While much of the world wonders when Russia will invade Ukraine, the US Senate’s number 2 ranking member on the Armed Forces committee has added something new: When will the US invade Russia?

The best solution to the current Ukraine crisis is for all parties to agree to Ukrainian neutrality, but this is exactly what Western governments and the Ukrainian government refuse to consider.

US foreign policy is evidently held hostage by a venal, avaricious and, above all, reckless claque of elites

The drumbeat of war continues to roll across Europe. President Joe Biden is promoting an uncertain message, sometimes aggressive, other times restrained, as he talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. The Republican Party is more coherent but, as usual, runs from foolish to nutty hawkish.

Here’s a good idea: let’s not go to war against Russia. Let’s not even rattle a saber at Russia (or China, for that matter) because even wars that no one really wants can be blundered into. Many losers would be left in the aftermath, even if nuclear weapons were kept out of sight, but no one would win. So as that smart Defense Department computer says in the 1983 movie WarGames, “The only winning move is not to play.”

Vladimir Putin would probably prefer to find an alternative way to derail a U.S. alliance with Ukraine if Biden is prepared to bargain. But if Washington refuses to recognize that Russian redline, he may well be prepared to fight—and there is not much the United States could do to stop him.

But the danger of accidentally triggering a real conflagration remains terrifyingly high.

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi made eye-raising comments this week during an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. Wicker took a very hawkish view regarding U.S. involvement over the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, suggesting that President Joe Biden should not rule out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. Then, almost as if it were taken from the plot of Dr. Strangelove, Wicker stated that the U.S. should not rule out the use of nuclear weapons.

U.S. corporate media accounts of how tough President Joe Biden was at his virtual summit with President Vladimir Putin yesterday followed a weeks-long script recently catalyzed by the eye-catching Washington Post Dec. 3 story entitled: “Russia planning massive military offensive against Ukraine involving 175,000 troops, US intelligence warns.”

One of the most dangerous conclusions that America’s political and policy elites took away from the West’s victory in the Cold War is that deterrence not only can work, but if applied with military strength and emphatic rhetorical resolve, it always will work.