready in February 1949. Wikipedia reports:

“The strategic air campaign outlined in Offtackle...called for the delivery of 292 atomic bombs and 224 tons of conventional bombs. It was estimated that 85 percent of the industrial targets would be completely destroyed. These included electric power, shipbuilding, petroleum production and refining, and other essential war fighting industries. Moreover, it was hoped that the campaign would not just cripple Soviet industry, but loosen the control of the government over the people…”

--Wikipedia, “United States war plans (1945–1950)”

This would have worked! At relatively minimal cost, 73 years of nuclear terror in the West could have been avoided, and Soviet tyranny defeated.