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Ukraine crisis boils down to geography, not American 'weakness'
From my latest Detroit News web column:
Imagine that drug-related violence or a political crisis seriously destabilizes Mexico. In our unlikely, but not impossible scenario, street demonstrations break out in Mexico City and other places in the country. Chaos reigns and people are getting killed.
Now imagine that the U.S. president decides – with the support of some elements of the Mexican government, but in opposition to rebel forces – to send in troops. Would you expect our government to fret much about what the Russians might do in response? I wouldn’t.
Mexico means a lot more to the U.S. than to the Russians. Even if the rebels were (for some odd reason) pro-Russian, it’s very unlikely Moscow would risk nuclear war to help them. That would be true whether the president of Russia was Putin or the reanimated corpse of Joseph Stalin. The threat of Russian military retaliation would be pretty far down the list of things to worry about.
Likewise, it’s inconceivable that any U.S. president would order our military to repel a Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s a bad thing for Russia to do, but not something worth blowing the world up over. The Russians know it, the West knows it, and I suspect my dog knows it.
Now imagine that the U.S. president decides – with the support of some elements of the Mexican government, but in opposition to rebel forces – to send in troops. Would you expect our government to fret much about what the Russians might do in response? I wouldn’t.
Mexico means a lot more to the U.S. than to the Russians. Even if the rebels were (for some odd reason) pro-Russian, it’s very unlikely Moscow would risk nuclear war to help them. That would be true whether the president of Russia was Putin or the reanimated corpse of Joseph Stalin. The threat of Russian military retaliation would be pretty far down the list of things to worry about.
Likewise, it’s inconceivable that any U.S. president would order our military to repel a Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s a bad thing for Russia to do, but not something worth blowing the world up over. The Russians know it, the West knows it, and I suspect my dog knows it.
Full column here: http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2014/03/03/ukraine-crisis-calls-unity-washington-obama-bashing/
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