History repeating itself, again, and again. The Crimean War to today.

[Savannahmann]

"Ours is not to question why" This famous line from the Tennyson poem recounts the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War.

But nobody ever talks about the causes of the war. Regional Political Influence to be blunt. In the 1800's, Russia wanted what they've always wanted, and will always want. Unrestricted access to the sea via warm weather ports. Any glance at a map tells you that Russia has access to the Pacific, but it is nearly four thousand miles from Moscow to their ports on the Pacific. Even using their famous Trans Siberian Railroad, this adds days or even weeks to cargo transportation and the associated costs. That is just to get the cargo onto a ship, that doesn't include time for the ship to reach it's destination.

The Northern Ports freeze in the winter and are for all intents and purposes unusable.

The Russians kept a small slice of Northern Europe to give them access to the Baltic, but that is hardly useful as they have no direct link to this slice of europe. So any sea access is through the tolerance of other nations.

Enter the obvious choice, the Black Sea. The Crimean War was about Russia moving southward in an effort to secure sea access through the Warm Water ports, and the rest of Europe deciding to resist this growing threat to their dominance.

The Dardanelles. The famous straight through Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea. This jewel has been the desire of the Russians for as long as there has been a Russia. If they control this straight, they have access to the Mediterranean from their Black Sea ports and the entire Eastern Med becomes their sphere of influence.

Russia backed Syria in the recent troubles, because they could not allow Syria to fall and place their base in Syria at risk.

Russia sees great strategic threats to their bases in the Crimean region if the Ukraine becomes more closely allied with the EU and NATO.

Now, inevitably people will demand to know what solution I put forth. I don't have one. However, before you play the game, it's important to understand the goals of the other players. In Chess, the answer is obvious, the goal is to capture the opponents King. In checkers, it's to eliminate all the opponents pieces.

In the Black Sea, it is the influence of the Russians, and their unwillingness to allow themselves to be diminished. This is their goal, and before we come up with a response, we have to understand what they want. Allowing the Ukraine to become independent as long as they were in essence a satellite was easy. So long as the Ukraine was a minion they could be as free as they wanted. Now that the status of minion is threatened, the threat to their regional and international influence is threatened. That can't be tolerated or accepted, war with NATO is an acceptable risk if the alternative is subjugation of the Russians to the EU.

History is repeating itself. The Crimean War. World War I. World War II. The conquering of the area by the Red Army and reluctance to allow them Independence. All of these events involved control of the strategically vital straights that are controlled by Turkey, and influence of the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean.

This is the situation we are looking at my friends, and we need to understand the goals of the other players in this global game of brinkmanship. I would expound further, but I'm short of time today, and now you have an idea of the situation.

[Cleita]

1. I was thinking about that. Thanks for posting

this synopsis of the history.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. The casus belli in the Crimean War was something even more ridiculous.

The nominal cause of the war was disagreement between Russian Orthodox and Western Catholic Christians over the Church of the Nativity in Jerusalem (then part of the Ottoman Empire).

Looking to gain Roman Catholic support at home, in 1852 Napoleon III demanded that the Sublime Porte in Constantinople recognise France as the protector of Christian monks and pilgrims in the Holy Places. As a hint he sent a French warship up the Dardanelles and the Porte bowed to his wishes and had a key to the Church of the Nativity’s main door handed over to the Latins. The whole situation was a red rag to Tsar Nicholas I, traditional champion of the Greek Orthodox, who insisted on Russia being confirmed by the Porte as the protector of the Holy Places and of all Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. When the Porte quibbled, in July of 1853 a Russian army invaded the Ottoman provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia (modern Romania). The Turks declared war and in November the Russians destroyed a Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea.

[Savannahmann]

8. Nominal. Excuse would be the word I'd choose.

The French Leader was Napoleon III. He wanted to re-establish French influence and power. To that end he sent the Line of Battle Ship Charlemagne into the Black Sea in direct violation of the London Straights Convention. Two years of diplomatic blunders ended when the Allied Powers united against Russia for control of the Christians in Jerusalem. I say this was an excuse because the Crimean Peninsula is not on the road to Jerusalem from Western Europe. If you were traveling by land, you would have turned south through the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey) long before you reached the region that is modern Ukraine.

it would be more accurate to say the Crimean War was about propping up the Ottoman Empire to protect the influence of the Western European powers.

Look at World War 1. One of the first plans from Winston Churchill was to force the Dardanelles. The excuse then was to open the Warm Water ports for resupply of the Russians. England wanted the food Russia grew, and Russia wanted the weapons and ammunition that England was getting from the United States.

World War II. Same problems, only German/Itallian control of the Eastern and Northern Mediterranean Sea made convoys to Russia a practical impossibility. Part of the reason they were expending so much in the Middle East was the rail links to Russia from Baghdad.

Control of the straights between the Med and the Black Sea is strategically vital.

[Scootaloo]

3. Rec for context

[Junkdrawer]

4. When the Bomb first appeared, people talked of World Government...

then that was replaced with a more workable UN system of "keep it in your borders".

All of OUR actions as of late weakened this UN system. Let's begin by reversing that.

[Recursion]

5. Still, NATO's control of the Dardanelles isn't in question

For that matter, once NATO let Turkey in, they declare the Mediterranean game over completely. The southern game got stalled by our funding the mujahedeen, but even so Putin doesn't seem to look south or east as much as his predecessors did.

Russia -> *Stan -> Syria is conceivable, but looks less and less worth the trouble; I think Putin's signalling he'd rather just move the gas.

[Savannahmann]

10. You know there are treaties in effect about the straights right?

This one was signed in 1936 and is still in effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Turkish_Straits

[reformist2]

6. The West stupidly destabilized the Ukraine, and now Russia is taking back what was theirs anyway.

Of course our leaders have to feign shock and dismay, but they knew this was a likely possibility of their mischief.

[rusty fender]

7. I totally agree with you

That leaked conversation between the ambassador and Victoria Nuland told us all we needed to know that the U.S. was a participant in the overthrow of Yanukovich.

The CIA never stops screwing us over.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Yup... add to that bread basket