Putin is massing troops on the Ukrainian border??? I don’t understand this. What happened to Crimea voting for secession and trying to mollify everyone by in fact planning to remain independent? After all, the graphics I saw not long ago indicated that Crimea was the only province with a Russian majority, rather than a substantial minority. (Unless, within those Russia-bordering provinces, the frontier portion of those provinces is where the Russians are concentrated?) Is this just a show of force to get the West to back down from its threats of sanctions? (Funny, I don’t remember sanctions being an issue during the Cold War; I suppose in the days when Russia just didn’t have hard currency in the first place, there was little we could do in the way of economic penalties.)
A while back, the Economist had an article pointing to similarities between the present geopolitical situation and the powder keg before World War I. If I remember right, they had the situation with Japan and China in mind, but the situation in the Ukraine still spooks me. The problem is that there is no right answer.
I’m all for the U.S. intervening when it can make a difference, and for protecting our allies, that is, those we have given our word to via treaties and longstanding pledges (even if they fall short of a formal treaty). Go Estonia! Go Latvia! Go Lithuania! Why did these pieces of the former USSR succeed (flourishing democracies with per capita PPP GDP of $19 – 23K) where Belarus (dictatorship, $16K) and the Ukraine ($7K) didn’t? Was it because of their prewar history as independent countries, which Belarus and the Ukraine never had (from memory)? Was it their privileged location on the Baltic Sea? But is this a case where we can make a difference anyway? I don’t know.
And I’d link to the article I read the other day that said that the Syrian civil war is basically over, and the rebels lost, but I don’t remember where I read it. Should the U.S. have intervened? I don’t know. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy.
And now there’s the Malaysian airliner. Really? Flew 4 hours after disappearing from radar? Speculation that hijackers secretly landed the plane in a secret location? (Where? North Korea?) This is just getting bizarre.
Far easier to talk about banning bossy, or any of the other fluff floating around. Because I just don’t understand this, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Trouble is, I don’t think our elected leaders do, either.
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