Explaining Russia’s Conduct
In past articles, I’ve addressed part of what IMO motivates Russia today in the Crimea. Short version: Russia arguably – and IMO, actually does – have superior historical, demographic, and cultural claims to the Crimea vis-à-vis the Ukraine. The Ukraine today has the Crimea solely due to historical accident; namely, because they received it as “gift” in 1954 from the USSR’s Supreme Soviet. Russia wants it back.
That said, there’s almost certainly another contributing factor to Russia’s more assertive behavior today. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs Peter Brookes details that briefly but quite eloquently here. It’s worth a read.
Russia’s history is that they respect strength. When faced with weakness, they assert themselves – sometimes quite aggressively.
Ignoring that historical truth is not particularly wise.
Category: Foreign Policy
I am in agreement with you Hondo. If Russia wants the Crimea back I think it is theirs to go after. Not only do I believe we don’t have a dog in this fight, apparently the Ukrainians don’t have one either. Every time they’re approached to put down their arms, they comply. In my mind there is not the upset in the Ukraine over this that Obama and some of the “silent majority” world community would have us believe. I am not a world politics expert by any stretch of the term but I believe it is their business and Putin, for whatever his agenda is, is doing this in a no harm no foul manner. As long as they keep it in their borders, it’s their bailiwick. Again, just my one, less than greatly informed, opinion.
At the end of the day the simple reality is this, even if we had any reason whatsoever to concern ourselves in that region we have no ability to overcome the logistical nightmare involved in dealing with that region in a military fashion. We are not going to war with the Soviets in their own back yard, I have to believe even Obama is not that naive.
Add in the overall impression of clueless, spineless clowns running our foreign policy and you have zero ability to affect this outcome. Obama has drawn too many imaginary lines that have been redrawn to be taken seriously.
That article by brooks was just a gratuitous smear of Obama. That’s the pattern with all these neo-con articles on Ukraine – best of circumstances, there’s not much we coulda done in that part of the world, but it’s still Obama’s fault. Pull-eze.