A PANICKED PRINCE

Historically the best way for a dictator to defend against rebellion was to push a neighbor into an attack. Every time that a country tells outrageous lies about a neighbor, you know that the country's leader is in real deep political trouble.

Sometimes the leader is in such trouble domestically that he will actually attack another country, because he knows that being in a "war" will silence his critics until the "war" is ended.

You all spend a LOT of time reading The Art of War. You should also be reading The Prince by Machiavelli. Written in 1513, The Prince outlines how to hold power. It is a cynical, logical, and appalling way to get and hold power.

THE ONLY DEFENSE to this kind of political manipulation is CRITICAL THINKING. Those of us who THINK are almost always drowned out by those of us WHO USE FEAR TO KEEP THEIR FACE ON TELEVISION.

In the current situation, it looks like Europe and the US are using The Prince to counter Putin's use of The Prince. People are happy as long as they can keep their property and their wives. Sanctions take away property, and upset wives and girlfriends who can no longer shop in Paris, London, or New York City.

BUT HEAR ME WELL, Putin is afraid that he will go the way of Yanukovych. Putin believes that Crimea will save his political career. I believe that Putin is on the wrong side of history, and that he will go down in history as the man who wasted Russia's strength in fighting the inevitable, rather than leading his people in a brave new world