The US and Russia Are Friends Again

VIRTUAL REALITY

- TONY LOPEZ

Inside the intricate Saudi Arabian palace in the capital Riyadh, over jokes and a hearty meal lasting four hours on Tuesday, Feb. 18, senior officials of the United States and Russia decided on three things:

1) The longtime Cold War rivals will be friends again and resume normal and formal diplomatic and business relations;

2) Their companies will do business with each other again and

3) They will end the three-year war in Ukraine, whether Ukraine likes it or not, and with Moscow's Vladimir Putin getting what he has always wanted since invading Kyiv on Feb. 24, 2022: a) keep Ukrainian territories it captured in Crimea in 2014 and in the current war (about 50,000 hectares) and b) Ukraine cannot join the 32-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led by the U.S. The three-year Ukraine-Russia war has resulted in over one million casualties on both sides and both countries are running out of firearms and fighters.

NATO is the trans-Atlantic military alliance that guarantees an attack on one by third parties is an attack on all the other members and thus must be met collectively with force to defeat the invader. Combined, NATO has 3.5 million soldiers, a population of 973 million and defense spending of 54 percent of the global total.