One can argue plausibly, @Temperance, that Hitler had to go to war (1939) early (= his military was not sufficiently built up) and hence recklessly (despite the early victories << brilliant new strategy of German generals vs. WW I thinking of French generals) because he financed all with deficits, to be paid for by conquered lands or face the collapse of his government. That early start was militarily "reckless", it was "insanity" to continue the war after Stalingrad and/or Kursk plus the landing of the Allies in the West on June 6, 1944. But, Hitler did continue on. (As example of what that meant, during the 9 months after the Stauffenberg attempt on Hitler's life, July 20, 1944, more Germans, military and civilian, lost their lives than in all the previous years since 1939.) So being "crazy" and starting a massive war or continuing it to total destruction when defeat is obvious, these two predicates are not contradictory. Alas! I would suggest that it would be foolish to rule out a North Korean attack, having only the South as an enemy. It may be "crazy", but North Korea is avicious dictatorship in the grips of extreme poverty. And that can make war sound quite rational, even for "crazies", particularly if they worry about losing power.

@thelastconvert: My suspicion re Putin (who does do things in Russia that I find morally praiseworthy) is that he is covering up the miserable economic situation in Russia (I have made more than 15 trips there since 1993 and lived in a Stalin-style apartment) and constitutes at times a bothersome dictatorship. There is no free press in Russia, just a well-tuned propaganda machine. The Crimea, 1787 conquered by Potemkin, had been Russian longer than the USA has existed as a nation. It was never Ukrainian! Indeed, consult maps for the Ukrain and you will find none for 1000 years, only as a part of kingdom with Poland or with Lithuania or swallowed up by other powers. Never was the Crimea Urkainian. In 1844-46 the Empire of Russia lost some 500,000 citizens defending the Crimea against Turkey, England and France. So, I have sympathy for the Russians (and have suspicion of Putin's propagandistic use of them). With the fall of the USSR a treaty did give the Crimea to the Ukraine. Putin's taking it back is historically comprehensible, though treaty-wise unlawful.

Why is the Ukraine, partciularly the Eastern part so important? Oil!!! With the help of American firms oil-fracking in the east and west of the Ukraine was being planned. Putin holds power over West Europe because of oil and gas supplies. Let the West have other and cheaper sources of carbon energy and the dictatorship of Putin will collapse as oil prices decline. My tentative view of Putin is that he is fighting for the retention of power! More is involved, but retention of power is primary. There are other conflicts less evident. Western Ukrainians hold to the Church, Eastern more to Russian Orthodoxy -- one might remember that the Urkrainians (actually Western ones) welcomed the Wehrmacht in WW II as liberators and would have fought with the Germans, except that Hitler applied his vicious race-theory. Jews were No. 1 on the list of inferior "races", the Slaves were in place No. 2.My point is that there is, insofar as religion plays a role, tension between Western Catholic oriented and Eastern Orthodox oriented citizens. This tension favors a division of territory, perhaps. But it is there. Russia, by the way, recognizes 4 denominational Churches as "Russian", excluding Catholicism. This too has tensional reflection in the Urkain.

I apologize for my "essay". But the theme is "Gloria.TV NEWS and, well, I have been newsy. The spreading of Christianity in Western Europe would have been difficult without the Pax Romana, and that was a military empire. St. Paul would have had difficulties traveling about during the dissolving Roman Empire in the 4th or 5th Centuries or before Emperor Augustus. Since WW II a nation called America, until attacked by Japan in 1941, was given to isolationism and avoiding wars in Europe (WW I participation augmented American isolationism -- even after the rape of Nanking [minimally 200,000+ Chinese were butchered by Japanese soldiers] American voters showed a 70% disinclination to go to war). After WW II America and America alone blocked the conquest of Western Europe by the USSR and, alas, insufficiently in Asia, including Korea. This responsibly by default has altered American attitude to its effective satellites to be defended. I do not think it farfetched to speak of a Pax Americana. I find it fully legitimate to critize materially this or that policy of America--and Americans do that continually. What I cannot accept is a formal deprecation of America because of its hegemony, viz., pax. Whenever I have the impression that the criticism, despite appearing material, is really formal, I react energetically. Right or wrong, more than 56,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam (only a technicality kept me out of the war). No European nation has had such losses since WW II. It is no fun being the hegemon.

Final thought, one thrown about today in America: Background to a question: Obama has been slowly disengaging America from it hegemony (the American military will be reduced to no more soliders than before WW II and Obama is reluctant to engage ISIS to its destruction). Compare today's international secuirty with that at the end of Bush 2's presidency six years ago. Is the stability for peace (and justice) in the world of today better, the same or crumpling as the pax American recedes?

Just a point of information: The Korean War is not ended, it extends up to NOW! What? What was arrived at between the main combatants, US vs NK, was a semi-permanent truce holding to this day. The war is not over and that has implications. There are legal refinements here, but the truce aspect catches the meaning. Let the US military disappear from Korea and ONE partner of the truce is no longer there. That means that the truce would no longer be valid. North Korean in the past and now maintains to be THE one government of the ONE Korea. Let the Americans pull out, and Fr Park will soon see the South in a war with the North or, in the event of a defeat, exterminated in a North Korean prison. The So. Korean gov. is not fully independent in the matter (did not exist during the military altercations and came to be under the protection of America) as the truce is between the US and N. Korea. Weaken the deterrent power of the American military and the South is on its own, like the Czecks in 1938.

The Americans army lost some 36,000 soliders--dead, plus many times the number of wounded. The American army was, until recently was stationed between Seoul and the boarder to N. Korea. Why? The North Koreans could not attack and conquer the capital without overrunning the American Army. There was and is not doubt that the North Koreans could do it. Then why the American stationed in an exposed position? If North Korean forces run over the American Army, America is guaranteed to enter the war -- and that the North Koreans (you know, North Korea, one of the leading perseuctors of Christians) know. America has allowed itself to be used by the South for its protection. The American army, now much reduced in size, still has the same function. Let the North attack the South, and the South has the guarantee that America will be pulled into THEIR war of self-defense. There would be today no Fr. Parks in the ONE Korea under North Korean communist rule. The So. Koreans are, unlike Fr. Park, anti-communistic. If the Father does not hold to the law of the land, he as a citizen should be prosecuted and to the full. I, as an American who remembers the war and evaluations thereof in truely Catholic schools in the US, am insulted by the direct or indicrect support of the Communism of the North by a so-called Catholic priest. Based upon the limited news communicated by Gloria.tv, I can only express my unfriendly criticism of another "Catholic " betrayal -- and there are many of many kinds as Gloria.tv reports every day.