Crimea has been Russian for a very long time, and was only given to the Ukrainian SSR by Khrushchev at a time when the Soviet breakup was unthinkable. Russia never gave up its naval base at Sevastopol or the airfields that protect it, and its annexation of the Crimean peninsula was a logical defensive step to prevent those strategic bases from falling to NATO's hands -- especially in light of the West's role in this February's overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected leader who was allied with Russia.
We can draw all the Hitler parallels we want, but Russia's real concern is NATO's expanding military presence all along its borders. That is a legitimate for any nation, and is the reason why we have enforced the Monroe Doctrine since 1823 throughout our hemisphere. Just imagine if a hostile power signed a mutual defense treaty with Mexico or British Columbia and stationed its troops, planes and ships there.
[Throughout history Russia has been invaded through Ukraine... -AAM]
Really? What about the invasion of Russia by Napoleon and during the two World Wars. Should the same logic you are using for Ukraine, i.e., Russia's strategic concerns, be also used for Poland, which is a member of NATO?
Yes, really. The Germans invaded through Ukraine before being stopped at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), which is only about 200 miles east of Ukraine. And Poland is definitely a concern to Russia, as it has always served as a strategic buffer between Germany and Russia to the defensive benefit of both larger powers. NATO promised the post-Soviet CIS that we would not expand eastward if Russia pulled its troops out of the former SSRs, and then added 12 new member countries in Central and Eastern Europe in 1999 and 2004. Russia has to wonder why NATO is pressing all the way to its borders -- a legitimate question to ask of an alliance that was chartered as a defensive shield. Borderlands serve as strategic buffers to prevent wars, while their absence increases the likelihood of small conflicts escalating into major wars. Almost all of those buffers have vanished.
As far as I am concerned, this is a matter to be settled between Russia and Ukraine and is not our business. What occurs on Russia's border does not affect our national security, but is of vital, existential interest to Russia. Why in the world do we want to stick our nose into such a mess that is infinitely more important to Russia than to us?
Pure rationalization. Crimea is part of Ukraine. It became the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within newly independent Ukraine in 1991, with Sevastopol having its own administration, within Ukraine but outside of the Autonomous Republic.
The Russian Ukrainian Naval Base for Gas treaty, widely referred to as the Kharkiv Accords or the Kharkiv Pact in the Russian and Ukrainian media, was a treaty between Ukraine and Russia whereby the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea would be extended beyond 2017 by 25 years (to 2042) with an additional 5 year renewal option (to 2047) in exchange for a multiyear discounted contract to provide Ukraine with Russian natural gas. The agreement, signed on 21 April 2010 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and ratified by the parliaments of the two countries on 27 April 2010, aroused much controversy in Ukraine. The treaty was a continuation of a treaty signed in 1997 between the two nations. Shortly after the (disputed) March 2014 accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation Russia unilateral terminated the treaty on March 31, 2014.
We can draw all the Hitler parallels we want, but Russia's real concern is NATO's expanding military presence all along its borders. That is a legitimate for any nation, and is the reason why we have enforced the Monroe Doctrine since 1823 throughout our hemisphere. Just imagine if a hostile power signed a mutual defense treaty with Mexico or British Columbia and stationed its troops, planes and ships there.
Why is NATO perceived as a threat to Russia? NATO is a defensive alliance among democratic countries. It has been in existence since 1947. NATO now includes such former Warsaw Pact countries as Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. And it includes the former Soviet Republics of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Why do you think those countries eagerly wanted to join NATO?
The Monroe Doctrine is a false comparison. The relation that the Soviets had with its former empire is not the same as our relationship to the rest of the countries in this hemisphere. And Russia is currently on establishing Russian bases in Latin America. It is reopening a spy base in Cuba.
Yes, really. The Germans invaded through Ukraine before being stopped at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), which is only about 200 miles east of Ukraine. And Poland is definitely a concern to Russia, as it has always served as a strategic buffer between Germany and Russia to the defensive benefit of both larger powers.
Operation Barbarossa used three routes of invasion with only one being thru Ukraine. Belarus serves as the current buffer between Russia and Poland.
NATO promised the post-Soviet CIS that we would not expand eastward if Russia pulled its troops out of the former SSRs, and then added 12 new member countries in Central and Eastern Europe in 1999 and 2004. Russia has to wonder why NATO is pressing all the way to its borders -- a legitimate question to ask of an alliance that was chartered as a defensive shield. Borderlands serve as strategic buffers to prevent wars, while their absence increases the likelihood of small conflicts escalating into major wars. Almost all of those buffers have vanished.
You may be able to peddle this BS to the uninformed, but not to me. I lived two years in Communist Poland during the days of Solidarnosc'. The countries of the Warsaw Pact as well as the Baltic countries (aka captive nations) were really occupied by the Soviets and their puppet governments. You may call them buffers, but the reality is that the Soviets were oppressing the people and individual liberties.
When the Soviet Union collapsed these countries sought almost immediately a way to get into NATO. They wanted the collective protection of the alliance fearing that the old Soviet Union would emerge again and try to regain control over their country. NATO has no territorial ambitions, but the Soviets and now the Russians have looked to expand their empire for over 300 years. The Crimea and Georgia are just the latest examples. There is no moral equivalency between the Soviet Communists and Western democracies. I witnessed firsthand what it is like to live under a communist dictatorship. The Poles hated the Soviets and wanted them out of their country. The same can be said in Hungary and Czechoslovakia where the people challenged their Soviet masters.
As far as I am concerned, this is a matter to be settled between Russia and Ukraine and is not our business. What occurs on Russia's border does not affect our national security, but is of vital, existential interest to Russia. Why in the world do we want to stick our nose into such a mess that is infinitely more important to Russia than to us?
I don't know how you define "sticking our nose into such a mess" means. We should support Ukraine's sovereignty to the maximum extent possible. We should support all people who want to be free. When JFK went to the Berlin Wall, was he sticking his nose into a mess? Or in his inaugural address when he said,
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge--and more.
I also lived four years in Berlin before the Wall came down. I was at Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate. I was present when Sharansky was exchanged at the Glienicke Bridge. You have no idea what it means to the oppressed people of the world when an American leader champions their cause and lets them know that they are not forgotten. Our containment policy, a product of Kennan's Long Telegram, caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. It took many years, but it worked.
Tony Blair addressed Congress in 2003 and said this,
There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior.
Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere...
Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.
The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty.
We must find the strength to fight for this idea and the compassion to make it universal.
Abraham Lincoln said, "Those that deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."
And it is this sense of justice that makes moral the love of liberty.