Ukraine, Russia #3

Journalist Julia Joffe, formerly a correspondent in Moscow, wrote this piece for The New Republic, explaining the situation in Ukraine/Crimean and Putin's motives for getting his parliament to give him permission to use force, not just in Crimea where it has a naval base, but also within the sovereign boundaries of Ukraine.

Joffee shares some "initial thoughts" about this:

Why is Putin doing this? Because he can. That's it, that's all you need to know. The situation in Kiev—in which people representing one half of the country (the Ukrainian-speaking west) took power to some extent at the expense of the Russian-speaking east—created the perfect opportunity for Moscow to divide and conquer. As soon as the revolution in Kiev happened, there was an unhappy rumbling in the Crimea, which has a large Russian population and is home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. It was a small rumbling, but just big enough for Russia to exploit. And when such an opportunity presents itself, one would be foolish not to take it, especially if your name is Vladimir Putin.

She goes on to explain why the West misjudges Putin:  because we think in terms of Western logic.   But . . .

Russia, or, more accurately, Putin, sees the world according to his own logic, and the logic goes like this: it is better to be feared than loved, it is better to be overly strong than to risk appearing weak, and Russia was, is, and will be an empire with an eternal appetite for expansion. And it will gather whatever spurious reasons it needs to insulate itself territorially from what it still perceives to be a large and growing NATO threat. Trying to harness Russia with our own logic just makes us miss Putin's next steps. . . .


Neither America nor NATO can stop this. They've shown they won't in Georgia, because nobody wants to start a war with nuclear-armed Russia, and rightly so. So while Washington and Brussels huff and puff about lines and sovereignty and diplomacy, Russia will do what it needs to do and there's not a thing we can do about it.

Russia's next target is eastern Ukraine. Because pessimism conquers all, don't bet that Putin is going to stop once he wrests Crimea from Kiev's orbit. Eastern, Russian-speaking Ukraine—and all its heavy industry—is looking pretty good right now. And if you're thinking "Why would Putin take eastern Ukraine?," well, you haven't been reading very carefully.

Joffe seems to understand the mind of Putin better than anyone I have heard.  Let's hope President Obama and his cabinet have some others who also understand, not just the current situation, but the Russian mind-set.

One who does and who has President Obama's ear is our Russian-speaking ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.   Unfortunately, he is just this week leaving government service to return to his academic world at Stanford.   A probing, informative interview with McFaul, by this same journalist Julia Joffe, appears in the March 3rd issue of The New Republic.

This is a very pessimistic picture that is unfolding before our eyes.   At a time when Russia's cooperation on Syria and Iran, especially, is badly needed, hostility between our two countries is escalating more than at any time since the Cold War ended.

John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and their war-mongering ilk have already started saying that President Obama is being weak, he should threaten Russia more aggressively, blah blah blah.   This is not helpful.  As former military officers, these two should know better than to openly question their commander-in-chief in such a crisis time.  As senators, they should know that diplomacy does not begin with a belligerent threat.   As politicians, they simply cannot pass up an opportunity to trash the leader of their Democratic rivals.   As citizens, they should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

Ralph