Over and over again — throughout the entirety of my adult life, or so it feels — I have been shown Polish photographs from the beautiful summer of 1939: The children playing in the sunshine, the fashionable women on Krakow streets. I have even seen a picture of a family wedding that took place in June 1939, in the garden of a Polish country house I now own. All of these pictures convey a sense of doom, for we know what happened next. September 1939 brought invasion from both east and west, occupation, chaos, destruction, genocide. Most of the people who attended that June wedding were soon dead or in exile. None of them ever returned to the house.Russia doesn't have the population, now, for a war like 1939. No European state does.
In retrospect, all of them now look naive. Instead of celebrating weddings, they should have dropped everything, mobilized, prepared for total war while it was still possible. And now I have to ask: Should Ukrainians, in the summer of 2014, do the same? Should central Europeans join them?
Of course, nuclear Russia doesn't have to invade you to make life difficult.
"It's best not to mess with us" is apparently the new Russian national motto, roughly equivalent to the old Scottish national motto: Nemo Me Impune Lacessit. The Scots meant it, back in those days. Perhaps they will again: they have a referendum on independence soon.
The Russians seem to mean it now. What to do?
20 comments:
Umnnhhh.....WHICH Ukrainians?
Solzhenitsyn is of the opinion that Mother Russia will never abandon the Russkis which happen to live in Ukraine--which was an artificially-created State, drawn up by Stalin.
http://dad29.blogspot.com/2014/08/obozo-assisting-leninists.html
Murkier and cloudy with a chance of howitzers.
Weren't we just discussing this a bit ago regarding whether the woman was worth the trouble?
Eric Hines
nuclear Russia doesn't have to invade you to make life difficult.
As you say, they don't have the population. Nor, these days, do they have the economy. They'd be hurt far worse, even relatively, by a nuclear exchange. Of course, economic sanctions (not the trivial things currently in place) would go a long way to confront Russia with a choice it currently doesn't face.
The only question is whether the West has the stones and the morality to find the woman worth it.
As to all those Russians currently living in Ukraine, they're just an excuse, in Putin's mind, for a Russian Anschluss. A significant fraction of them--likely a majority--don't want Mother Russia taking over; they have first hand knowledge of the...benefits...of that.
As to the artificiality of Ukraine, Russia has been trying, with varying degrees of success, to occupy Ukraine for 900 years. Kiev is the reputed first city and capital city of the Rus', who then colonized Russia and created that nation separate from Ukraine.
Eric Hines
The President's remarks on the subject couldn't be better calculated to embolden Putin. "Don't mess with the Baltic states!" sounds a lot like "We're going to turn a blind eye to what you do with Czechoslovakia... er, Ukraine."
It's been a lovely summer here too...
Time to hit the Golf Course, Grim.
Btw, has anyone asked the Georgians that the Russians invaded, if Russians made their life difficult because they lacked the numbers for an invasion?
This is an excellent post. I've been a regular reader of the posts at The Hall for several years. Off topic, Grim--I was a Navy Corpsman, now I'm an ER doctor. I would appreciate it if you could tell me more about your American Volunteer Group. Larry.harman98@gmail.com
1) More 'economic sanctions' on Russia can devastate Europe. Remember that Russia supplies Germany with natural gas?
2) I think Solzhenitsyn's historical understanding is not to be taken lightly. Your mileage may vary.
There's no such thing as a bloodless war, Dad29. The idea is to hurt them more than they hurt us to the point they desist and return the stolen goods, not that we don't get hurt.
A natural gas war? If Russia doesn't sell to Europe, to whom will they sell, and how will they deliver? The PRC is not their friend. And with what will Russia feed its army? They don't have anything with which to raise money other than oil and gas. And plunder.
The real question here is whether the EU and the US have the morality to support Ukraine meaningfully. The EU, in particular, can face Russia on the eastern border of Ukraine, or they can face Russia on the eastern border of Germany.
There are no other options.
Eric Hines
"The EU" is as artificial as the borders of "Ukraine"--or, for that matter, Iraq and Syria.
You hypothesize that Putin has designs on Poland, the Slovakians, and the Baltics.
How do you arrive at that?
Further: does not the US have a "sphere of influence" which has been underlined recently by Reagan?
Finally, we note that the Russ are active only in Eastern Ukraine. Do you see mobilization on the border w/Poland? Western Ukraine? Czechoslovakia?
I don't.
I think under Hussein, America's sphere of influence extends just across the golf turf.
Further: does not the US have a "sphere of influence" which has been underlined recently by Reagan?
Yeah, and? I don't accept that just because we do a thing, we must let our enemies to the thing, too. Reagan also had a definitive, actionable strategic doctrine, which should (but does not, to our grave detriment) still obtain: we win, they lose.
Finally, we note that the Russ are active only in Eastern Ukraine. Do you see mobilization on the border w/Poland? Western Ukraine? Czechoslovakia?
Well, they've already threatened Poland with nuclear immolation over the idea of the US putting an ABM system there capable of intercepting medium range missiles, and Russia has been steadily relocating its existing IRBM inventory closer to its western border generally. Too, Putin also now is threatening nuclear war if we don't accept his misbehavior vis-a-vis Ukraine.
Here's my predicted order of events, given Putin's overt desire to recreate the Soviet empire under Russian Federation domination and American and European pell mell retreat in the face of Putin's aggression. He'll roll up the Baltic States--old Soviet satellites, and outlets to the Baltic Sea and thence to the Atlantic. He'll absorb, with velvet gloves, of course, Hungary and Slovakia--old Soviet satellites. Then he'll take in Czech Republic--old Soviet satellite--there he is on the German border, and Bob's your uncle. Oh, and now he's got Poland isolated, ripe for Finlandizing. To start. And he needs to secure his access to Kaliningradskaya Oblast, anyway.
