Buy Tim Scott on the political futures market; short the rest
The Florida Governor has created the opening necessary for Senator Tim Scott to capture the GOP nomination with his foolish comments about Russia’s criminal war against Ukraine. Proving yet again the correlation between an Ivy League degree and a lack of basic common sense, DeSantis issued a statement to Tucker Carlson that said the following:
While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Community Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.
It is an incredible statement that is simultaneously ignorant, extreme, naive, profoundly dangerous and utterly irresponsible. His grasp of foreign policy is reminiscent of a latter day Ms. South Carolina with ten dashes of Charles Lindbergh thrown in.
The sage of Tallahassee seems immune to geography, or perhaps he is indifferent towards the security implications of Russia seizing control of 230,000 square miles of European land that borders five NATO nations. His ignorance and naïveté is not shared.
“If aggression pays off, then there are no limits.”
— Estonia Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, March 15, 2023
“Without the US, there wouldn’t be a free Ukraine anymore.”
— Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, February 18, 2023
“If he [Putin] sees that there is a sort of a retreat or appeasement or something that sometimes countries do think is a good strategy with dictators, then, usually, what they do, they are just pushing farther, because they take it as a sign of weakness.”
— Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, December 7, 2022
“If Ukraine does not win against Russia, we would send that kind of message that you can invade another country.”
— Finland Prime Minister Sanna Marin, February 20, 2023
The stakes are enormous, and DeSantis seems unable to comprehend the most important lessons of the 20th century and apply them to the 21st. There is a simple fact about the largest land war in Europe since World War II. It can’t expand so long as Putin is tied down and losing. Presently, that is the case. Should Ukraine be sold out by the extremist MAGA faction, it guarantees that Russia will seize Moldova and certainly seek to demonstrate the hollowness of a cowed NATO by moving towards a reconquest of the beautiful Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Should America and the West abandon Ukraine, it will demonstrate to Putin that Article 5 of the NATO treaty is meaningless and not worth the paper it is written on.
Timing is an under-appreciated strategic consideration in most presidential campaigns. There was a moment in time when Senator Fred Thompson could have waltzed to the GOP nomination in 2008. He waited too long, and when he jumped into the race the open window was closed, and he crashed through it. Certainly it is possible that Senator Scott will miss his window, but I rather doubt it.