JOHN F. FLOYD COMMENTARY: Will sanctions stop evil, paranoid Putin's assault on Ukraine?

Webster’s New World Dictionary defines paranoia as “a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions, as of grandeur or esp., persecution, often, except in a schizophrenic state, with an otherwise relatively intact personality,”

Paranoid is defined as “characterized by extreme suspiciousness, grandiose delusions of persecution.”

Both definitions are highly descriptive of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state of mind. However, Putin’s volatile transgression against the country of Ukraine has been exacerbated by both the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NATO and, especially, the U.S. have been pushing the expansion of the organization to countries that are natural boundaries of Russia. They include Lithuania (165 miles of border with Russia), Poland (130 miles), Norway (196 miles), Estonia (90 miles) and Latvia (169 miles). Putin recently warned NATO to stop any efforts to include Sweden and Finland in the organization.

As paranoid as Putin is, he perceives these border nations as a threat to Mother Russia.

Sanctions seem to be building toward Russia and are being supported by the world community. Some politicians think they will eventually drive Putin to the bargaining table. But Putin, who has been in power since 1999, does not want a war of continuation. He hopes to end this land grab effort within days.

A story in the Feb. 25 Wall Street Journal by Ann Simmons and Mathew Luxmore quoted Kadri Liik, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, as saying, “Putin prioritized his own obsession over Russia’s interests. But he risks Russia’s economic development, Russia’s global position and also Russia’s internal stability in order to get hold of Ukraine.”

The story continued, “The military campaign marks the continuation of a policy that has seen Mr. Putin steadily expanding, reasserting Moscow’s dominion over former Soviet republics such as Belarus, Georgia and Moldova. But in doing so, he is sacrificing his relations with the West and risks making Russia a pariah. That could in turn leave Moscow more reliant on China, a more powerful neighbor with whom Russia has an unequal relationship.”

The sanctions initiated by many countries could be the deciding factor in this game of chess using Ukraine as a pawn. But everyone is forgetting that Russia has been in a parallel situation before — the Cold War — but has always found a way to negate any destructive sanctions.

For instance, I lived in England and worked for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in the prime years of the Cold War. As an American company, Goodyear was not allowed to trade with the Soviet Union, but as an American company chartered in the United Kingdom we frequently traded with the Soviets.

Negotiations for our product, namely a 560 x 15 tubeless tire that was made for the Lada car, were intensive. But as I mentioned in a previous article, once the negotiations were over, out came the vodka bottles and the party was on. If the deal was for 500,000 tires, and if we had the inventory, we could have shipped them all to the Soviet Union as soon as the deal was finalized.,

Russia has been there before, consequently the Russians may consider Putin’s actions as necessary. But then again, Russia has enjoyed unprecedented good economic relations with the West for a considerable length of time.

Will the economic turmoil for Russia, created by peace-loving countries of the world, be enough to change the path of economic destruction chosen by a paranoid leader?

Not only is Putin a paranoid leader, he is pure evil, and the combination of paranoid and evil is deadly. For any leader with significant and superior numbers of military hardware and manpower to seek to destroy a peaceful country like Ukraine can only be described as sinful.

May God’s mercy be showered on the citizens of Ukraine.

John F. Floyd is a Gadsden native who graduated from Gadsden High School in 1954. He formerly was director of United Kingdom manufacturing, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., vice president of manufacturing and international operations, General Tire & Rubber Co., and director of manufacturing, Chrysler Corp. He can be reached at johnfloyd538@gmail.com. The opinions reflected are his own.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: John Floyd looks at Ukraine crisis