Nobody can say for sure if there was something we could have done to deter Putin from invading Ukraine. We know that sanctions and the threat of sanctions, despite what President Biden said before hand did not work. It is obvious now that Putin only told us not to add Ukraine to NATO so that he could follow through with his invasion. Pundits who talk about keeping Ukraine out of NATO as a negotiating chip to give Putin are horribly naive. We gave Ukraine some weapons before Biden took office, we should have given more, including airplanes that we are now moth-balling as suggested by the CEO of Blackwater. Why do we even need to put Ukraine in NATO, why couldn’t we have put a couple fighter plane squadrons in Ukraine on our own, without NATO? It’s this lack of foresight and thinking outside the box from our leaders that will continue to leave us in bad positions. Oil prices may spike higher still if we can punish Russia by removing them from the SWIFT financial system, and yet President Biden has cut off as much drilling as he could. Our energy security is important, more important than climate change. If we are to learn anything from this it is that we need to put some of our troops in Taiwan immediately, and declare that the “one china” policy is dead forever. Our economy is suffering already from the “chip shortage”. It would be 100 times worse if China takes over Taiwan. We need leaders with more foresight and the right priorities.