Posted on 03/02/2014 3:10:12 PM PST by annalex
The chorus of international voices urging caution in Ukraine, and above all urging Russia to refrain from military action, have been reinforced by NATO’s secretary general.
“Russia must stop its military activities and its threats. We support Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. We support the rights of the people of Ukraine to determine their own future without outside interference and we emphasise the need for Ukraine to continue to uphold the democratic rights of all people and ensure that minority rights are protected,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
An overnight phone call between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin has reportedly only served to underline fundamental differences of position.
This was reflected as well in an emergency session of the UN Security Council, where Russia maintained it was acting to protect its citizens despite the lack of evidence of any tangible threat. And remember, Russia may be talking to its international partners, but refuses direct talks with Kyiv.
*Yeltsin signed on too, as mentioned, but I believe the memo specified agression by a nuclear power, and clearly Russia-in-the-future would be the #1 power the Ukraine would be concerned about.
As an aside, I would mention that of that arsenal, all the missiles were designed and produced in the Ukraine. They had something like 1900 strategic warheads and over 3000 other "nuclear munitions", plus all the delivery systems to boot. All were destroyed except a couple planes put in museums and a few planes traded to Russia for the Ukraine's gas debt.
There were other agreements also, such as the January 14, 1994 Trilateral Statement by the Presidents of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States. Unilateral security assurances were provided by France and China as well.
In 2009, the US and Russia reaffirmed the security assurances to the Presidents of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. (Kazakhstan and Belarus also consented in 1994 to give up their nuclear weapons.) All this information is easily looked up on the web.
My point is that this was a MAJOR "Big Deal", and was absolutely something we should have done, and be unequivocably committed to, unless we wanted nukes strewn all over the globe.
(annalex, I am sure you are well versed in the history - I repeat it here for others.)
If we (NATO) do not come to the Ukraine's aid in some substantive ways -- massive equipment shipments for their reserves, for one thing -- and if Putin is not stopped at Crimea at most, any nation with security agreements with us will realize they are on their own. The result will be a nuclear arms race that makes our concerns with Iran look like peanuts.
There is not one single or group of people from the Ukraine, Russia, or Europe that can put one single bean or potato on my table.
Maybe not. But, my God, what tunnel vision. Good luck with your (or maybe your kids') glowing potatos and beans.
Poles have a lot of shared history with Ukrainians, not much of it pleasant.
Thank you for reading.
Excellent post. Thank you. It is nothing less than the aftermath of the Cold War that is put into question here, no matter how badly it has been codified.
Also, understand that when a head of government goes and negotiates something, — anything at all, — if this precedent is left to stand, that it is nothing better than scratches on a napkin unless ratified, — then our country loses forever the ability to negotiate authoritatively.
Amen to that.
Besides, I see all the stuff about the evil Putin and horrible Russians but I have to put myself in the shoes of Putin and several small European countries and see the world from that perspective.
From that perspective, who actively helped overthrow the governments of Algeria and Libya? Who was and still is helping the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? Who is arming the horrible Muslim butchers and mad dogs in Syria?
The answer to everyone of those questions is "the US". Why would Putin not think the US is behind the sort of mass violence that was going on in the Ukraine when it's exactly like what kicked off the coups in the Middle East? Why would a weak government in Europe, looking at a sizable population of ever more militant Muzzies in their country, trust the US to not help overthrow the existing government in order to help form a Muzzie state in all or part of their country? Who do you think Spain expects to support the totally absurd, "right of return" demands Muzzies are making regarding their returning to Spain; the US or Russia?
The elected government in the Ukraine was overthrown, and yes, any change of government prior to the elections that were scheduled for later in the year is an illegal overthrow of the government. What, the mob didn't think they could get enough votes in the election or they didn't think they wanted their backers to get tired of waiting since so much EU money has already been bet on the Ukraine being part of the EU?
Whatever the case, Putin has to look at the situation realistically and he has no reason to believe that Europe or the US will do anything other than support the collapse of the Ukraine into nothing but an EU puppet with porous borders that welcomes Muzzies who want to get to Russia.
Could he have done something else when the news shows had crowds demanding that all Russians be thrown out of the Ukraine and more than a few skinhead types with Nazi flags were making plenty of noise? Personally, I don't see what diplomatic options he had and I see a lot of reasons why he wouldn't want a horde of Russian people fleeing into Russia from the Ukraine if things get worse.
