Dear Paul,

Putin's actions, his invasion and aggression in Ukraine has
caused this conflict and the potential of a
nuclear one. Putin needs to be stopped from it escalating
any further. There is no other choice for democratic,
freedom loving countries. Nobody except Putin is for this
conflict to continue. He is determined to win - no matter
what the cost. And for the free world the cost is too high
to give in to him.

Dear Paul1405,

It is the folly of war. Ukrainian soldiers suffer. Ukrainian civilians suffer, Russian soldiers suffer. We talk about the Free World. Some of the countries lined up with us are as repressive as Putin's Russia. There is no Free World. Muslims are second class citizens in Modi's India. Arabs are second class citizens in Netanyahu's Israel. In Saudi Arabia women are second class citizens. In the United States many would limit the freedom of atheists and homosexuals. There are countries with different degrees of freedom lined up against each other. That is the reality.

Here's a link from the BBC:

What is Russia's Wagner group, and where are its fighters?

http://bbc.com/news/world-60847877

Sorry for the typo. Here's the link again:

http://bbc.com/news/world-60947877

Yes there are countries with different degrees of
freedom for their own people - but which ones invade
others, kill and murder and destroy local populations
in attempts to build empires?

Fester wrote: "One idea that you present that I cannot understand is that of populations being selectively bred for authoritarian rule."

Its not a question of selective breeding. It's more an issue of an overriding national consensus that develops over generations. So accepted that it is no longer questioned or even largely recognised. It's a bit like our (Anglo-Saxon) consensus on individual freedom - so inured in the culture that it's shocking when it's questioned. I hesitate to use the word indoctrination since it's not a deliberative process - it's just that the next generation receives the consensus with their mother's milk.

The Rus people have been subservient to authoritarian rulers for at least a millennium. But it's not just rulers, but any authority figure to whom they instinctively defer. For a moment in history they gave democracy a try seeing it as the path to western style prosperity. But as soon as things got hard they raced back to the comfort of authoritarian rule in the shape of Putin who in everything but name is a modern Tsar.

To be sure, when a society is utterly ripped apart and the old consensus shown to be invalid and indeed destructive, that consensus can be broken. Authoritarian Germany was levelled - effective blasted back to the stone age. Whatismore, the people were led kicking and screaming to see how genocidal unquestioningly deferring to authority can become. Then, and only then, can a new consensus be developed.

Similarly Japan where things like the divinity and invincibility of the royal institution were unravelled. Equally the honour of the warrior class and the primacy of the Japanese male was exposed as illusionary. When, following the 1945 defeat, Japanese women, of necessity, began to become the bread-winners in the family, the old consensus was shattered. The pre-war Japanese consensus ceased to be and was replaced by a new consensus. A Yoko Ono could never have existed or even been imagined in old Japan.

So yes, these things can be altered. But only after the society has been pared back to first principles and then rebuilt.