So there is much hand-wringing over ol' Pooty-Poot's (remember back when C-Plus Augustus "looked into his eyes, and....saw his soul"?) crude efforts to undermine and overtake the critical Crimean peninsula, and there should be. But is this something that the US (or, more to the point, Europe, since that's really who Russia is leveraging here -- they're not worried about us in the least) should be interfering overtly in? Depends on which electioneering hack you ask on the Sunday follies.
Don't get me wrong -- Putin is certainly acting aggressively, and his long-term game appears to be to return more or less to Peter the Great imperial days, complete with buffer states, of which Ukraine has historically been one (the root word of the country's name, "kray," literally means "edge" in Russian and Ukrainian). One way to look at the country historically, culturally, and geographically, is that western Ukraine is eastern Poland, and eastern Ukraine is western Russia, in many respects.
This certainly doesn't mean that Ukraine shouldn't have its own sovereignty, just that there are greater contexts here that you can count on many 'murkins to just ignore during the corporate network Two Minutes of Hate. These are just some of the things bound to be going on in Putin's brain -- along with, of course, the fact that Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain exporters, the Crimean peninsula has shipyards and heavy manufacturing resources, and the country itself, with its natural gas pipelines, serves as valuable leverage over the expansionist European Union.
Since George Kennan formulated US post-World War 2 geopolitical principles, our policy has included the doctrine of "containment," characterized by the Cold War moves and countermoves, mostly via proxies and military buildups, that never culminated in head-to-head confrontation, but fomented many "small" wars (see, wars are always "small" when they involve overthrowing someone else's leader, especially if said country is small, brown, and has exploitable resources, such as oil or bananas). It should not be surprising that the largest nation on the planet, one with a much longer history that includes savage periods of conquest, invasion, and mass slaughter at the hands of everyone from the Mongols to the Nazis, as well as buffer zones of compliant vassal states, has its own version of the containment policy.
Putin is also, unsurprisingly, flexing nuts and showing us that he will not abide by our dictates, any more than we would listen to him if a restive British Columbia or Baja California attracted our attention. Other than the oligarchs sending their kids to our colleges, and snapping up our real estate, the US has no active or deterrent role in Russia's foreign policy. And our handling of Syria (not that there were any good options) and North Korea probably send a signal of at least some weakness to Putin.
Obama acolytes have been fond of saying that Barry O plays "11th dimensional chess," at least with domestic issues and with handling political opponents. I don't really see whence that notion originates at all; while certainly a thoughtful and intelligent orator, a refreshing break from the wretched syntax and incoherent burbling of the previous guy, it's hard to point out significant instances where (as the chess phrase implies) Obama out-thought an opponent to any great or impressive degree.
Certainly this seems to be the case with Obama's approach to foreign policy, a studied, measured, reasonable doctrine that places great stock in, for example, the UN's recent condemnation of North Korea's long-running record of human rights atrocities, while not backing such pronunciamentos with any real teeth. Quite frankly, all one has to do is look at the UN's record of ineffectiveness and inaction in recent years in the Balkans, Rwanda, and Congo, and be less than convinced that their harrumphing condemnations carry any weight with anyone. So just as China will never go along with cracking down on the Cult of Kim, critical trading partners such as Germany and Italy are not going to kick Russia out of the G8 just because we want them to.
Obviously, foreign policy historically has operated on having carrots and sticks at one's disposal, in order to leverage or pressure for a desired result. In the previous century, that dynamic worked to our advantage, since we had the most of both carrots and sticks to use as we saw fit. This is simply no longer the case, and hasn't been for some time. Economic wealth has become hyperconcentrated, to the detriment of the government's ability to even remain solvent or operate efficiently, and warfare has become much smaller in scope and scale, not to mention that America is leading the way toward a more automated approach to warfare.
In other words, we don't have enough money to bribe Putin (unless the greedy, pelf-grubbing motherfuckers who own half of everything want to chip in) to be nice, and we're not going to send a fleet of flying killbots over Sevastopol. We have nothing he wants or fears, and it turns out that, like any good American preznit, Putin plans to inflate his nation's perceived prestige. It is not a coincidence that the Olympics served as the chronological fulcrum for several important activities in that area, including the release of the Pussy Riot protesters from the gulag. (Incidentally, it should be apparent just how brave and reckless these women are, to the extent that if they don't leave the country or back down their antics, they'll probably be dead within a year or two, without any involvement from Putin. It should be quite clear that Russia is still a pretty culturally conservative country.)
So what do we do? Well, if we're serious about this 11D-chess thing, then we're playing a longer game, and not over-reacting to troop movements in a small, strategically inconsequential place. Economic sanctions, sure, but with the realization that, again, the US is not one of Russia's most valuable trading partners, and that their lock on major commodities give them plenty of options. Plus sanctions won't work if the EU doesn't go along, and chances are they like getting their natural gas.