Just thinking things through, then, I don't see why people think anyone in their right mind would not suspect the US and NATO are the driving force behind what's going on in the Ukraine. Any way it goes, the Europeans are going to deal with Russia and ignore the US because they, too, know they can't really trust the US to not be meddling in their internal affairs.
This is silly. Muzzies have all sorts of access to Russia without the Ukraine being a part of that (which is unlikely regardless of who is in power in the Ukraine — it has stayed Muslim-free for all intents and purposes for other reasons than who is in charge.)
This is about gas and oil “leverage”, and Russia’s base in Crimeria. And, as I heard stated a few days ago: Russian diplomats and military people alike are taught early on:
Russia without the Ukraine is “another country”. Russia with the Ukraine is an Empire.
THAT’S the perspective to be understood.
Further, the Ukrainian Parliament voted with a (big) constitutional majority to (essentially) impeach Yanukovych. After he reneged on a deal to resign, even many of his allies voted to remove him. This after gov’t snipers killed 42 of the protesters. Yes, the protesters certainly pushed the vote, but Yanukovych through his actions caused it too: Even many of his former allies wanted him gone.
Are you saying that no matter what Yanukovych did, the country would have to wait for elections to remove him? That the citizens had no right to protest the subjugation to Russia of their country? Given past history, if I was a Ukrainian I’d be pretty d*** sensitive to such. And, what good is the legislative branch, in such a crisis, or when the President is doing pretty much what he darn well wants? (Sadly, this may someday have implications for the US, too...)
I see an awful lot of opinion on FR where dislike of one group or “enemy” seems to sort of blind people to equal or greater threats from another. The saying “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is flawed: Often the enemy of my enemy is just another enemy, and perhaps in the long run even more dangerous.
Radical Islam IS our enemy, and primarily dangerous because of its fanaticism and persistence. However, Radical Islam is also fatally flawed due to internal strife and a generally “primitive” / “death culture” outlook. Putin can on occasion be worked with against Radical Islam, true, but Putin is no less desirous of “Empire”, and he is both ruthless and competent. Because of the latter, he is ultimately more dangerous. But that’s just my take. Pick your poison.
That still leaves the pattern of the US and NATO starting coups and revolutions wherever they please and Putin in a situation where he can't afford to wait and see what unfolds as well as the potential for a lot of refugees leaving the Ukraine and flowing into Russia.
None of this can be considered in isolation.
Thank YOU. And, agreed. Mainly, I wanted to point out that “the aftermath of the Cold War that is put into question” has real consequences: It’s not just some academic exercise that has little effect on ordinary citizens in the US. The days when a large country could safely retreat behind its own borders went away a long time ago. 1853 perhaps?
:)
Don’t trust men who never laugh, or never drinks
***
:)
The longstanding perspective in the Russian Federation is that the legitimate aftermath of the Cold War was overthrown when the NATO was extended to the RF and the natural allies (as they viewed them) were turned away from RF though the "color-coded revolutions". Indeed, GHW Bush reportedly promised to the soviets that if they allow the Soviet Union to fall apart, the West would not take a military advantage of it, and that promise was violated if not to the letter then in spirit. Further, their perspective is that all these Arab Spring turmoil is engineered out of the State Department through "media technologies", Soros money, NGO Trojan horses, etc.
That is Putin's perspective.
However:
1. The aggression in Crimea shows that RF remains a real threat to the national integrity of at least the countries where there is an ethnic Russian minority. The Balt states, Poland, Hungary, Czecho(+)slovakia, the Caucasus limitrophes acted on the knowledge of the lingering Soviet mentality when they signed for NATO or otherwise opted for the American geopolitical orbit. There was no formal repudiation of Sovietism in the RF, therefore there was no reason for RF's neighbors to expect changed behavior from RF.
2. The expansion of NATO, wise or not, was respecting the established borders and done with some reluctance in response to democratically elected governments' requests. NATO was not taking advantage of a fluid situation, flying in paratroopers with no insignia and manufacturing snap decisions in a parliament without quorum while the parliament building was under siege.
3. The RF has a natural interest to protect ethnic Russians caught abroad due to the USSR's breakup. RF, however had 20 years to, for example, set up an automatic citizenship for the Russian refugees or do diplomatic demarches on their behalf. None of the tender concern for the ethnic Russians in the limitrophes was in evidence for 20 years. Putin, clearly, wanted them to be where they are as a fifth column of a future invasion. Now we have the invasion.
4. America can heat up various revolutions when we like it because in most countries there is plenty of people, typically, the educated class, that like us and share our values. That Putin has not built an image or Russia that is attractive to many is not the US fault, it is again, the fault of the conscious orientation in RF toward its imperial past.
