I guess it was only a matter of time.
We passed (or failed, depending on one's point of view) the first
test, which was Georgia... then passed/failed the second test, which
was Syria... then there was a period of truce for the Olympics... and
now Putin is putting pressure on Ukraine, which threatens to wander
off the post-Soviet reservation, and we're passing/failing that test
as well. So, basically, he took the measure of Obama, his
administration, and U.S. “resolve” in general, and decided that
he had nothing to lose, and a lot to gain, by showing the flag in the
Crimea and at least intimidating the new EU-friendly administration
of Ukraine as well as its military. And his excuse is that there are
Russians in Ukraine, and they're in danger of being treated like
second-class citizens. Well yeah, that's what happens when people
are caught on the wrong side of a new (or old) national border. It's
happened time and time again in history, and this is no exception.
And it's largely Stalin's fault, because he's the one who decided
that the best way to handle all the various “nationalities” in
the Soviet Union was to ship half of them to the Gulag and then
settle a bunch of loyal Russians in each territory in order to run
things and keep an eye on the rest. So when the Soviet Union broke
up – basically into pieces defined by the various Soviet republics,
and in some cases by earlier borders dating from World War I, all
these places wound up with Russian minorities. Too bad, so sad. So
suddenly the people who had been throwing their weight around in
those territories since World War II (at least) were not so secure
any longer. They were, in a way, in the same position as the
Carpetbaggers who invaded the South after the Civil War -- “large
and in charge” until the natives asserted themselves.
Now frankly, if I were an ethnic
Russian I might almost prefer to be part of a minority in, say,
Estonia than in the majority in Russia – I'm talking in terms of
economics and personal freedom now. But ethnic loyalties usually
triumph abstract concepts of “rights”, and even economics; no
self-respecting Russian wants to be ruled by Estonians, or Kazakhs,
or whoever. Things have to be pretty bad for someone to renounce
their homeland once and for all, the way the Cuban exiles did. Even
some of the countless “illegals” from Latin America go back to
their home country eventually – provided they managed to save up
enough money in the U.S. And who hasn't met a displaced Californian
who longs to go back to the land of their birth? And so on.
“Ideas”, and internationalism, are fine things if you're a person
with no national or ethnic loyalties, but most people are not
rootless cosmopolitans; they will always long to go home, even if
“home” is a place they've never seen. (Witness the “right of
return” which is a key concept for Jews vis-a-vis Israel, for
instance.)
And one can say, but isn't the
migration of peoples the rule rather than the exception,
historically? At any given time, doesn't a large portion of the
human race find themselves strangers in a strange land? And the
answer is yes. Go back to the Israelites in Egypt. People go where
they have to go in order to survive, and they tend to stay there
unless things become intolerable. And every once in a while, a
minority becomes a majority – as it clearly did in this country the
minute the colonists outnumbered the Native Americans. So whose
country is it anyway? It all depends on which slice of history you
want to take. Recall the trouble Serbia had (and continues to have)
giving up Kosovo – because although it was populated largely by Albanians it had great historical significance for the Serbs.
Everyone wants self-determination, but what that is depends on one's
point of view – the group with which one identifies. Washington,
DC prided itself on being “Chocolate City” a few decades back,
even though it has enclaves of rich white folks; New Orleans was
supposed to become even more “chocolate” after Katrina, although
I'm not sure how that's working out. Mexico is reclaiming, through
sheer force of numbers, territory that it lost to the U.S. right up
through the Gadsden Purchase. And the number of
racial/religious/ethnic groups that have a claim of some sort on
Israel/the West Bank/Jerusalem is too high to count.
So what we're seeing now in Ukraine is
just another example of a process of give-and-take that has
characterized just about any place you can name throughout history.
And the funny thing is, we have always had this notion that, in a
sense, history is over with when it comes to borders. The way things
were at the close of World War II is pretty much the way they ought
to be, and ought to stay – as if there were some cosmic map that
dictated everything once all the blank spaces were colored in. Of
course we did make an exception for Israel, but in general we find
shifting borders terribly upsetting – unless it's in our favor,
like the reunification of Germany or the breakup of the Soviet Union.
But remember how hard we fought to keep Korea and Vietnam split in
half? It just raises all kinds of issues with geography textbooks
when things keep shifting around. South Sudan? What the heck is
that? Most Americans would have a hard time finding Argentina on a
world map. So quit bothering us with all these new places. (And
don't get me started on Nunavut!)
So to get back to the Ukraine kerfuffle
– I'm not going to belabor the argument zipping around the Internet
re: the moral equivalence of Russia in Ukraine vs. the U.S. in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Actually, the Russians have a better argument. We
invaded Iraq because some Saudis from Afghanistan attacked us
(allegedly) on 9-11. OK, that made a lot of sense. And we invaded
Afghanistan because they had provided aid and comfort to said Saudis
– as if the planning for the attacks couldn't have been carried out
in any Moslem country (or in any number of neighborhoods in Paris,
etc.). Russia, on the other hand, has deep historic, ethnic,
linguistic, etc. ties to Ukraine, not to mention they share a common
border (without even 90 miles of water in between, like us and Cuba).
Now, this is not to say that Ukraine isn't “diverse” in its own
way, as shown here:
We can see that some people wound up,
after World War I and/or II, on the wrong side of the border. But
again, that's the rule rather than the exception.
