In the war between Russia and Ukraine, who’s actually in charge of the Russian offensive? Ostensibly, Vladimir Putin is. But last week Putin declared that attacks against the steel plant in Mariupol would stop and that Russian troops would “blockade” the plant. Since then, there have been a reported 35 air strikes and at least one more ground assault, apparently repulsed.

Over the course of the war, Putin has declared several safe passage areas for civilian evacuations, corridors where Russian armed forces then repeatedly attacked and killed unarmed fleeing civilians.

Last Friday, Brigadier General Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, stated that the Russian Armed Forces planned essentially to invade/occupy Moldova’s eastern territory bordering Ukraine less than 30 miles from the port city of Odessa in order create a land corridor to Crimea. What makes this interesting is that, if the translation is correct, Minnekayev is a very low-ranking general.

Yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged NATO with waging “in essence” a proxy war with Russia by supporting Ukraine and warned the West not to underestimate the elevated risks of nuclear conflict over Ukraine.

While all these statements and actions demonstrate is that the Russian military intends to destroy as much of Ukraine as possible and will rattle the nuclear sabre in an effort to pressure the U.S. and other allies of Ukraine into restricting military aid to the Ukrainians. But it is rather unusual that, in an authoritarian state such as Russia, there are so many different, and sometimes conflicting statements.

Such acts and statements also suggest two possibilities. Either Putin doesn’t have the control he projects and the conflict is being driven by the Russian military complex or that Russia at all levels that matter at present is hell-bent on grinding Ukraine into dust.

Neither is particularly reassuring.

When the donut shop on South Main Street opened, I gave it a year at most. In the nearly thirty years we’ve lived here, I’ve seen two donut shops and three bakeries open… and close. After close to ten years, the donut shop is going stronger than ever. It’s open from six in the morning until two in the afternoon.

How did it manage when so many others failed? I’m guessing, but it has several factors going for it. First, its donuts are by far the best in town. Second, it’s open every day of the week. Third, it has a drive-up window that’s relatively easy to access. Fourth, it serves a range of coffee, tea, and smoothie beverages, and fifth, it has a range of baked pastry-type sandwiches [I don’t know how else to describe them] for lunch.

The donuts are slightly more expensive than any others in town, roughly ten percent more.

There is one thing that bothers me, though. Given my schedule, or my wife’s, we’re almost never free to visit the donut shop until it’s close to closing time, and by then, the shop is almost always out of glazed donuts – my wife’s favorite. There are old-fashioned plain and old-fashioned glazed donuts, and chocolate iced donuts, and plenty of glazed donut holes, but no glazed donuts.

Now, the owner has been successful, when so many have failed. So who am I to suggest change?

At the same time, if he’s always out of glazed donuts by one o’clock, and he has left-over donut holes, wouldn’t it make more sense – and dollars – to bake a few more glazed donuts?

Then, maybe he does, and I have the misfortune only to show up when there aren’t any left. And that’s the danger of relying too heavily on personal and anecdotal information.

In the May issue of The Atlantic, entitled “How Social Media Made America Stupid,” Jonathan Haidt offers a critical and provocative insight into how and why the United States has become so “stupid” and politically polarized. Personally, I feel that he doesn’t make the complete case for stupidity, since he seems to ignore the impacts social media has on concentration, depth of knowledge, and other factors, but his analysis of the cause of political polarization is spot on.

In the case of political polarization, there are two main factors. One is, predictably, social media. The other is the nature of group dynamics.

Social media, and features like “share,” “like,” and “retweet,” especially on Facebook and Twitter, allow users to make their views known, and given the algorithms and human nature, particularly negative feelings, which Haidt calls “social darts.” These social darts impact human behavior. When someone is vilified on social media, justly or unjustly, the economic and societal impact can be profound.

Those most active on social media are the most “progressive” liberals, followed by the activist ultra-conservatives. No other groups come close.