The Muslim immigrant path cannot be Putin's concern; he has plenty of Muslims inside the RF who don't need a visa to move to a big historically Russian city such as Moscow and set up camp there. The opposition was asking to at least set up a vise regime with Caucasus, Central Asia and Tatarstan for years. The answer was Putin's rhetoric of Russia being a multiethnic state and Eurasianism, while streets of Moscow began to resemble Cairo with uncontrollable immigration.
Maidan had solid popular support: no anti-Maidan was ever able to gather steam even in the East. Ukraine has plenty of grievance without the State Department heating it up. I finish with this quote, from my other recent thread:
For what Ukraine does not like Yanukovych? Why it is that of anyone of his predecessors, the beams of nationwide hatred crossed on him? The reasons are many.[...]
For style of government, full of contempt for the people that goes back to the Russian autocratic tradition.
[...]
For raiding [property]. [...] Over the past two years, Ukrainians caved new fines, taxes and other forms of obtaining money. And this despite the constant increase in prices and chronic debts on wages. [...]
[...]
Today, when people are protesting not only in the west and center of the country, but also in the south-east, in Nikolaev, I remember how the powers[?] of Nikolaev raped and burned alive a girl from a poor family Oksana Makar. Only mass protests forced the authorities to put criminals in jail.
I remember how there in the Mykolayiv region, in the village Vradievka, people took by storm the police department, where barricaded maniacs in uniform. They raped and killed the girls on the streets of the village with a hammer, just out of boredom. And they were bored because they could afford all - because they were covered by the regional police department and the prosecutor's office, where they had to take back monthly money from villagers robbed under any pretext. They had a plan for the collection of tribute.
I remember Vitaly Zaporozhec from Brovars'ke region of Kyiv county, -- he received 14 years for the murder of a rural district policemen. According to neighbors, that cop terrorized the whole village, police authorities did not respond to complaints. Since 2012, for the entire area Zaporozhec is a true hero
I remember the struggle with drug dealers from Nezhin, when, after the promulgation of the video confessions of the "pushers" at the press conference, the activists were thrown into prison by the mafia law enforcement that covered for the pushers. The drug dealers then were released.
I remember the excitement in the grocery market "Shlyakh" in Svyatoshynskyi district of Kiev, where police "cover" suddenly raised requisitions from $ 1,000 to $ 1,500 a month, and when the traders refused to pay, announced the market "illegal" and began to strip market, beating women . And that was the first time they showed themselves - those who are now called "Right sector." Powered nationalists expelled traders "elements" of the market, and then stormed the police station and Sviatoshynskyi and gave it a great pogrom.
I remember teacher Valentina Moskalenko, whom the bandits, called now "titushki" was pressed in front of the whole country and in full police nonintervention to sign over her father's house in the center of Kiev because the house lot was liked by a deputy from the Party of Regions.
Last July, the political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko noted that the population of Ukraine lost the fear of the police. At the same time, sociologists said that Kiev was ready for revolution. "Tension has grown in society so that people can easily pick up on any action, - said at the time member of" Liberty "Andrew Mohnik. - And it will not be singing Maidan, as in 2004, it can develop into something more. Where would it flash, is difficult to predict." And now it has flashed.
When today I hear the mutterings from the Yanukovych environment that it is all the machinations of external forces, I want to say: "Look in the mirror. You are not only monsters, but also fools."
Russian source of quote
Sustaining Ukraine's breakthrough: EU expertise and markets are essential [Soros].
... were the days when monarchy was understood to be the default, natural, try-that-first form of government. Democracy has its merits, but protection of national sovereignty is not one of them: laws of property to not apply to a democratically governed country as a whole. Democracy is forever fungible, malleable, break-and-reconstitute political environment.
it said that barack obama has offered to engage in a RED LINE Drawing Marathon on msnbc if the russians dont cease and desist.
I don’t care if it is about NATO or Obama. WE, the USA, are PART OF NATO. If NATO goes to war, we are suppose to be part of that. At least my 10 years serving in the US Army in Europe in NATO told me THAT!!
Believe what you want, but the rules of politics and human nature don’t change simply because you don’t like them.
Are you personally wanting to go to war with Russia over this;
or are you just suggesting that someone else should do it?
I have very little regard for the capabilities of the Russian armed forces, and know from history that the Russians often bluff and will back down when directly confronted. Our passivity is what is making them more aggressive.
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