The time to stop Putin is the same as the time to stop ISIS, and for largely the same reasons: now, before he gets too big and powerful. Which means he has to be pushed back out of Ukraine. All of Ukraine.
One other thing: "The EU" is as artificial as the borders of "Ukraine"--or, for that matter, Iraq and Syria.
Not so much. The borders of the EU constituents are more or less agreed among the parties involved, and their association in the EU is entirely voluntary. The details of the borders of Ukraine may vary from time to time, but Ukraine has been a political entity in a nearly constant piece of dirt, sometimes sovereign, sometimes not, for over a thousand years and in a region of the world where national borders mattered to the people living there. The artificiality of the Iraqi and Syrian borders (along with Jordanian, Saudi, etc borders ) rises from an entirely different reason: they were imposed from without, not more or less mutually agreed among the...participants.
Eric Hines
Lemmeeseeheah, Eric....
Solzhenitsyn states that the Ukraine borders were drawn by Jos. Stalin. They may be roughly congruent with prior "Ukraine" borders, but they are NOT the same, and they were imposed from without.
Other Historically-informed observers, such as PJBuchanan, place far more emphasis on ethnicity than on 'borders.' (I think he has some of it; religion is a large part of bonding, but not applicable in this case.)
We'll see. I don't think that Putin has the territorial ambition, nor clout, to re-make the old USSR.
The differences regarding Ukraine's borders are noise in the system. They aren't great enough to make the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhans'ka oblasts not part of Ukraine proper. Nor does the separation of those three from Ukraine comport with the Ukraine's independence referendum outcome, where Crimea voted for independence from Russia by 54-42 per cent, and the other two went for independence 83-12 and -13. (And incidentally, Sevastopol, which voted separately from Crimea went for independence by 57-40.) The Russians there today, also don't, in the main (although possibly not as broadly as in the referendum), want to go back to Russian domination. So much, too, for Buchanan's ethnicity.
As to Putin, he has the ambition. As to clout, that, like any form of power, is purely relative. And as long as the US and Europe are in retreat, he has the clout to pull this thing off. And he has the mindset and the frustration and anger to try: he's a failed Soviet KGB officer, and he's on the public record as believing the dissolution of the Soviet empire to be an historic tragedy.
Betting to the contrary is a form of OPM--it's the Ukrainians who will pay if we continue betting Putin doesn't want to expand and we prove wrong. It's also still relatively cheap to stop him and back him out of Ukraine. It'll be a whole lot more expensive to back him out of eastern Europe once he's in.
Eric Hines
Well, these people:
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)
Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned)
...don't believe what Western Intel is repeating.
Perhaps they're right.
See: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/09/ex-us-intelligence-warns-eu.html
Further, and very frankly, this is not US business. There is a big difference between The US' National Interest and rescuing patches of territory from the regional hegemon. In the latter instance, my thought is "so what"?
Show me the US national interest at stake. Then we can talk more.
When does it become US national interest?
Show me where Ukraine's strait isn't.
I won't address your appeal to authority; it isn't relevant. The principle involved is valid or not on its merits, not because some authority figures espouse or decry it.
Your Vox Populi article has its own flaws, beginning with its denial of a Russian invasion. Crimea is ample proof of that all by itself. So is the current Russian drive along the Ukrainian Azov coastline to link Russia with occupied Crimea via a land route. So is the Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine by Ukrainian forces (if you believe they were just there on holiday, or just got lost near the border, I may have some beachfront property north of Santa Fe I'd like to talk to you about. And if you think the Russian "aid" convoy that the Red Cross refused to be any part of wasn't driven by the Russian version of Spetsnaz, well...). So are the Russian weapons and supplies flooding into the "separatists'" area.
But Vox' position is given up by their claim This is precisely why the situation demands a concerted effort for a ceasefire.... Because, why? Kiev must agree to surrender yet two more oblasts of its territory in accordance with Russian demands? Ukraine must be dismantled because some folks find it inconvenient to defend a nation's freedom and its determination of its own course?
When and on what border do you expect Russia voluntarily to stop? Based on what theory?
Eric Hines
Sorry, you first.
I agree as does this guy: http://20committee.com/2014/08/29/the-russo-ukrainian-war/ that the Russkis have invaded Ukraine. Vox is (was) wrong.
But until you demonstrate otherwise, conclusively or by preponderance of evidence, that this is a matter of US national interest, I don't friggin' CARE.
See, e.g., the results of GWB's displacement of Saddam Hussein. Now THAT was a good move, eh?
I've made my limiting principle plain often and in lots of venues including this Hall. I decline to repeat myself anew.
Tossing a butcher as bad, and as prolific, if not as public, as ISIS was an excellent move. That a subsequent administration tossed that away is both a separate question and a weakness of republican democracy. That weakness, though, does not at all absolve us of our obligations; it just makes it harder to honor them.
With that, there's no more point in my continuing in this thread.
Eric Hines
See, e.g., the results of GWB's displacement of Saddam Hussein. Now THAT was a good move, eh?
People who disliked the war got what they wanted in the form of Hussein sabotaging it. What are they complaining about now, that not enough US soldiers died for a failed war? They wanted a failed war, they got one. Now they complain that it has failed or bad things are happening. What, they wanted more bad things to happen?
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