Three Questions for Ukraine Hawks

[DonViejo]

Michael Tomasky

America never fussed over Ukraine before, so why exactly should we now? Before the West makes moves, we need to define why we should defend the country and what, specifically, we’re willing to sacrifice to preserve its borders.

Watch an hour of cable—and I’m talking MSNBC; forget Fox—and you might well come away from the hyper-ventilations thinking that we will or should go to war over Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Crimea. Listen: Nobody’s going to war over Crimea. This isn’t 1853. Yes, it matters to us how Crimea may once again become a part of Russia, and we don’t like it a bit, but let’s face it, it doesn’t really matter to us in cold, hard, realpolitik terms, whether Crimea is a part of Russia. It’s used as a naval base, and Russia’s had that all along.

Now Ukraine, that’s different. Or so everyone on TV says. But when everyone starts saying something, I start doubting. After all, a decade ago, nearly “everyone”—every “grown up,” that is, every person who took a “properly expansive” view of American security in the post 9/11 age—said we needed to topple a dictator who had nothing to do with 9/11. So: Is Ukraine different? We may decide that yes, it is, but there are some real and specific questions we’d better ask ourselves before we just automatically make that declaration.

One way we decide these things is by looking at the historical record, and the historical record practically screams no, Ukraine is not different, is not a vital American or Western interest. Soviet Russia annexed Ukraine in 1922, after a war that had commenced in 1917, when the Bolsheviks took Moscow. The borders of Ukraine changed many times over the years. Even its capital was moved from Kharkiv in the east to Kiev in the west. At the end of World War II, the USSR expanded Ukraine again, as Stalin unilaterally redrew the Curzon Line to take in Eastern Galicia and Lvov, Poland, which became and still is Lviv, Ukraine.

There were further alterations after the war. In 1954, as we all now know, Crimea became part of Ukraine (staying within the USSR). If the Western countries objected to any of these moves, they objected lightly and only formally. Roosevelt and Churchill pestered Stalin about the Lvov/Lviv situation at Yalta, but Uncle Joe wasn’t having it, and they left it alone.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/19/three-questions-for-ukraine-hawks.html

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Ukraine itself ain't the important thing.

What's important is, as he revealed in that extraordinary whinefest he put on yesterday, that he has laid down the ridiculous principle that he will resort to military intervention in the former republics that didn't get into NATO (cuz even he's not stupid enough to stir that hornet's nest) when and if he feels like it. He and he alone will determine if a Russian's rights are being violated to such an extent it warrants military action, by him and him alone. Get past all the bluster and the whiny self-pity, and that's what he was saying.
He can, of course; it's just he can't lay that down and then expect everyone else to continue to treat him same as they did before, or expect that Europe isn't going to move as fast as they can to minimize their dependence on the energy Russia sells. The old can't have your cake and eat it...