Why the social dart mechanism creates political polarization results from group dynamics. Those generally on the left, for example, pay far more attention to the views of those who share many of the same beliefs, usually but not always Democrats, and moderate Democrats who oppose almost any aspect of the “woke” agenda of the progressives can be and are often targeted by the “progressive” liberals.

Republicans largely ignore liberal social darts, except to mock them, but are fearful of expressing views, even views previously expressed by noted Republicans, that would get them vilified as RINOs [Republicans In Name Only].

As a result, the greatest impact of social darts falls within social groups, and because the most active “social darters” are the extremists on both sides, those social darts have the impact of silencing dissenters who in the past have exercised a moderating influence.

Add to that the fact that social media, because of its very structure, oversimplifies complex issues, and the result is that both the “left” and the “right” have become more and more dominated by the simplistic extremes.

In short, no matter how much you blame the other “side,” the real problem lies within your side.

There’s been a certain amount of commentary about “understanding” Putin.

Most of the world understands him quite well. He wants to re-create an authoritarian empire that never worked all that well and couldn’t really be supported by the fifth-rate economy that was all that the Russian political structure would allow.

He’ll also kill or incarcerate anyone who he thinks is a threat, and he’ll try to smash anything that he can if he believes that it stands in his way, just like the overgrown petulant child he is – if an intelligent, ruthless, scheming, and merciless child. Ukraine is just the latest example.

Although authoritarian societies can mass and direct concentrated forces in ways difficult for freer market-based economies, that concentration is inefficient and stifles economic growth and development. That’s one reason why both Russia and China work hard at stealing information and ideas from other nations, particularly the U.S. It’s also why Russia can’t, for example, build sufficient numbers of both military and civilian aircraft, or why it’s actually reliant upon U.S. oil production technology and equipment, and why Russian exports are predominantly either natural resources or agricultural products.

Vlad the invader either doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to accept the fact that comparatively freer market-based economies can out-produce and out-engineer command-and-control societies, even while we “waste” incredible amounts of resources on goods and services others would term frivolous.

The current Chinese leadership certainly does understand the economic limitations of command-and-control governments, which is why that leadership is attempting to create a system of “controlled capitalism.”

But because Putin isn’t about to even try to follow that path, he’ll bleed the Russian people dry in pursuit of his goals. Over the long run, he can’t compete against freer societies, except by destroying them. The problem is that, while he can’t “win” in the long run, right now he can create extreme atrocities and destruction, and with his nuclear arsenal, in the short run, he could make everyone lose.

As a world, several decades ago, we reached the position where the weapons systems we have developed can easily destroy all human civilization and wipe out all but a small fraction of the human race… and possibly all of it. The planet will endure and possibly even recover, over eons, from such destruction, but at a terrible cost.

For the last few decades, the world powers have managed not to unleash such destruction, but now we’re closer to that possibility than ever before. So what has changed?

The idea that mutual assured destruction would avert nuclear calamity rests on a fundamental assumption – that no political leader wants to destroy the world, because such destruction would result in self-annihilation. There’s a sub-assumption behind that premise, which is that political leaders will act rationally, but what’s rational to most people isn’t necessarily rational to those with extremist beliefs.

“Give me liberty or give me death” is a powerful statement, but what about Vladimir Putin’s attitude of, “If you interfere with my attack on Ukraine, I will loose nuclear fury,” and possibly destroy civilization?

Yet the Ukrainians are fighting for freedom, for their liberty, and most likely tens of thousands have already died, just to remain free of Russian control. But if the United States enters that conflict militarily, Putin might well use nuclear weapons. If the U.S. provides defensive weapons that allow Ukraine to force the Russians from Ukraine, or even force a stalemate, might not Putin issue the same threat?

Putin is capable of using tactical nuclear devices. The question is whether he is willing to use them. If he does, then what? If the U.S. replies in kind, so will Putin. And if Europe and the U.S. back down, what happens if he goes after Poland or Finland next?

Once again, the world is faced with a leader who wants to force oppression on others, leading a people unwilling to remove him…but Hitler didn’t have nuclear weapons.