So am I saying that Russia ought to be
huffing and puffing, and throwing its weight around Ukraine?
Ideally, no. But ideally, any minority in any country ought to be
allowed to live in peace without having to cry out to some other
country (especially a big and powerful one) to save it. And common
sense should apply as well. Who, in Iraq, asked us to invade Iraq?
Ditto Afghanistan. So if we're talking aggression here... well,
hopefully you get my point.
Then there's the question, what should
we “do” about it – if anything? Sarah Palin was ready to start
a war with Russia over Georgia. Obama – who couldn't be further
from Palin on the political spectrum – was all ready to invade
Syria until Putin looked him in the eye and said “unh-unh”. The
paleocon/libertarian position is that it's none of our damn business.
But our leaders are all a-tizzy, making all sorts of threats, most
of which are pathetic, frankly. It would be more respectable to just
stand up and say, we're over here and they're over there, and the
twain are not going to meet. We're not cops, and the world is not
our beat. Besides, we're bankrupt. Et cetera. But of course, no
one's going to say that because it would violate our “core values”,
and be an admission that the American Era is over with – or at
least fading fast. I mean, imagine leaving world affairs to the
tender mercies of Russia and China – scandalous! Humiliating!
Demeaning! Et cetera. So it's better to spit and hiss and wring our
hands – much more respectable, ahem. (Oh, and by the way, people
are already starting to talk about a “domino effect”, like if we
let Putin get away with this, who's next? Lithuania? One of the
“stans”? Who knew there was this much Cold War nostaliga
floating around? Heck, there's even a decent amount of Stalin
nostalgia in Russia.)
It's been remarked that “Putin plays
chess, and Obama plays basketball”. In other words, the typical
Russian strategy is to make a move, see what happens, make another
move, etc. In chess it's called a gambit – and the result may
appear to be a setback, but it's part of a larger plan. What's
required, above all, is patience, and being able to operate below the
surface of things. The long run is what counts – and no one is
more of expert in this than the Chinese, but the Russians aren't far
behind. After all, didn't Uncle Joe wait patiently all through the
1920s, 1930s, and World War II before he made his move to establish
the Iron Curtain and the Warsaw Pact? The Soviets could have moved
into Europe at any time after the end of World War II, but they
didn't; in fact they allowed some areas that had been part of the old
empire, like the Baltic States, to declare independence. But once
the opportunity arose – aided, in no small part, by Uncle Joe's
friends in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, they made their
move... and, again, there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it.
The basketball strategy, on the other
hand is, basically, you charge ahead and if you get knocked on your
ass you get up and charge ahead some more. Subtle it ain't (at least
as far as I can tell). A perfect metaphor for American foreign
policy in our time. (And in fact, we aren't even that good at
passing the ball – not that anyone else is interested in it... )
I see our helplessness as just another
earmark of a waning empire. But again, as with national borders, our
dominance on the world stage was meant to last forever – unlike
that of all the empires and pretenders up to now – because we have
ideas, and principles, and are the shining city on a hill, etc.
Yeah, well, if that's true why has so much of the world failed to
sign on? I mean, OK, our economy is linked to nearly all other
national economies in a way that would have been inconceivable up
until recently; even the British Empire could never have claimed the
interdependency that exists now. Our culture – such as it is –
has spread far and wide. National leaders world-wide are wearing
suits and ties now. People are eating Big Macs. And so on. In some
senses we really have taken over the world. But in other ways we
have no more influence than ever – less in some cases (militant
Islam, e.g.). People in sub-Saharan Africa who wear Nikes and “Hard
Rock Cafe” T-shirts still engage in the same primitve, brutal
tribal warfare that they have for millennia. The only serious
resistance to American cultural influence comes from fundamentalist
Islamic countries – and they still use cell phones and laptops. So
we have “conquered” the way the European powers once conquered
much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America – everyone speaks English,
they all use our gadgetry and dress in our clothes, but below that
superficial level the age-old beliefs, habits, memes, etc. are alive
and well. Once again, things that people can identify with – the
age-old truisms – tend to, in the long run, trump ideas. If the
pen is mightier than the sword, then home and hearth are more
powerful than either one.
But in another sense, the “American
Empire” isn't American at all – assuming it ever was. It has
been absorbed into a larger empire – that which I call the Regime
or Cabal – headquartered in Europe. We still do the heavy lifting
– we're the cannon fodder – but we're taking orders from people
way above Obama's pay grade; all he does it pass them on. Now, the
EU is the most prominent overt manifestation of this Regime, and we
have seen the loving care with which it beggars less-solvent
economies (the so-called PIIGS) and then takes them over. And this
is the entity that half of Ukraine wants to join? Even knowing that
it will be next in line? On the other hand, the attraction of Russia
has to be somewhat tarnished given that Stalin & Co. tried,
within living memory, to exterminate Ukraine – or at least the
Ukrainians – in one of the great genocides of the 20th
Century. The Ukrainians call it the Holodomor, which was, for them,
the equivalent of the Holocaust. This alone would give anyone pause
when it comes to cozying up to Russia.
So, as so often happens, the little guy
(even though Ukraine is a fairly large country) finds itself caught
between two larger entities, both of which may have evil intent.
Poland experienced it in World War II, and now it's Ukraine's turn.
One can only hope and pray.
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