I know I'm not alone wandering how someone seemingly bright like Todd could completely miss the point of the war in Ukraine. NATO's extension to the east, the Minsk agreements Holand and Merkel admitted were meant to buy time to arm Ukraine, the 8 year shelling of the Donbas and Lugansk regions. And then of course Boris Johnson rushing to stop the hand of Zelensky as he was about to sign a peace agreement in 2022, a few weeks after the start of the hot war. How were all these events aimed at upholding democracy or defending Ukrainians ? Those same Ukrainians being abducted by their mafia-like state to be sent to the front line to fill the pockets of the most corrupt gvt in europe? To me the biggest dichotomy is between the ideals of decentralised power and finance and the support for a war which is clearly the product of highly centralised forces, call it the military industrial complex or the deep state or both.