LET'S HEAR IT FOR WESTERN ARTILLERY DOCTRINE.

Ukraine have received shipments of 155 mm howitzers and suitable shells from a number of sources, and, even better, they're getting training in NATO fire doctrine.  "A Ukrainian participant credits the newly arrived American M-777 towed howitzers with making the slaughter possible."

Expertise in artillery has long been a military specialty in the United States.  The largest cannonades of the nineteenth century were deployed in losing efforts at Shiloh and Gettysburg.  On the Western Front, the German might have been a competent soldier, but Air Land existed in rudimentary form between tank-busting fighter aircraft and lots of howitzers.

And all Tsar Vladimir has to show for it is Ukraine's military operating under NATO doctrine and two historically neutral (but not pacifist) countries seeking membership in the Atlantic Alliance,  The neutral but not pacifist formulation is significant.  Both Sweden and Finland are proficient in the operational arts, all that membership in the Alliance brings is the Wrath of the West down on any Russian foolish enough to try an away match.

That's not what we ought be worrying about.

The war has interrupted wheat production in Ukraine and Russia, both major suppliers, while fighting and blockades in the Black Sea have disrupted transport of the grain. And poor harvests in China, along with a heat wave in India and drought in other countries, have further snarled global supply.

But India, the world’s second-largest wheat producer, says it is banning exports with some exceptions, a move that could compound a worldwide shortfall worsened by the war in Ukraine and deepen an already dire forecast for hunger across the globe.

India has about 10% of the world’s grain reserves, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a large surplus resulting from its heavy subsidizing of its farmers. It has been seen for months as a country that could help make up for global supply shortages.

“Russia’s war of aggression has generated one of the most severe food and energy crises in recent history,” the leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies, the Group of 7, said in a statement Saturday, adding that the problem “now threatens those most vulnerable across the globe.”

I can report, locally, that spring plowing and planting is in progress, including this year's Victor E. Garden.