An interesting analysis of what's happening in Ukraine

This article , by an American writing in the Moscow Times, makes a lot of sense to me.

I think the Ukrainians should offer the separatists a vote on self-determination, and hope that they win. Cut off the pro-Russian parts -- let the Russians pay for those nationalized coal mines -- and then have an overwhelmingly-Ukrainian Ukraine, which can snuggle up to NATO, and maybe deal with their own corruption and start becoming a normal country.

Any comments?

>1 Doug1943:

It assumes Russia would stop there. Sadly I suspect such a further success (from their perspective) might temp Russia to try for the whole of the country.

Many thought by conceding the Crimea Russia would stop, and Ukraine could move on. The Government in Kiev is unlikely to forget that lesson fast, even if Russia would be overreaching and storing up problems for itself if it got that greedy.

You may be right -- it's hard to know (an enigma wrapped in a mystery inside ... etc ) -- but my reading is, no. They wouldn't be so stupid as to try to conquer an unwilling nation, even though, at the moment (until the next US election), they could actually get away with it, militarily.

People are leaving the areas under dispute--no power or water, no jobs, fighting. Will most Russian-speaking civilians in the disputed east "vote with their feet", leaving Russia with excuse to invade the rest of Ukraine to defend its folk (whether or not Russian-speakers want it)?

I assume most if not all would flee west to Ukraine, not east to Russia?

Borders aren't sacred. The Ukrainian government should offer its border regions the right to self-determination, with a UN-supervised vote.

And: aren't the Ukrainians kicking themselves today, for giving up nuclear weapons?

>3 Doug1943:

Yeah, hard to know. But if I was the Kiev Government, or even the EU, it is not a risk I could take.

Concessions just don't seem a practical way to deal with Putin. As Kipling said "It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: -- "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane ...

We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!"

There is no doubt that a 'win' for Putin now will affect Russian foreign policy in the future, and not in a good way. However, I doubt that the Russians will then try to re-conquer Poland. It's misleading to see all developments in the world through the lens of the 1930's and Hitler.

Which is why the Ukrainian option ought to be: a vote on self-determination, and if the border provinces vote to join Russia, leaving a 'purified' Russia-hating Ukraine ... then the Ukrainians should apply to join NATO.

There is another consideration: at the moment, Putin is popular in Russia, because he is seen as the protector of Russian minorities in the former Soviet Empire, as well as for the usual flag-waving hysterical-patriotic reasons. And the Russians are not wrong to worry about this: Ukrainian nationalism, as ALL nationalisms, has the potential to turn genocidal. (I have liberal Russian friends, who hate Putin, but who worry about their Russian friends in Ukraine. Probably an exaggerated worry, but it's there.)

In the long run, we have to bring Russia into Europe. We don't want an impoverished Russia, but a prosperous one with a growing middle class. The Russian people will eventually put their own house in order.

One more point: although Russia is an authoritarian country, it's no worse than many other authoritarian countries we were very friendly with not so long ago: fascist Spain, Greece under the dictatorship of the Colonels, Turkey under the rule of the military (all of them happy to kill their political opponents), were arguably worse than Russia today, not to mention the death-squad regimes of Latin America. I don't recall a lot of sanctimonious lectures from Washington or London to those governments then. So perhaps we could be spared such lectures now.

One more point: I love Kipling, but, to whom was his warning about appeasing aggressors who want to gobble up other people's countries advanced? To the Indians? To the Chinese? If so, they eventually listened.

Kipling vs Kipling:

Man, a bear in most relations, worm and savage otherwise,
Man propounds negotiations, man accepts the compromise,
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion, in unmitigated act.

Maybe. But it would need a serious NATO commitment to make it work. Like pick a new border, put 100,000 NATO troops on the other side of it, and then offer the deal to Russia.

Otherwise they are going to keep pushing the line. Their every instinct tells them to push until they find strength. The lower oil prices have helped, but from their pov the plan is working.

At one level of abstraction, I agree with you. (It's why I am for the US trying to remain the world's strongest military power, and then some.)

But I don't think that Putin secretly hopes to see the Russian Army marching down the Champs-Élysées some day. Even now, the Russians could very easily occupy all of Ukraine. Why don't they?

The European powers, who have let Uncle Sam do most of the heavy lifting for the last fifty years, are toothless and could do nothing, and the United States, under Obama, would just shake a finger at them, while noting that, after all, the US stole half of Mexico too.

So why don't they do it?

I think they believe thet are doing it, just in a piecemeal fashion, as to not encourage a reaction.

You are right about the EU however. The EU leaders were loving the protests under the EU flags, but they lift not a finger to help when Russia intervenes. And their grand response to reassure their own ex-soviet members? A 5,000 man rapid reaction force, which would not be sufficient to stop boko haram, let alone Russia. Embarassing.

Ukraine should have joined NATO?...

I don't know, actually. Maybe not.

The key question, to which I have no answer, is this: is Putin mainly afraid of a modern, prosperous, democratic, Western-oriented Ukraine, which could prove infectious and a danger to his own rule, long-term? Is what is happening in Ukraine mainly just that, a people trying to become modern and democratic and throw off the corrupt oligarchy, as George Soros (and other liberals) maintain?

Or, is he being a traditional Russian, and wanting a non-hostile border state, against what he sees as a historic enemy? (Europeans and Americans, historically, invade Russia, not the other way around.) In other words, is he acting as the US would towards Canada if the Canadians decided to join, say, a Russian-Chinese military alliance, with the possibility of stationing Russian troops on Canadian soil, as the Pat Buchanan wing of conservatism maintain?

Although I have tried to follow this whole mess, and have read a lot of articles arguing both sides, and even lived in Ukraine for a few months back in the 1980s ... I have no idea.

The main conclusion I have drawn from this is that we need a strong Wehrmacht again, as I argued to a dozen or so German families this summer as we travelled through the American National Parks.

Said German tourists a little "alarmed" at your suggestion?

Well a "Wehrmacht" under Ms Merkel of course! (But then as the Greeks say "Beware of Germans bearing hm"...)

I think they were a bit bemused. I actually didn't get any strong reactions one way or the other. Of course, they may have been struggling trying to understand my schoolboy German.They were all very nice people, by the way, and all of them were from Stuttgart -- something to do with how the holidays in the German Laender are staggered, I think.