One thing's practically a given: the "Hitler invading the Sudetenland" comparisons aren't going to help matters.
Don't get me wrong -- Putin is certainly acting aggressively, and his long-term game appears to be to return more or less to Peter the Great imperial days, complete with buffer states, of which Ukraine has historically been one (the root word of the country's name, "kray," literally means "edge" in Russian and Ukrainian). One way to look at the country historically, culturally, and geographically, is that western Ukraine is eastern Poland, and eastern Ukraine is western Russia, in many respects.
This certainly doesn't mean that Ukraine shouldn't have its own sovereignty, just that there are greater contexts here that you can count on many 'murkins to just ignore during the corporate network Two Minutes of Hate. These are just some of the things bound to be going on in Putin's brain -- along with, of course, the fact that Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain exporters, the Crimean peninsula has shipyards and heavy manufacturing resources, and the country itself, with its natural gas pipelines, serves as valuable leverage over the expansionist European Union.
Since George Kennan formulated US post-World War 2 geopolitical principles, our policy has included the doctrine of "containment," characterized by the Cold War moves and countermoves, mostly via proxies and military buildups, that never culminated in head-to-head confrontation, but fomented many "small" wars (see, wars are always "small" when they involve overthrowing someone else's leader, especially if said country is small, brown, and has exploitable resources, such as oil or bananas). It should not be surprising that the largest nation on the planet, one with a much longer history that includes savage periods of conquest, invasion, and mass slaughter at the hands of everyone from the Mongols to the Nazis, as well as buffer zones of compliant vassal states, has its own version of the containment policy.
Putin is also, unsurprisingly, flexing nuts and showing us that he will not abide by our dictates, any more than we would listen to him if a restive British Columbia or Baja California attracted our attention. Other than the oligarchs sending their kids to our colleges, and snapping up our real estate, the US has no active or deterrent role in Russia's foreign policy. And our handling of Syria (not that there were any good options) and North Korea probably send a signal of at least some weakness to Putin.
Obama acolytes have been fond of saying that Barry O plays "11th dimensional chess," at least with domestic issues and with handling political opponents. I don't really see whence that notion originates at all; while certainly a thoughtful and intelligent orator, a refreshing break from the wretched syntax and incoherent burbling of the previous guy, it's hard to point out significant instances where (as the chess phrase implies) Obama out-thought an opponent to any great or impressive degree.
Certainly this seems to be the case with Obama's approach to foreign policy, a studied, measured, reasonable doctrine that places great stock in, for example, the UN's recent condemnation of North Korea's long-running record of human rights atrocities, while not backing such pronunciamentos with any real teeth. Quite frankly, all one has to do is look at the UN's record of ineffectiveness and inaction in recent years in the Balkans, Rwanda, and Congo, and be less than convinced that their harrumphing condemnations carry any weight with anyone. So just as China will never go along with cracking down on the Cult of Kim, critical trading partners such as Germany and Italy are not going to kick Russia out of the G8 just because we want them to.
Obviously, foreign policy historically has operated on having carrots and sticks at one's disposal, in order to leverage or pressure for a desired result. In the previous century, that dynamic worked to our advantage, since we had the most of both carrots and sticks to use as we saw fit. This is simply no longer the case, and hasn't been for some time. Economic wealth has become hyperconcentrated, to the detriment of the government's ability to even remain solvent or operate efficiently, and warfare has become much smaller in scope and scale, not to mention that America is leading the way toward a more automated approach to warfare.
In other words, we don't have enough money to bribe Putin (unless the greedy, pelf-grubbing motherfuckers who own half of everything want to chip in) to be nice, and we're not going to send a fleet of flying killbots over Sevastopol. We have nothing he wants or fears, and it turns out that, like any good American preznit, Putin plans to inflate his nation's perceived prestige. It is not a coincidence that the Olympics served as the chronological fulcrum for several important activities in that area, including the release of the Pussy Riot protesters from the gulag. (Incidentally, it should be apparent just how brave and reckless these women are, to the extent that if they don't leave the country or back down their antics, they'll probably be dead within a year or two, without any involvement from Putin. It should be quite clear that Russia is still a pretty culturally conservative country.)
So what do we do? Well, if we're serious about this 11D-chess thing, then we're playing a longer game, and not over-reacting to troop movements in a small, strategically inconsequential place. Economic sanctions, sure, but with the realization that, again, the US is not one of Russia's most valuable trading partners, and that their lock on major commodities give them plenty of options. Plus sanctions won't work if the EU doesn't go along, and chances are they like getting their natural gas.
One thing's practically a given: the "Hitler invading the Sudetenland" comparisons aren't going to help matters.
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